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English 2130
Fall 06
Lesson Plan
October 2, 2006
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1) Attendance
2) Welcome
3) Midterms (handwritten notes for comments)
4) Fanny Fern:
a. Women’s literature in America before Fanny Fern: what is the
tradition?
i. Captivity Narratives
1. First prose genre in American literature in which women
could publish
1. First English-language text: Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative
of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary
Rowlandson (published: Boston and London, 1682)
a. Experience related supposed to demonstrate
woman’s devotion to God and perseverance in face
of adversity
b. Emphasis on didactic, religious purpose and effect
c. Still: fact that women published was deemed
dangerous; thus: frequent framing by male voices;
Rowlandson: preface by Puritan minister Increase
Mather and afterword by Rowlandson’s husband
(also a minister)
d. Communal/cultural use of women’s captivity
narrative:
i. Capture of white, English women by Indians
(the racial other) served as justification for
further warfare and racial prejudice
ii. Narratives serving ministers to enforce
teachings about God’s power (the title really
starts with “The Sovereignty and Goodness
of God”)
iii. Also: portraying the virtue of Puritan
women
iv. Thus: women’s strength and power a
synecdoche for the entire community
e. But: textual and cultural
ambiguities/disjunctions:
i. “Sympathy for the Devil”
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1. captivity experience among the racial
“other” allows women to identify or
even sympathize with the supposed
enemy (cf: Cabeza de Vaca)
2. Most risqué: certain freedoms in
Indian society, as well as the general
crossing of boundaries (spatial,
cultural, social) allow women to
reevaluate their position in their own
society: often realization of the
“captive” state of white women in
their patriarchal societies
THUS: emergence of the captivity narrative (actual and fictive) as
a genre in which women had the opportunity to publish in a male
literary world and to probe the limits placed on them by their own
societies
2. POETRY:
a. Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung
Up in America (1650)
i. First book of poetry published by a woman
in America
ii. Traditionally regarded as the ancestor of the
women’s tradition in American poetry,
especially as predecessor of Emily
Dickinson
iii. Bradstreet’s poetry particularly noted by
critics today for her subtle and complex
portrayal of her inner struggle with Puritan
doctrine; especially: her poetical debates
over the merit of deferring all happiness and
pleasure to the afterlife vs. relishing the here
and now
1. her poems about nature as her
preferred mode of revelation (seems
to have meant more to her as
evidence of God’s grace than the
Bible or minister’s preaching)
2. her questioning of God’s justice
(poems about the deaths of several
grandchildren)
3. her life-long questioning of her state
of salvation
3. The Sentimental Novel/The Novel of Seduction
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a. Genre established by British novelists, such as
Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Richardson (Pamela and
Clarissa), and Laurence Stern
b. Emphasis on the tribulations and of sentimental
characters, i.e. individuals (male or female) who
embody the sentimental ideal, i.e. the power to
empathize with the suffering and trials of fellow
human beings; famous phenomenon of the
sentimental novel: an overflowing of tears
c. Precursor of the romantic hero: sentimental heroes
live and die in response to their emotions and higher
ideals, rather than the guidelines of reason, religion,
or tradition
d. Thus: sentimental novels deemed dangerous by
religious and political establishment in Britain and
America
e. Genre flourished from the mid 18th to the early 19th
century; mid to late 19th century examples are often
dime novels simply following the patter or
parodying the genre
Subgenre: the novel of seduction
- usually focusing on the work
of a rake seducing young,
sentimental, naïve women
who have already been
seduced by sentimental ideas
and especially the
sentimental fiction of the
time
- in America: sentimental
novels warning that virtue
must prevail for American
women to raise a virtuous
citizenry
Women novelists of the sentimental tradition:
 walking a fine line between:
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Susanna Rowson, Charlotte
Temple
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Hannah Webster Foster, The
Coquette
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o warning young women of temptations of being overly
sentimental, while, as examples of that genre, evincing
a sentimental reaction from their readers for the fate of
female protagonists
o the problem of the “fallen woman”
 Charlotte Temple
 Eliza Wharton
 Usually, seduced, eloped, pregnant, and
dead
 Critical question: how do these
novelists simultaneously advise women
to abide by the rules of society (i.e. walk
on the path of virtue), while also
indicting those rules as inherently
privileging patriarchal society?
