A Purchase on Goodness: Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall , and Fraught Individualism

Refashioning the Domestic Novel: Literary Form and Fanny Fern’s Biopolitical Imagination in Ruth Hall

“…Scholars of the novel often discuss how Walter helps Ruth progress in the literary marketplace (Sánchez, 2000;Temple, 2003;Weyler, 2005). There is, however, much less focus on the brief yet illuminating interaction between Ruth and Walter at the end of the novel where both contemplate Ruth's literary success as she is on her way to a new home.…”

“…By taking up a career as a writer and becoming a member of the population herself, Ruth indirectly forges a new form of relationship beyond the immediate but restricted circle of her household and the community in which she was deeply embedded. Ruth is able to, in Gale Temple's (2003) words, find "extended community" in the "mass readership that feels the same way about the social realm as [she] does: that it is terrifying, fraught with others who dislike them and what they represent, want to hold them back, want to annihilate them so that their own tastes and desire can ascend" (p. 134). As with the Scarlet Letter's Hester Prynne who becomes a connecting point to those neglected and left outside the exclusive protection of a Puritan home headed by a dominant male figure (Roberts, 2014, p. 137), Ruth functions like a hub or a central point which links different members of the audience, particularly afflicted women and children neglected by the contractual relation.…”

“…12. Gale Temple (2003) points out that as a wife, Ruth demonstrates taste and refinement in the way she decorates the new home she shares with her husband and that she displays the skills of one who is an artist by nature (pp. 140-141).…”

“…14. Temple (2003) sees Ruth's leaving for a new home as "tragic in ways similar to the forced isolation she suffers throughout the novel" (p. 150). However, I argue that Ruth's departure significantly highlights the failed model of the household and relationship that her family demonstrates.…”