# Mrs. Benjamin Pantier explained — Spoon River Anthology

> Chapter companion for Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters.

## What happens

Mrs. Benjamin Pantier defends her decision to drive her husband away, explaining that she was a refined woman repulsed by his coarse habits and that the forced intimacy of marriage made her life unbearable.

## Themes in this chapter

### Gender and Social Roles

Mrs. Pantier's monologue reveals the trap of marriage for a woman with 'delicate tastes' forced by law and morality into intimacy with a man she loathes.

### Unfulfilled Lives and Repression

Both partners are unfulfilled: he seeks companionship elsewhere, while she is repulsed by the very man she is bound to.

## Character check-ins

### Benjamin Pantier

The husband whose soul she claims to have snared; he lived with his dog in a dingy room back of his office after she drove him away.

## Key lines

> I know that he told that I snared his soul With a snare which bled him to death.

I am aware he claimed I trapped his soul in a way that destroyed him.

_Mrs. Pantier acknowledges her husband's accusation that she ruined him._

> But suppose you are really a lady, and have delicate tastes, And loathe the smell of whiskey and onions.

Imagine you are a refined woman who is disgusted by the smell of whiskey and onions.

_She contrasts her refined sensibilities with her husband's coarse habits._

> And the only man with whom the law and morality Permit you to have the marital relation Is the very man that fills you with disgust Every time you think of it⁠—while you think of it Every time you see him?

The only man you are allowed to be intimate with is the one who disgusts you every time you see him.

_She highlights the cruel irony of being legally and morally bound to a man she finds repulsive._

> That’s why I drove him away from home To live with his dog in a dingy room Back of his office.

That is why I forced him to leave and live with his dog in a shabby room behind his office.

_She justifies her actions as a necessary escape from an unbearable situation._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/chapters/mrs-benjamin-pantier
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/spoon_river_anthology_se/chapters