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important as precursors of
female novelists of the midnineteenth century, such as
Fanny Fern!
Historical Novel:
4. Lydia Maria Child, Hobomok
5. Catherine Maria Sedgwick, Hope Leslie
a. They actually precede Hawthorne with their
attention to Puritan times
b. Also: they inspect the relevance of the Puritan
heritage for their own times; especially in probing
where American society is coming from and where
it is heading
c. They particularly probe or question the dominance
of women in Puritan society and the seamless
translation of that domination to the early
Republic/early national era
The Sentimental Novel in the 19th century:
- often used as a simplified formula for quick sellers
- Question: How does Fanny Fern undermine some of the stock traits of the genre,
especially women’s fiction:
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especially:
o vicissitudes of the “marriage market”
o the seduction and downfall of the sentimental protagonist
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o FALLEN WOMAN: flaunting advice by family and friends to
pursue her own pleasure
o Usual development: independence is a dangerous trajectory that
usually gets women shunned by society, pregnant, ostracized, and
dead on the streets
 Readers are supposed to empathize with this fate but
themselves make a “better” decision
o virtue rewarded, vice punished
o the trope of the happy marriage as a shelter and haven for the
sentimental woman
o OVERLY DIDACTIC
o LANGUAGE:
 Antiquated, even for its time
 Flowery images and metaphors
 Many direct addresses to the reader, asking them to sympathize
or learn from the example of the fallen or virtuous woman
 Eliciting sentimental reactions from the reader
Question: how does Fanny Fern’s book depart from this pattern?
o CULT OF TRUE WOMANHOOD:
 Woman’s place in the home with children
 To provide a secure and warm and loving environment or
shelter for the husband from the vicissitudes of the world
 “angel of the home”
 No aspirations beyond the domestic sphere

Biography: Fanny Fern (Sara Willis Parton)
(NB: I will always refer to her as Fanny Fern, as she preferred to be called by her
pen name!)
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1811-1872
Parents: very different personalities
o Father: devout Calvinist minister who preached the doctrine of a
harsh, punishing God
o Mother: more cheerful and lighthearted who did not necessarily
adhered to her husband’s doctrine; Fanny admired her and looked to
her for inspiration
o Fanny was the fifth of nine children
o Nathaniel Parker Willis: himself became a writer and powerful
publisher
after family moved to Boston, Fanny was sent to two boarding schools
because her father was concerned about her free spirit
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one of them: Hartford Female Seminary, run by Catherine Beecher and her
sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
they could “tame” Fanny, but later remembered her as a remarkable but
mischievous child
return to her family; doing some writing and some editing for her father’s
newspaper
marriage: to Charles Harrington Eldredge, a banker, in 1837
o though marriage between them seemed happy, tragedy quickly
followed
 death of first daughter and a year later death of her husband
her husband’s death leaving Fanny financially destitute!
Husband left her with debt
She entered into an ugly battle between her father and her in-laws over how
much money each side could afford to secure her and her two remaining
children
1849: she agrees to marry Deacon Nathaniel Willis purely for financial
reasons
She married him even though she professed not to love him
Important: in 1851, Fanny leaves her husband, who starts to spread rumors
about her and immediately starts divorce proceedings on the grounds of
desertion
Women leaving their husbands in 19th century extremely rare occurrence,
and almost universally frowned upon
o Very few opportunities for women to earn a living
her family was completely embarrassed by her move and gave her no more
support
she had to allow her younger daughter grace to live with her first husband’s
parents, who didn’t treat the child well
Fanny and her older daughter, Ellen, lived in poverty, with Fanny trying to
support them as a seamstress
1851: she begins writing newspaper articles, most of them biting satires on
the social conditions and politics of the time
She sends some samples to her brother Nathaniel, who had helped other
women by publishing their work in his Home Journal,
o => refused to publish Fanny’s work, citing the nature and subject
matter of her work (and probably still shunning her choice to
leave her husband)
now she adopted her pen name “Fanny Fern”
paid very poorly at the beginning of her journalistic career
her articles gain recognition, many of them pirated with out pay
one editor for her brother, James Parton, begins publishing her work, which
leads to Fanny’s brother firing him from his job!
