Carrie Sippy, "The Domesticated Public of Ruth Hall"
Opening with a young woman on the eve of her wedding, Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall: a Domestic Tale of the present Time, published in 1855,appears at first glance to be another nineteenth-century domestic novel. While it does deal with issues of the hearth and home, including marriage, in-laws, and children, the character Ruth is eventually forced outside of the private sphere out of sheer survival. The majority of the story takes place during Ruth’s widowhood and her quest to make a place for herself within the male-dominated public sphere. Fanny Fern, through the character of Ruth, advocates women’s emergence into the public sphere workplace (Amireh 117). Ruth enters the industrial marketplace with knowledge of a domestic currency—the currency of sentimentality. These domestic values are not esteemed within the public, male-dominated business world, but it is the currency that Ruth has to offer (J. Harris 349). However, it is this awareness and use of domestic sentimentality that give Ruth the capital she needs to gain an advantage within the public sphere. Using sentimental language to construct a scathing social commentary, Fanny Fern, through the character of Ruth Hall, blurs the apparent binary of the public and private spheres and supersedes gender stereotypes, including the ideal of the True Woman, of the nineteenth century.
Fanny Fern’s clever writing and sharp wit made Ruth Hall a popular novel in its day and keep it interesting for readers in the 21st century. Fern won the praise of some of the toughest critics of her day, including Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne was known for his harsh views of women writers; in an 1855 letter to his publisher, William D. Ticknor, Hawthorne infamously ranted about that “’damned mob of scribbling women’ whose ‘trash’ had hijacked American public taste” (Easton 219). However, Hawthorne had a different view of Fern’s writing; he admired her as a writer who stood above the class of women writers he so despised. Easton states that Hawthorne wrote the following, commending Fern,
The woman writes as if the devil was in her . . . Generally, women write like emasculated men, and are only to be distinguished from male authors by greater feebleness and folly; but when they throw off the restraints of decency, and come before the public stark naked, as it were—then their books are sure to possess character and value. Can you tell me anything about this Fanny Fern? If you meet her, I wish you would let her know how much I admire her. (220)
Even in her writing such a book as Ruth Hall, a book that would question societal standards and criticize her family members, Fern had veered from the normal role women were prescribed in the nineteenth century (Warren, “Ruth Hall,” xx). It was this willingness to risk and to challenge societal conventions that set Fern apart from her contemporary women writers.
Ruth Hall is widely accepted to be a roman á clef, a work that reflects the personal experiences of the author (Tonkovich 37). Fanny Fern was a pseudonym for Sara Parton Willis—widowed, denied help from her family and her deceased husband’s family, and entering the male-dominated economy to try to provide for herself and her children, like her protagonist Ruth Hall. Her personal life greatly influenced her understanding of the publishing world and the male-dominated public sphere, and therefore her own writing (Tonkovich). Though Fanny Fern was her pen name, in later years of her life, Fern actually began to go by that name in private life, as well as public life, illustrating the connection that Fern had to her writing and characters, including Ruth Hall (Warren, “Ruth Hall”, xix).
Ruth Hall’s story begins with her marriage to Harry Hall and subsequent domestic events. The main story begins when Ruth is widowed by Harry Hall, and left with two daughters, Katy and Nettie, for whom she must care. When both Ruth’s family—including her father and brother—and her late husband’s family refuse to give her financial aid, Ruth must find a way to earn a living. After trying many different venues to gain income, Ruth finally decides to write for journals, venturing into the world of the public sphere. Receiving just enough compensation to live on, Ruth scrimps to insure survival, even having to allow her daughter Katy to go live with Ruth’s in-laws. Ruth finally is aided by Mr. Walter, a publisher who pays her more and asks a reasonable amount of work of Ruth. Ruth’s articles are monstrously popular, and she receives numerous offers to publish them. Finally choosing to publish her articles in a book, Ruth is able to make enough money to bring Katy home and buy the family a nice house in the country where they can all live together. The novel is brought full circle, from the home of Ruth on the eve of her wedding, to Ruth’s re-entrance of the domestic sphere in a house of her own after her triumph in the public sphere.
