Fanny Fern Research Paper

In the 21st century, many women, myself included, take for granted that we can wear whatever we desire and say what we want, in public, without the fear of being thrown in jail. However, that was not always the case. While the fight for the continued advance of women’s rights rages on, women of the 19th century lived a very different life than the one, us women, lead today. The feminist agenda was just emerging on the horizon. One particular woman was preparing to do her part to further the cause of women’s rights: Sarah Willis Parker. Parker was better known by her pen name, Fanny Fern. After facing and overcoming extreme adversity, she made the decision to start writing. To understand how truly ground breaking Fanny Fern was, we need to understand that in a 1997 edition of an anthology of American satire from colonial times to present, Fern was the only woman writer from the 19th century in that text. Her satiric style and controversial subject matter was just what the oppressed needed to gain some support and give them a voice.

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines gutsy as “marked by courage, pluck, or determination; having a strong or appealing flavor ("Dictionary and Thesaurus | Merriam-Webster"). It may be common to associate this adjective with a skydiver or daredevil, but what about an eighteenth century columnist named Fanny Fern? Fanny Fern, or as her birth certificate would state, Sarah Willis Parton, lived in the mid to late 1800s and wrote famously about controversial issues that are still prevalent in the twenty first century. Fern wrote with whimsy and liveliness, making issues like gender inequality in marriage and women’s reform seem funny and lighthearted, although looking closer, we can see that (through the use of several tropes) she was anything but. With cuts such as a woman’s cult of domesticity disguised as a relatable entry about silly husbands, we can look back at Fern’s work today and admire her courage to write without compromising her beliefs, as well as her ‘guts’ and determination. Fanny Fern famously used a witty mix of sarcasm, pun, and metaphor in her eighteenth century writing to critique and challenge her highly oppressive patriarchal society.

In 1854 Fanny Fern published what was to become not only her most successful works, but one of the most popular and enduring works of English literature during the Antebellum period: Ruth Hall; A Domestic Tale of the Present Time. Though the title – especially to a modern reader – does little to convey the level of thoughtful and heady critique that Fern expounds through this book, it is actually is a strong indictment of the feminine position as the subordinate housewife, mother, and societal agent. However, despite this criticism, it does not seem that Fanny Fern is critical of the institutions of marriage or motherhood as a whole. Her critique is based on the limiting effects of the conventional roles into which wives and mothers fall, and the deleterious consequences these roles have on the personal development and self-actualization of the women who enter into them. Therefore, it is not the institution of marriage or motherhood that Fern is critical of, but rather the expectations and limitations that society assigns to the women who assume these roles.

Does deviating from one’s gender norms inevitably doom one down a spiral of moral corruption? Tim O'Brien, author of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” and Ernest Hemingway, author of “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, certainly seem to hold this view, as evident by the fates of the major female characters in their respective works. The deviance of the major female characters in both works appears to corrupt not only themselves, but also pollute their partners, causing them to suffer injury or harm as a result. The degree of injury ranges from negligible, like Fossie’s demotion and broken heart, to fatal, like the bullet that rips through Macomber’s skull. It begs the question, are these stories meant to serve as cautionary tales for their female readers, or possibly for their husbands, so they may recognize gender deviance and stop it in its tracks before their wives transform into Margot Macomber or Mary Anne Bell? This essay will analyze what such characters say about pervading views of women, both in society and in literature.

The life of a lady in the 19th century is painted in a romantic light. Pictured in her parlor, the lady sips tea from delicate china while writing letters with a white feathered quill. Her maid stands silently off in the background, waiting for orders to serve her mistress. What is not typically pictured, is the sadness or boredom echoed on the lady’s face. Perhaps the letter is to a dear friend, not seen in ages, pleading with the friend to visit, in hopes that the friend will fill the void in the lady’s life made from years spent in a loveless marriage; or possiblyk20 the lady isn’t writing a letter at all, but a novel or a poem, never to be read by anyone but her. Edith Warton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, are 19th Century ladies who dare to share their writing with the world. Through their works, the darker side of a woman’s life in the late 1800’s is exposed. Gender politics in the 19th dictates that a lady is dependent on her husband for her financial security and social standing; that is if she is fortunate enough to marry at all. In Edith Warton’s The House of Mirth, Lily Bart is a beautiful woman in her late 20’s, who fails to marry a wealthy man. The narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper slowly goes insane under her physician husbands misguided attempts to cure her of depression. The downfall of Lily Bart and the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper is

Born in 1862, Edith Wharton Newbold Jones was brought up within the graceful, wealthy yet conservative, confining circle of New York society, which fostered sexual repression and prided itself on the innocence of its young girls. Edith Wharton herself was discouraged from expressing her emotions or developing her intellect which was supposed to be very unbecoming traits in a woman. This is the reason why she stressed in her fiction the need of growth, and has shown how painful and frustrating this process can be for a woman. This process of growth and development is revealed in her major works, Ethan Frome (1911), and Summer (1917) (Balakrishnan 1).