1852: a NY periodical, Musical World and Times, offers Fanny a regular
column with double the pay compared to her work for two newspapers before
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Thus: Fern became the first American woman with a regular column in a
newspaper/periodical
o Fern moves to New York City
1853: a collection of her columns published as Fern Leaves from Fanny’s
Portfolio
o she wisely chose to receive royalty payments rather than a lump sum
up front, because the book was a best-seller in the US and in England
two more similar collections published
she can establish a comfortable life and get her daughter Grace back
Fern gets a contract to publish a novel, Ruth Hall, which is published in
1855 (about 5 years after The Scarlet Letter)
Obviously: strongly autobiographical
Her true identity discovered by a former employer who noticed being
portrayed very unfavorably (William U. Moulton, editor of The Flag,
who was also angered over losing her as a contributor)
He was bent on destroying her reputation
o He and other critics attacked her book as being unwomanly
 “abominable”
 “monstrous”
 “overflowing with an unfemininely bitter wrath and spite”
novel became a “roman a clef,” with everyone trying to figure out actual
identities of people in the story (a novel in which actual persons are
presented under the guise of fiction; “clef” means “key” in this case)
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1856: begins writing for the New York Ledger, and becomes the highest paid
newspaper writer at the time in America
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She marries James Parton (1856), her brother’s former employee
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Fern and Parton sign a prenuptial agreement that made it clear that her
property and her earnings were only hers and would revert to the
ownership of her children upon her death
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Again: this action was unheard of at the time
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Second novel: Rose Clark (1856)
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Continues writing her newspaper column until her death from cancer in
1872; in fact, she hid her illness from others and her last columns were written
so close to her death that they were published posthumously!
Critical Reception at the time:
- even her severest critics acknowledged her writing skills
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speculation over whether the pseudonym was actually adopted by a clever
man trying to profit from the popularity of women’s fiction and the publicity
Hawthorne (in a letter to his own publisher, shortly after publication of
Ruth Hall)
o Quote: “I have since been reading ‘Ruth Hall’: and I must say I
enjoyed it a good deal. The woman writes as if the devil was in her;
and that is the only condition under which a woman ever writes
anything worth reading. Generally women write like emasculated
men, and are only distinguished from male authors by greater
feebleness and folly; but when they throw off the restraints of decency,
and come before the public stark naked, as it were—then their books
are sure to possess character and value.”
o Discuss: this may be more of a comment on the restraints placed
on women than on women’s capabilities! (although it is still
chauvinistic!)
she remained popular throughout the 19th century
many 20th century critics have dismissed her simply because she was a
popular writer and financially successful one
Newer critical interests:
- focusing on the theme of financial independence in a male dominated
world
- revision of the traditional marriage or seduction plots
- writing style: differing from male and female contemporaries
o compare to Scarlet Letter!
QUESTIONS FOR NEXT TIME:
- Can you identify any developments in the novel; e.g. from sentimental to
realism, from the ideal of “true womanhood” to female independence,
etc.?
- How does she undermine
o Social conventions
o Literary conventions?
 Narrative structure
 Language (word choice, syntax, etc.)
 Themes
 Character development
 Description
 Metaphors/symbolism
Think about the use of SATIRE:
Definition of Satire:
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a literary work or manner of writing that mixes biting criticism with
humor and wit for improving human conditions or institutions
“Satirists attempt through laughter not so much to tear down as to
inspire a remodeling.”
o Simply abuse: INVECTIVE
o More cynical and personal attacks: SARCASM
o Sad and morose: JEREMIAD
thus: modern satire supposed to attack general conditions, groups, etc.
over individuals
Question: What mode does Fanny Fern follow?