Fanny Fern titled her novel Ruth Hall: a Domestic Tale of the present Time, perhaps drawing on the connections to literary conventions the phrase “domestic tale” would bring. The novel begins with a young girl on the eve of her wedding; this idea turns the idea of a typical domestic novel on its head. Most domestic novels of the nineteenth century ended with the heroine’s marriage. However, Ruth Hall’s story truly begins only after she is widowed. When she is forced to make her way financially in the world, Ruth discovers that she possesses a capital that is specific to the home and the private sphere which is occupied by women. In Marxist criticism, capital is what a person possesses that makes him or her marketable to others. This can come in the form of abilities, possessions or ideas. When Ruth is first widowed, the only capital she possesses is domestic capital. Traditionally in the 19th century, women were urged to embrace the “Cult of True Womanhood;” true women were “pious, pure, submissive and domestic” (J. Harris 343).
Even though it initially appears that Ruth displays some of the virtues of a True Woman, she never completely embodies the essence of that woman, often using these virtues to blur gender stereotypes. When describing Ruth in the opening chapter, Fern states, “they called her ‘odd’ and ‘queer’” for Ruth’s tendency to enjoy time alone and her love for the arts (16). Fern gives the reader a glance into Ruth’s transition into a home with her husband by describing the juxtaposition of domestic items of daily use:
How odd to see that shaving-brush and those razors lying on her toilet table! then that saucy-looking smoking cap, those slippers and that dressing gown, those fancy neckties, too, and vests and coats, lying in unrebuked proximity to her muslins, laces, silks and de laines!
Ruth liked it. (26-27)
This passage illustrates Ruth’s transition into the domestic sphere of the home. The demands of the private sphere that the elder Mrs. Hall lists seem rigorous and overwhelming to Ruth, a woman who had previously existed in between the public and private spheres during her time in boarding school. Through Ruth’s interactions within the domestic sphere in her marriage to Harry, Ruth appears at first to display other virtues of a True Woman.
Ruth’s piety is clearly illustrated through the sentimental language Fern uses in describing the birth of Daisy. The narrator addresses Ruth, stating, “Joy to thee, Ruth! Another outlet for thy womanly heart; a mirror, in which thy smiles and tears shall be reflected back; a fair page, on which thou, God-commissioned, mayst write what thou wilt; a heart that will throb back to thine, love for love” (39). This spiritual language equates the event of becoming a mother with a religious duty. Fern equates Ruth’s care for Daisy during Daisy’s illness to a state of divine watchfulness: “Only the eye of God watches like a mother’s.” Ruth even quotes Scripture when refusing her father’s demand that she give up her children. Mr. Ellet states that if Ruth refuses Mr. Hall’s offer, and Ruth should die, the children would have no one to take them in. Ruth replies, “Their Father in Heaven will . . . He says, ‘Leave thy fatherless children with me’” (130). This piety when juxtaposed with Mr. Ellet’s “piety”—his desire to be esteemed in the eyes of the church—clearly triumphs. Ruth’s piety is demonstrated through her care and concern for her husband and family—through her domestic skills.
Retaining her piety despite her widowhood, Ruth is forced outside of the home, no longer domestic or able to retain the appearance of a True Woman. It is in the area of domesticity that Ruth first overthrows the demands on her as a nineteenth-century True Woman. In Ruth’s forced exile to the world of the marketplace, Fern breaks down the binary of the public/private sphere within Ruth Hall. Ruth is not able to completely abandon the private sphere—the woman’s world of the domestic and the home—upon her entrance to the public sphere. Seeking employment, Ruth must search in the domestic fields with which she is familiar—sewing and laundry work. However, no one will hire her because Ruth has previously had a privileged existence (153-54). By forcibly removing her female protagonist from the home and placing her within the public sphere—the sphere inhabited by men and business—Fern questions the societal description of “appropriate” women’s behavior, undermining the conventions of the male-dominant society in which she lived (Warren, “Canons” 14). No one in the public sphere will hire Ruth to do private sphere duties. She cannot separate herself from the private sphere upon her entrance to the public sphere; instead, she brings the domestic into the public upon being forced into the workplace, blurring the boundaries between the two.
It is Ruth’s ability to carry her understanding of the hearth and home into the workplace that wins her such success within the business world. Amal Amireh, in the critical work The Factory Girl and the Seamstress: Imagining Gender and Class in Nineteenth Century American Fiction, elaborates on this view: “Writing is shown to be a suitable profession for a middle-class woman because it is one that reconciles the private sphere with the public” (119). In addition to the character of Ruth, Fern herself blurs the binaries of the public and private spheres; even by writing a novel such as Ruth Hall which calls into question the gender stereotypes and ideas of women in the public sphere in the nineteenth century, Fern turns a scrutinizing gaze back on society in her time. When Ruth first decides to write, she seeks to write for someone with whom she has a domestic connection—her brother, Hyacinth. However, he rejects her writing, telling her that she has no talent for it and that she should find some “unobtrusive employment” (Fern 222). Ruth next applies to write for the “Parental Guide,” another outgrowth of her domestic sensibilities, but she is turned down on the basis of her denomination (Fern 331-32). Eventually she gains a job writing for a journal. By illustrating Ruth’s ability to bring the private sphere into the public in this roman á clef, Fern delivers pertinent social observations on nineteenth-century gender roles.
