Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time (1855) focuses exclusively on the sufferings and eventual triumph of the eponymous heroine. In what ways does the novel create a feminist hero for the 1850s, and in what ways does the novel fall short of this goal? To answer this question, you might Fanny Fern compare to the other female characters we have seen through this course.
(Just as a side note, Ruth Hall sold 50,000 copies in the first eight months of publication, and by 1856, Fanny Fern was the nation's highest paid author, earning $100 per column for the serialization of her next novel Rose Clark. Although it is difficult to create an equivalence of the purchasing power of one dollar in the 1850s to dollars today, we can estimate that 1$ in the 1850s would equal between 15$ and 25$ today. On the high that would be $2,500 per column. She is an author with an incredibly wide appeal).
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Going off of our class discussion, I think that Ruth has some characteristics of a feminist heroine, but I don't think she is one. Ruth becomes determined and strong because of the situations she is put into. If her husband didn't die, she never would have gone in search of a job, and she never would have been in the predicament she was.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, she still doesn't become successful on her own. She owes her success to John Walker. He helps her achieve financially independence, and he is right beside her during the difficult times in her life. To me, that is not the definition of a feminist heroine. Feminist heroine's are suppossed to be independent; however Ruth is not. Had it not been for Walker, I do not think Ruth would have ever been able to earn the salary she did towards the end of the novel, and I think she would still be feeding Nettie milk and bread. Her story is unfortunate, but her happy ending only comes because of John.
I agree with everything that Sam says.
ReplyDeleteSince she pretty much sums it up, I had a question. As I read, I believed that Fern depicted Ruth as a heroine when she writes about her miserable in-laws, but that may not be the case. Is that where it begins? For me, that's when Ruth was seen as a heroine - anyone that can allow someone to talk to her the way she let them talk to her is strong in my eyes; however, as I think about it, could that make her a coward, too? She doesn't really stand up to them, and her husband is oblivious to most of their treatment towards her, so he doesn't stand up for her, either. I was wondering if this helps to set up Ruth's future traits of being a heroine, or is this where she begins to be a heroine? I feel like this could be answered based on people's own morals and how they allow people to treat them.
Great posts, Kaitlin and Samantha.
ReplyDeleteRuth does suffer a lot of abuse before she stands up for herself. For me, her forbearance is not heroic, but 19th-century readers may have read this otherwise, particularly before the in-laws truly engage in "outlaw" behavior. We could look at her submissiveness as her own personal failing or as the larger failure of a society that does not give women the permission to say, "no." Her husband, Harry, does not help with the matter. He cowers before his parents. Maybe there are other ways to interpret this, too.
Building on a comparison Chris made in class, Harry is arguably a nineteenth-century version of Ray Romano from the great show _Everybody Loves Raymond_. He gets bullied from his parents, yet like Ray in the show, he is a character "everybody loves."
I agree with a lot of the points. Overall, I don't believe Ruth really is a feminist heroine because of the help she gets in the end. In the beginning it seems like Ruth will become a heroine. She is put in a lot of bad situations, and not by choice either. Yet, she manages to handle it well for the most part. I think that the way she takes care of her daughters even after Harry's death and still has struggles to deal with, it heroic in itself. I also think she shows it when she is telling her boss at the paper that she is leaving. He tries to threaten her to stay, but she still holds her ground and leaves anyway.
ReplyDeleteAfter that, besides still taking care of her children and continuing to work, I don't think Ruth really is the heroine. As previously said, she still gets help from someone-a male. Not that there is anything against a male helping her, but throughout the whole novel Ruth is put down by any males in her life.
With the exception of her husband, she has had trouble with males. The idea of becoming the heroine would be to overcome those situations and be able to go on in her life without the bad influence of men, at least in her case. Basically Ruth only shows heroism in those tiny sections when surviving with her children and leaving the job she didn't want
Ruth Hall "straddles the line" between heroine and...not-heroine, I guess. The reason she is a heroine is because she perseveres. The death of her husband thrusts her into to terrible poverty that she can't quite pick herself out of. However, I disagree that receiving assistance in some way disqualifies her from being a hero. After all, not every hero is self-made. Traditionally, they have the word "super" in front of their "hero." Or they have guns (see Nathaniel Bumppo). In order to be a hero or at least embody some heroic qualities, one just needs to have the personal initiative to make a difference in some way, shape or form. Ruth, by taking her career into her own hands and taking the better deal when it comes her way, embodies a form of heroism, which is amplified by her being female.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, until the end of the book, she's very weak. She finds herself easily trampled by the opinions of her relatives and it's her weakness that allows her to stay impoverished for so long. It isn't until she asserts herself and makes good allies for herself that she is able to overcome. However, this character weakness, on the whole, weakens the hero she built up to be.
