The American Dream and American Greed in Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall: Sentimental and Satirical Christian Discourse in the Popular Domestic Tale

• Authors: Van Nyhuis, Alison

Abstracts

EN

Although Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time originally was a widely popular book in the nineteenth century, Fern and Ruth Hall were criticized after readers learned about the similarities among Fern’s life and book. Contemporary critics have recovered Ruth Hall from the literary margins and situated Ruth’s story in the context of the popular American dream story while emphasizing the book’s satirical elements. Reexamining the novel’s originally popular sentimental elements alongside the novel’s more recently popular satirical elements expands the literary critical focus from Ruth’s sentimental struggles and Fern’s satirical accomplishments to Ruth Hall’s equally important critique of American greed, especially among wealthy and socially-conscious Christians.

Keywords

EN

domesticity; literary marketplace; sentimentality; social class

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Analyses/Rereadings/Theories: A Journal Devoted to Literature, Film and Theatre
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 2

Dates

published

2015

Contributors

author

Van Nyhuis, Alison

other

Fayetteville State University

other

Alison Van Nyhuis earned her MA and PhD in English at the University of Florida, and she is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Fayetteville State University (FSU), a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina. Professor Van Nyhuis teaches undergraduate and graduate literature courses at FSU, and her essays and reviews have appeared in various literary journals. Her teaching and research interests include American and Caribbean literature, including authors' and critics' negotiation of the American dream

Identifiers

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/11089/21922