Talk:Ruth Hall (novel)

Criticism and Theory on Ruth Hall
In "Renovating Domesticity in Ruth Hall, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Our Nig", Jennifer Larson argues that when women follow the conventional path of domesticity and allow themselves to be subordinate to men, they allow themselves to be oppressed. However, when women liberate themselves by entering the market place, they are able to "renovate" their lives and succeed in and out of their home and become their own individual. Larson, Jennifer. "Renovating Domesticity in Ruth Hall, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Our Nig." Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 38.5 (2009): 538-558. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 5 Oct 2010. -- Princessstephanie91 (talk) 18:24, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * According to Harnett in his article "The Cheerful Brutality of Capitalism", Ruth Hall was primarily written in sentimental prose, however is ironic because Fern structures her novel around the fundamental contradiction of the cheerful brutality of capitalism. He than goes on to emphasis how capitalism is “liberating and oppressive, creative and destructive, progressive and conservative.”  He urges that Ruth hall is a sentimental novel, which focuses on emotions of both the readers and the characters.  Harnett brings in the capital aspect to his thesis when explaining the money Ruth has encountered by becoming a writer. He emphasizes many conversations between Ruth and Mr. Walter.  He notes that the ending of Ruth Hall in a sense does not fit and complicates the sentimental novel because it ends with Ruth having a “social-climbing” which occurs in the world of capitalist.  Fern's ending of Ruth Hall has an economic and political ending end with victory for the capitalist culture of industry and stands ironic for the sentimental novel.

Harnett, Stephen. “Fanny Fern’s 1855 Ruth Hall, the Cheerful Brutality of capitalism and the Irony of Sentimental Rhetoric”. Quarterly Journal of Speech, Feb. 2002. 1-18. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. --caterina827 (talk) 18:24, 6 Dec 6 2010 (UTC)


 * According to Joyce Warren in Stephen Hartnett's article, "The Cheerful Brutality of Capitalism," Fanny Fern’s depiction of Ruth Hall’s financial success helped 19th century women transcend gender restrictions, despite social norms. Amasc505 (talk • contribs) 18:21, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Linda Grasso, in her article "Anger in the House: Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall and the Redrawing of Emotional Boundaries in 19th Century America," writes that the publication of Ruth Hall allowed an analogy to be drawn between the conditions of American women and African slaves, which in turn, allowed women's rights activists to adopt the discourse of abolitionists. This legitimized anger and outrage as perfectly "womanly" responses to oppression, as opposed to the Christ-like "suffering servant" response that was being propagated by both men and women alike at the time. Mzazzarino (talk) 18:23,


 * According to Jennifer Harris in "Marketplace Transaxtions and Sentimental Currencies" in order to fulfill her newly acquired role of rightful and legal protector of her children, Ruth Hall is obligated to abandon her sentimental feminine voice and labor for financial capital in order to secure her vocation, motherhood. Harris, Jennifer. "Marketplace Transactions and Sentimental Currencies in Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall." American Transcendental Quarterly 20.1 (2006): 343-359. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 5 Oct. 2010. --

DaSe2110 (talk) 18:30, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

We are working to develop the criticism and theory section on Ruth Hall. Please help us with your comments. --Jentuser (talk) 12:15, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hey all, that looks good and sounds like some great information, I would suggest figuring out how this information can be integrated into the article itself with WP:Inline citations. As you can see, hardly any of the information currently in the criticism section has any citations thus can not be verified; so Be Bold !!!! and feel free to delete some of that information if you find that it doesn't make sense with what you have been reading while adding your own. In line citations should be easy for example on the example by Princessstephanie91, when you integrate the comment into the article you simply add the code
 * after the information in the article which the citation supports. This tells readers exactly where the information came from. If you want to do a citation like "Larson 540" just add and then make sure that the source is referenced in the "Sources" section with an asterisk before the text for the citation so that the software adds a bullet. Both forms of inline citation are correct.
 * On a more scholarly note, you don't have to have the title of the work as a reference in the main body text unless it is extremely significant to the scholarship, the name of the scholar should be fine. Inline citations allow users to click on the little footnote number at the end of the content and check out the citation for the work at the bottom of the article, thus we don't have the limitations that paper works do where you have to look somewhere else in the publication for that kind of information. Sadads (talk) 19:17, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * On a more scholarly note, you don't have to have the title of the work as a reference in the main body text unless it is extremely significant to the scholarship, the name of the scholar should be fine. Inline citations allow users to click on the little footnote number at the end of the content and check out the citation for the work at the bottom of the article, thus we don't have the limitations that paper works do where you have to look somewhere else in the publication for that kind of information. Sadads (talk) 19:17, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your input; I can't wait to share this with students next week! We will work to put it on the article page soon, and I will share our projects page and ask everyone to sign up so we can begin working with mentors. Thanks again, Jentuser (talk) 19:39, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Grasso argues that the story of Ruth Hall was an attempt to to liberate women and embellish their full potential as human beings. She contends that God has given woman the ability to be intelligent and so they should be able to utilize this ability through writing as well. -- (talk) 3 December October 2010 (UTC)

Good luck
Good luck with your project. You may have seen these before, but these are a few featured articles (FAs) you might find useful The Penelopiad, Mary: A Fiction, Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman, The Well of Loneliness, To Kill a Mockingbird and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. At the other end of things are the articles that, despite best intentions, didn't fly such as In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose and  Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence. Perhaps have a look to see how they differ encyclopaedically and why they succeed as Wikipedia articles or not. This list (scroll down) gives some of the best novel articles. I find it useful to look at great articles for cues as to how to reference, organise text, to nick code from etc. Feel free to ask for any help on my talk page. I'm no expert but am happy to help where I can. Best wishes Span (talk) 05:49, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Do I need to log in to post? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.68.240.8 (talk) 15:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Not for basic Wikipedia editing, no. Span (talk) 15:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article was the subject of an educational assignment at St. John's University supported by WikiProject Novels and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2010 Fall term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:19, 2 January 2023 (UTC)