Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis

Introduction

This discusses Fanny Fern 's Ruth Hall (1855 ) and takes an in-depth literary analysis in trying to come up with broader exploration of the novel . Fern 's Ruth Hall portrays a pattern of imagery that is believed to be significant in digging up the more sensible part that the novel has to offer . This claims several important and reasonable issues surrounding the Ruth Hall novel

Fanny Fern 's Ruth Hall

Fern 's Ruth Hall revolves around a secular world expanding the boundaries of the ideology to include

white women 's right to express angered indignation at white men who deny them the right to compete in the capitalist marketplace . This novel exploded the notion that women can rely on men for economic , legal , and social protection . It is an inspiring act of resistance against the romance of dependency . For the reason that Fern has made the story of petty tyrannies in the isolated household , the publication of Ruth Hall is a major triumph and a fearless expression since lightens up other women to recognize their own oppression and respond appropriately . It encourages women to relinquish false notions of justice and delicacy and claim their right to condemn what is false and cruel . It urge women to associate their own experiences with Fern 's and recognize that anger at male members of their own household is justified . More importantly , Ruth Hall novel demonstrates that a woman 's public expression of anger is a strategic political tool that helps women recognize that their own anger at men is both justified and politically powerful

On the other hand , Fern had somehow violated standards of propriety in the way of publishing a thinly veiled of a contentious family feud . Fern 's exposition of the cruelties of her own family is irrelevant because whether selfish male monsters are a father , a brother , a husband , or a Southern slave-holder , when a man robs a woman of her rights , he is a tyrant and should be named as such

Moreover , Fern 's Ruth Hall novel was autobiographical . As a matter of fact , the ruthless portrait of the protagonist 's brother was based on Nathaniel Parker Willis , an editor and poet well known in New York publishing circles . Interestingly , Willis was in fact Fanny Fern 's brother . Providing this information was for the most part an enticing scheme since Fern had been writing pseudonymously until that point . She was confident that her pseudonym would protect her from slander that she based her first novel on her own harrowing experiences as a genteel mother who struggled to support herself and her children after she could no longer depend on male support

Though Ruth Hall was a triumph of a heroic protagonist over selfish and hypocritical fathers , brothers , businessmen , and lawyers in its quest for professional and economic independence , being regarded as autobiographical novel has its negative aspect . Once the novel is regarded as autobiographical , a pseudonym (which Fern was using ) can no longer protect Fanny Fern from public censure . Definitely , within a few weeks , Fern 's situation worsened considerably when one news editors she had previously worked for completed her unmasking with vengeance As he was so enraged that she had left his employ for a more lucrative position , and then portrayed him as a greedy scoundrel in Ruth Hall , he retaliated by publishing a book that contained a slanderous version of her biography , as well as unfavorable criticism of her work . The book exposes Fanny Fern as Sarah Payson Willis , daughter of Mr . Nathaniel Willis , one of the most industrious and respected citizens of Boston After being exposed , Fern was criticized for expressing un-femininely bitter wrath and spite against the male members of her family . She was then accused of demeaning herself as no right minded woman should have done , her most heinous crime was engaging in un-filial behavior

The fact that so many people seized the opportunity to pronounce whether Fern 's bitter depiction of undemocratic men was a criminal breach of moral ethics indicates just how contested the ideal of womanly behavior had become by the mid-nineteenth century . On behalf of what was ultimately at stake in the debate over Ruth Hall was whether a woman had the right to express anger publicly at men and still be deemed womanly respectable and capable of rational authorship . The expression of women 's anger in public signified a direct challenge to the maintenance of unequal gender roles and privileges . Ruth Hall novel displayed ferocity toward the nearest relatives making it a subject of censure with the apprehension that it might initiate such a possibility Indeed , it had already been initiated through the institutionalization of the woman 's rights movement in which Fern 's Ruth Hall has been one of its popular manifestations . Like much woman 's rights literature , Ruth Hall expresses anger at exclusion by castigating the hypocrisy of a patriarchal version of democracy . Additionally , like much woman 's rights literature , Fern delineates an angered confrontation between the sexes that was considered unavoidable . But as with competent judges Ruth Hall is considered to be a slovenly performance and by no means the work of a ripe and well-trained woman . She had no right to hold them up for the benefit of her fellowmen for the reason that Fern was incapable of surpassing her peculiar irritations

References

Fern , Fanny (1855 . Ruth Hall . Reprint , with an introduction by Joyce Warren , New Brunswick , N .J : Rutgers University Press , 1986 ...