Ruth’s columns garner speculation about the gender of the writer; Fern states, “All sorts of rumors became rife about ‘Floy,’ some maintaining her to be a man, because she had the courage to call things by their right names, and the independence to express herself boldly on subjects which to the timid and clique-serving, were tabooed” (133). Coming from a woman, this type of forthrightness seems incomprehensible in light of the nineteenth-century view of women. Though the reader is never told specifically about what “Floy” writes, from a letter she receives it is evident that she addresses issues of “the poor, the sorrowing, and the dependent” (315). Ruth’s writing is motivated by her desire for domestic things—the comfort of her family and a home—but Fern writes her story in such a way that Ruth is able to eventually thrive individually within the public sphere of the business world. Fern constructed her heroine Ruth with very Americanized, individualistic virtues; Ruth shows a business savvy that is individualistic. She does not seek advice from any males when she signs the contract agreeing to write for Mr. Walter’s publication or when she decides whether to take a lump sum for her book or accept a percentage of the profit (Fern 281, 293). However, these virtues were considered “undomestic” according to Amireh (119).
Ruth, as a woman, should have stayed within the private sphere and portrayed the communalistic virtues of a wife and mother instead of the individualistic values typically associated with American males. She should have bowed to the whims of her father and father-in-law and followed their advice in how to support her children, instead of choosing to act independently of them. However, Fern realized that this was not only the way of life available to women, nor was it the best way for women to live. Some women, like Ruth, were forced outside of the home from a need for survival. Ruth had to enter the public sphere, while carrying the private sphere with her as she was “thinking only of bread for her children”, undomesticating herself in the eyes of the True Woman (Fern 255). However, instead of becoming an industrial woman in the workplace, Ruth actually brings the home with her, domesticating the business world through her writing. Sentimentalism typically is turned on its head for the woman writer within the world of publishing; the woman is no longer at the center, as she is within the domestic sphere, but is instead forced to the edges of the publishing world (102). However, as Ruth dissolves the boundary between the private and public spheres, she repositions herself as the center, having numerous men offer her positions to write for them. She carves her own way in the world, making a place and a name for herself while working her way up from the bottom of society—a very American and individualistic action. Joyce W. Warren claims that Fern sought to remove the “role of the American individualist” from the hands of men, believing that “women too could be self-reliant and self-sufficient” (“Ruth Hall,” xx). It is Ruth’s desire to gain enough money to support her family that leads to her quest for self-sufficiency.
One of the ways that Fern portrayed Ruth’s “undomestication” is through her achievement of economic independence. Fern understood well the struggle a successful woman in the business world would face: David Dowling states, “Fern earned among the highest wages of her gender in the history of the American free market,” so obviously the economic independence of women was of great importance to her as a writer (347). Ruth’s financial struggles come from the fact that there is no man in her life upon whom she can depend financially—her husband has died and her father, brother, and father-in-law refuse to support her financially. Ruth is thrust into the public sphere with a currency of domestic values that does not have a “market value” in the public sphere of men; it does not translate into a valuable entity outside the domestic sphere (J. Harris 349).
Contrary to the expectations of others, it is this currency, the currency of the domestic sphere, that enables Ruth to achieve financial security within the public sphere. Susan K. Harris believes that Fern “alternates between sentimental and acerbic language, all in the interest of defending women’s right to be economically independent” (273). Fern used sentimental language surrounding the birth of Ruth’s children; however, she uses language of the business world once Ruth has become a part of this world. When Mr. Tibbetts tries to deny Ruth the right to discontinue writing for his journal, Fern writes, “Ruth smiled derisively, then answered in a tone so low that it was scarcely audible, ‘Mr. Tibbetts, you have mistaken your auditor. I am not to be frightened, threatened, or insulted’” (300). Ruth has learned to use the language of the business sphere to enable herself to achieve economic independence. If Ruth Hall truly is a roman á clef, Fern certainly understands and has a stake in speaking to the difficulty of women achieving financial independence in the nineteenth century world that asks them to stay in the home, safe and domesticated. Fern ends her novel with not a marriage or re-marriage, but economic independence; it has been the goal that Ruth has worked for and has finally achieved, the victory that has been received (J. Harris 345). Ruth is now a self-made woman, fulfilling the American dream that had previously existed only for men, and moving farther away from the ideal of the True Woman.