Frances Perkins wanted to make a change in the American people’s lives. She looked at individuals with the perspective of hopes, fears, virtues, and as citizens of the United States (“Frances Perkins,”2011). Her outlook of society was to help the poor, promote the working individual and to improve the quality of life for all. Perkins witnessed a fire that killed helpless factory workers where she realized her role in the world. “Seared on my mind, as well as my heart- a never to be forgotten reminder of why I must spend my life fighting conditions that could permit such tragedy” (“Frances Perkins (1880-1965),” 2016). The scene provoked Perkins to work for reform in working condition, especially women and children (Sprague, L. W. 2014). Frances Perkins began to volunteer and work with families, individuals, and communities. She accompanied women in factories and in the settlement house. It became an opportunity to study workers, the poor, and their work/living conditions within the community. She also became educated

Pride is a broad character trait that has both positives and negatives associated with it. The way one goes about confronting the hurdles in their life determines how others will perceive them. The wrong kind of pride can have serious negative ramifications on one’s life. While not a hard and fast rule, often characters of lower class tend to be written to show positive pride and work through their struggles, while the people of a higher class show a negative pride that limits the before mentioned characters associated with a lower class. Through their writing, Harriet E. Wilson and Fanny Fern exhibit a myriad of levels of pride exemplified by various characters, in their books, Our Nig or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black and Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time, respectively.

Fanny Hensel formerly known as Fanny Mendelssohn before she was married was born November 14, 1805 in Hamburg, Germany as the eldest child in here family. She had three younger siblings: Rebecca, Paul, and most famously, Felix. The children were born into a well cultured family to Abraham Mendelssohn, a well to do banker, and his wife, Lea. Although her parents were Jewish, she and her siblings were not brought as Jewish and never practice Judaism. The children were brought up and baptized as Lutherans. Both Fanny and Felix learned piano from the best music teachers available although the teacher favored Fanny more, and apparently Fanny memorized Johann Sebastian Bach’s entire Well-Tempered Clavier at the age of 13. Felix admits that Fanny was better than him. He even relied on her advice for his works.

Fanny Fern and Charlotte Perkins Gilman are two renowned early female writers. Fanny Fern was the first female newspaper writer. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a novelist, writing pieces of nonfiction, poetry, and short stories. “Hints to Young Wives,” by Fanny Fern, is about a woman desperately trying to warn young wives about their sneaky husbands. Gilman’s piece, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is about a young wife and mother who has recently began to suffer symptoms of depression and anxiety. Although she does not believe that anything is wrong with her, John, her physician husband, diagnoses her with a nervousness disease, curing it only with rest. In Ferns writing Hints to Young Wives as well as Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, two themes arise:

Being seen as possessions put women at a disadvantage for progression; several believed that there was no need for women to be educated, because their job was to stay in the home. When women were not educated, they stayed in ignorance and innocence. This resulted in and further encouraged the sexual double standard. During this time period, women were oppressed into thinking their own minds were too fragile to make even the slightest decisions. In the book Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Port-Folio, Fanny Fern described a lady “Mary,” whose husband ruled her life and wanted her to unfriend a lady, “Mrs. May,” because she was too intellectually stimulating. He did not approve of their friendship and did not want his wife associating with her. After telling her this, Mary was upset and knew he was unreasonable, but eventually convinced herself that he was right because he knew better than her (117-120). Her dependency on her husband thwarted her progression and from being able to think for herself. Since women were subject to the male rule, the sexual double standard remained in society. This idea was also evident in “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets”. Maggie in “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,” worked in a factory; but after leaving with Pete and “becoming impure”, she was cast out and forced to become a prostitute (Crane 64-65). Through this, she was able to illustrate the sexual double standard because her reputation was ruined, she was disowned

Woolf demonstrates how women writers have often failed in this because of our frustration and bitterness with a world that presented to us and our writing not welcome, or even indifference, but hostility (41). She makes it clear that if there is ever going to be a “Shakespeare’s sister,” we must---at least while we are writing---swallow that sense of having been wronged, for it stands as an impediment to our creativity. This is the mental freedom that women writers must attain.

Woolf contends that she is “on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen or Emily Bronte who…….mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift put her to” (53). Woolf uses many historical and literary examples such as Jane Austen and Emily Bronte numerous times in her work to contrast the fame and fortune of successful authors, with the unknown lives of “ghost writers.”

An example of this notion is shown in Hope Leslie when Governor Winthrop, the landlord, reacts to Hope, the tenant, coming home late and refuses to reveal her reason why: “...Winthrop was not accustomed to have his inquisitorial rights resisted by those in his own household, and he was more struck than pleased by Hope’s moral courage” (184). Evidently, Winthrop’s reaction proves that women with “moral courage” are unladylike because moral courage is a manly trait. On the other hand, Esther Downing, another character in Hope Leslie, embodies the cult of true womanhood. Esther’s mere look at her love interest Everell is described as “a look of...pleased dependence, which is natural... and which men like to inspire, because --perhaps -- it seems to them an instinctive tribute to their natural superiority” (219). So, “Esther’s look … of dependence” confirms that the expectation that all women are supposed to have the same behavior, gestures and personality is meant to not only please men but to also hide their true form. Therefore, the cult of true womanhood presents an internal battle in female writers and Sedgwick presents this womanly struggle through the contrast between Hope and Esther. Society wants women to be quaint housewives but publishing a book defies the cult of true womanhood. Thus, defying the qualities rooted in the cult of true womanhood causes high risk of

“Thinking about Shakespeare’s sister,” resonated how women were treated and how their opportunities differ from that of a man. Virginia Woolf tries to boil down the main cause of why there are not any great women authors. Is it because women do not have the ability to be or raw talent great writers? Woolf’s essay examines the life of William Shakespeare’s sister to answer this question: What kind of life would have Judith lead? Judith is a fictional character created from Virginia Woolf’s imagination.