I agree that Ruth is not the typical feminine heroine that a little girl would look up to as an example of "girl power" (thank you Spice Girls) but she does persevere and endure great hardships and that is an admirable quality.I agree with what Osei said about just because Ruth received help, this should not disqualify her completely from hero status. The fact of the matter is that, if Ruth wasn't a gifted writer, she wouldn't have been able to receive help or live off her writing in the first place. She has a marketable and enviable skill that is appreciated by men and women alike and this is not something we have seen from women of the other novels. Phoebe and Hepzibah ran the store but did not make profits off of their personal talents, Elizabeth Temple had a pretty face and an education but was in a lifestyle where she would never have to work for a living. Ruth is able to earn money by expressing herself with the written word, and in this way she is not someone who should be written off (ha no pun intended) completely as a hero. She could be sceen as an inspiration to female writers. Also, she took the risk to sign a contract with John Walters when she could have just as easily remained in her dead-end job. I also like the idea of Ruth not being an abominable woman with gumption but still having the power to capture the hearts of a 19th century audience.
ReplyDeleteAfter much consideration, I do think Ruth Hall is a hero, but she's not what comes to mind when I think of a heroine. She succeeds and become independent in a time when that was unheard of and possibly even shameful (unless, of course, it works out. Then we see people change their attitudes, as Hall's crazy fans did, flocking to her mailbox when she blew up, fame- wise). She has very strong opinions, and although it seems later in the novel that she's going to fall in love with Walters, we see that she does not even look at him that way. It really seems that she treats herself and acts as if she was still married. The other possible reason for her uninterest in Walters is because she just doesn't need a man, but then that's not altogether likely, as she has no problem accepting help from men.
ReplyDeleteTo me, this is the reason why I can't consider her to be a heroine. She is strong willed only in some aspects of her life. Katy, for example, is further proof of this. It seemed that her fame had picked up swiftly, as had her bank account, yet Katy remained in the jaws of the in- laws that entire time. Only when Walters suggested he go with her to pick her up, did Ruth go to get her. Besides lacking the heroine aspect, I find that Ruth Hall is also an inconsistent character. She turns down all offers of help from her family (although she would accept it from her brother, only because she was looking for that acceptance and willingness from him her whole life), and she strongly refuses to be put away in a mental institution. Yet she is not strong- willed enough to step in and rescue her daughter from a terrible childhood. It just seems odd to me, and I'm having a hard time getting past her inconsistencies, to really enjoy what the novel accomplishes, even style- wise.
Like most people have said I don't necessarily believe that Ruth Hall is a feminist heroine. A common reason brought up is that she was put into this situation because of events that occurred in her life. I think that is the biggest hit to her case for being a feminist heroine. She wasn't a character who seemed to take matters into her own hands right from day one, and that is disappointing.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, Ruth Hall is a big improvement over every other female character that we've read about, with the possible exception of Elizabeth Temple. Ruth's character was a fresh of breath air and she seemed like a much more believable character then Evangeline, Eva, Phoebe, etc. So I did enjoy Ruth's character, but calling her a feminist heroine might be a little too strong, in my opinion.
Good point, Chris! Ruth Hall's believability does set her apart from the other feminine character's that we have seem. One of the reason's why this may be is that Fanny Fern is a female herself and is writing off of personal experiences. Hawthorne's Hepzibah and Phoeboe were like no women I have met and Elizabeth Temple was too marginal to become a fully- developed character. Harriet Beech Stowe was the first woman that we read in the course but even her female character's were difficult to imagine as "real" women. Plus, Ruth is the main character and this gives the writer an opportunity to make her more dimensional.
ReplyDeleteFirst I want to point out my fresh of breath air typo, which was obviously breath of fresh air haha. Secondly, yes Devon great point made about the simple fact that Fanny Fern was a female. It would be easier for her to depict a women in a realistic way, compared to say Longfellow or Hawthorne. Regarding Stowe, I think she was so busy spreading her message about redemption and justice and such that she didn't worry so much about creating realistic women. Instead, she created women to represent certain extremes. Marie as the evil slaveholder who opposed St. Clare's more relaxed take on slavery, Mrs. Bird as the voice of reason to Senator Bird, and Eva as the perfect child of God all showed that Stowe was more concerned with making females who were representations of beliefs then she was making deep characters.
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