The other convention of the True Woman that Ruth discards throughout the course of the novel is the idea of submission. After losing her husband towards the beginning of the novel, the care of Ruth should have fallen to her father or her brother. However, they both refuse to support her in her time of need. Even her father-in-law decides to have nothing to do with her upon her husband’s death. Essentially Fern has created a protagonist who has no one to submit to even if she possessed that mindset. Depicting a woman with the desire and ability to gain independence, “Fern portrayed a protagonist who was bold, defiant, and a formidable economic competitor. It was this final point, Fern believed, that made the concept of financial independence so unpalatable to nineteenth-century American men” (Warren, “Domesticity,” 86). Upon receiving Mr. Walter’s offer to write for his journal, Ruth peruses the contract with no input from other individuals, including men. About the contract, Fern writes, “Then [Ruth] took up the contract and examined it; it was brief, plain and easily understood, even by a woman, as the men say” (281). This contract is the beginning of Ruth’s move towards economic independence.
Financial independence removed the hold which men had previously held over women. From an economic standpoint, if women achieve financial independence and success within the marketplace, there are more competitors and more commodities being produced. This raises the level of competition and forces the men to produce better products as they no longer hold a monopoly on the business market. When Ruth becomes financially independent, she does not need or desire to have a man control her finances or her person. Ruth, when given the option, refuses to submit to the men present in her life—her publishers and her family. She takes her own future into her hands; instead of choosing to accept a lump sum for the copyright to her book, Ruth decides to take a percentage of every book sold, believing that her book will be successful (Fern 281). When her decision is proved wise with the sensation her book causes, Ruth is no longer forced to submit to anyone—financially or otherwise. Though she refuses to bow to the whims of her father and father-in-law in regards to her children, Ruth eventually triumphs and shows that she did not need to submit to their demands because she has risen above them. Ruth incorporates the domestic sphere in her new identity, encompassed by a “public, autonomous existence”—this existence frees her from the demands of a True Woman’s submission (Dowling 358). Through her intent to provide for her family, Ruth has learned success in both spheres. Instead of limiting herself to one sphere or the other, Ruth has dissolved the boundaries, allowing her to freely access and participate in both the public and private spheres.
Fanny Fern proves herself an adept social critic of nineteenth century societal conventions and gender stereotypes. She uses familiar concepts of a domestic tale and True Womanhood to win the attention of her audience and then alters these ideas for her audience, casting them in a new light. Fern overturns some ideas of True Womanhood, while retaining others to create a story and a heroine that both puzzles and engages the reader. Ultimately, through Ruth Hall, Fern blurs the boundaries in the dichotomies of the public/private sphere and male/female gender roles in the nineteenth century.
Works Cited
Amireh, Amal. The Factory Girl and the Seamstress: Imagining Gender and Class in Nineteenth Century American Fiction. New York: Garland, 2000. Print.
Dowling, David. “Capital Sentiment: Fanny Fern’s Transformation of the Gentleman Publisher’s Code.” ATQ 22.1 (2008): 347-364. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Oct 2009.
Easton, Alison M. J. “My Banker and I Can Afford To Laugh! Class and Gender in Fanny Fern and Nathaniel Hawthorne.” Soft Canons: American Women Writers and Masculine Tradition. Ed. Karen L. Kilcup. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1999. 219-238. Print.
Fern, Fanny. Ruth Hall and Other Writings. Ed. Joyce W. Warren. American Women Writers Series. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1986. Print.
Harris, Jennifer. “Marketplace Transactions and Sentimental Currencies in Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall.” ATQ 20.1 (2006): 343-359. Web. 6 Oct 2009.
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Tonkovich, Nicole. Domesticity with a Difference: The Nonfiction of Catherine Beecher, Sarah J. Hale, Fanny Fern, and Margaret Fuller. Jackson: UP Mississippi, 1997. NetLibrary. Web. 6 Oct 2009
Warren, Joyce W. “Domesticity and the Economics of Independence: Resistance and Revolution in the Work of Fanny Fern.” The (Other) American Traditions: Nineteenth-Century Women Writers. Ed. Joyce W. Warren. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1993. 73-91. NetLibrary. Web. 6 Oct 2009.
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