Walking on Hot Coals

For this week's blog assignment, we were asked to read the essay, "Anger in the House: Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall and the Redrawing of Emotional Boundaries in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America," by Linda Grasso. As well as read the aforementioned article, our task was to compare, and/or contrast the essay to "a moment from the novel."

Grasso's essay addresses the reception of Fern's "Ruth Hall," by different advocates of the women's rights movement. Grasso first presents the views of famous woman's rights activist, and abolitionist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, on Fern's story's reception. Stanton takes a stance for Fern, "[defending] the book against its detractors" (Grasso 252), who saw "Fern's vitriolic depiction of undemocratic men [as] a criminal breach of moral ethics" (Grasso 253). One such detractor, who saw Fern's presentation as so, was Caroline Dall, who "[found] Fern's depiction of her relatives an inexcusable offense" (Grasso 256). Dall's considering "Fern's depiction" as offensive was lent to the "institutionalization of aesthetic standards [, which Dall used to] invalidate an author whose vision threatened her own value system" (Grasso 256). Dall seems to latch onto the notion, presented by another women's rights advocate, Paula Wright Davis, that "[women] must pass through e'en the fiery furnace, and we can only pray that she come forth unscathed, with not even the smell of fire upon her garments" (Grasso 254). Stanton disagreed with this notion, however, stating that "it was not possible for women to 'come forth unscathed'" (Grasso 254), as seen in Fern's example. So strongly felt Stanton, about the "'severe' review in the Anti-Slavery Standard, [that she] contends that Fern's story should be read as if it were a slave narrative" (Grasso 255), calling a spade a spade, and a "tyrant" a tyrant, "whether [the] 'selfish male monster' [be] 'a father, a brother, a husband, or a Southern slaveholder'" (Grasso 252).
It is apparent throughout Ruth Hall that Stanton's belief, that "it was not possible for women to 'come forth unscathed'" (Grasso 254), is quite true. Ruth was indeed scathed while "[passing] through...the fiery furnace," and not solely by "'selfish male [monsters]'" (Grasso 252) but by the majority of her community. Such is seen upon a passing-by "Ruth's [current, lower class] lodgings," by old acquaintances of Ruth's, with one of them (Mary), stating that "if Ruth Hall has got down hill so far as this, I can't keep up her acquaintance  " (Fern 155). It was this fear of degradation of class that detracted not only Ruth's old acquaintances, but her family, as well. Exemplary of this is Ruth's "'cousin [John's]'" embarrassment upon Ruth's daughter, Katy, calling him so, in front of an esteemed acquaintance of his, while dressed in "the shabbiest old bonnet, and the toes of her shoe [being] all rubbed white" (Fern 187). Not only did members of the community, or of Ruth's family, fear a degradation of class by association with her, however, but their pompousness also helped in further "scathing" Ruth. Such is illustrated in an old acquaintance of Ruth's late husband, and Ruth's own cousin "[voting] against [her]," in her bid to become a primary school teacher, simply because Ruth was taught conversely from "[the] greatest gun on the Committee...[and they] always followed in the wake of great guns" (Fern 197). These examples make apparent the constant "scathing" Ruth faced, certainly contradicting Dall's ideal of "[passing] through...the fiery furnace...'unscathed'" (Grasso 254).

Works Cited

Fern, Fanny. "Ruth Hall." http://openlibrary.org/books/OL6989748M/Ruth_Hall. Mason Brothers 1855. 155 - 197. Web. 4 July 2012.

Grasso, Linda. "Anger in the House: Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall and the Redrawing of Emotional Boundaries in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America." Studies in the American Renaissance. (1995): 251-261. Web. 4 July 2012.