Ten Nights In A Bar Room Analysis

Timothy Shay Arthur’s “Ten Nights in a Bar-Room” is a novel filled with unfortunate events that change the lives of many families. It illustrates the lives of a few men, who were once proper gentlemen, but transformed into undesirable people due to intemperance. Their stories demonstrate how destructive alcohol was to their lives, not only for them, but for their families as well. One of the characters that immediately caught my attention was Joe Morgan. Joe went from being an enviable father and husband, and even Mr. Slade’s former business partner, to the town drunk and an absent father. His mother warned him about his fate if he continued to drink, like his own late father, but he felt that a few drinks would not cause any issues. Little did he know that a few drinks would turn into endless nights of drinking, and the biggest tragedy of his life; the death of his daughter. His daughter, worried sick about him, went to look for him at the tavern so they

The alcohol did not just affect the individual drinking it, but their families, friends, and the community as a whole. Although alcohol did play a huge role in the decline of Cedarville, I believe that Timothy Shay Arthur had a larger message for his audience. Parental neglect played the bigger role in the tragedies that occurred. If Joe Morgan had not turned to alcohol, his daughter Mary would have never been at the bar the night of her accident. If he had only stayed home with his family, she would have never had a glass thrown at her head. Simon Slade, only worrying about his bar and newly accumulated wealth, pays no attention to his children. With no guidance, his son Frank falls into alcoholism and his daughter Flora has to deal with the corruption in the bar, which must have been very disturbing for a pure young woman like