Thomas Rhodes Practice Quiz — Spoon River Anthology
by Edgar Lee Masters — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Thomas Rhodes
What is Thomas Rhodes’ occupation?
Banker and president of the bank whose collapse ruined multiple Spoon River families.
Which two characters does Rhodes mock by name?
Margaret Fuller Slack and Petit, the Poet — failed artists he dismisses as fragmented dreamers.
How does Rhodes describe himself and his kind?
"Self-contained, compact, harmonized, / Even to the end" — gold-seekers who stayed whole while idealists fell apart.
What is ironic about Rhodes’ self-praise?
Masters has already shown readers the destruction Rhodes caused — his "harmony" was built on the suffering of Mrs. George Reece, Butch Weldy, and others.
Whose husband did Rhodes’ bank failure send to prison?
Mrs. George Reece’s husband — an innocent cashier who took the fall for Rhodes’ corruption.
What happened at Rhodes’ son’s canning works?
Butch Weldy was blinded in a gasoline explosion, then denied compensation through the fellow-servant doctrine.
What role does Rhodes play in the anthology’s structure?
Central villain of the corruption thread — his actions ripple through multiple poems as a symbol of systemic abuse of wealth and power.