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Although all of the nineteenth-century women writers in this study recognized and dealt with in their works the significance of economics for women, only a small proportion of those writers publicly advocated woman’s economic independence. In this chapter I will look at the arguments of three authors who emphasized financial independence for women, thus breaking with the dominant ideology of their society. In their first significant works of fiction, Fanny Fern (1811–1872), Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), and Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860– 1935) portrayed the terrifying effects of absolute dependence for women. In Ruth Hall (1855) Fern portrays the destitution that can result when a woman remains ignorant of money matters and wholly dependent on a husband whose death leaves her and her children penniless. In Alcott’s novel Moods, first published in 1864 and then revised in 1882, Alcott portrays a young woman who suΩers from moods of melancholia and malaise but who dreams of a life of experience and adventure, such as might be available to a man. After her marriage, she feels the loss of her individuality and finds herself increasingly tormented by the awareness that she is no more than a possession of her husband.And in “TheYellow Wallpaper” (1892), Gilman portrays a woman who goes mad because her husband, her doctor, and society as a whole insist that the “cure” for her depression is the total suppression of her individuality. She must not think for herself, and she must not “do” anything. Intellectual stimulaWoman ’s Economic Independence Fern, Alcott, and Gilman chapter nine tion and productive activity are forbidden. Reduced to childlike dependence , she goes insane. It is not surprising that all three of these works—Ruth Hall, Moods, and “The Yellow Wallpaper”—were misunderstood by their contemporaries ; the secrets that they revealed about women and marriage were not publicly acknowledged, and their call for woman’s independence was too radical for the time. Contemporary reviewers of Ruth Hall focused on the satirical aspect of the novel and the author’s “unfeminine” writing , wholly missing Fern’s emphasis on economic independence for women.1 Similarly, early readers of Moods focused on the love triangle and failed to see Alcott’s psychological exploration of a young woman’s development; a theme focusing on the development of a woman’s selfhood was invisible to critics who did not think that a woman had a self to develop or who regarded the female self as beside the point.2 And for years, Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was regarded as primarily a Poeesque horror story; the author’s point regarding women’s need for autonomy was wholly overlooked.3 For these authors, the problem was to find an answer to a question that most of their contemporaries did not even acknowledge was a question: How can a woman gain economic independence in a society that denies autonomy to women and regards women and money as definitionally opposed? Their early works introduced the question, and in their succeeding works and in their own lives, Fern, Alcott, and Gilman attempted to answer it. • r • The central theme of Fanny Fern’s 1855 novel Ruth Hall is woman’s economic independence. I have discussed other aspects of this novel in previous chapters, and in this chapter I will focus primarily on Fern’s newspaper articles. However, it is important to look first at her development of the theme of economic independence in the novel. In Ruth Hall, when the protagonist’s husband dies, leaving her and her children destitute, and with only grudging help from her family, she must find a way to earn her living. Unable to earn enough money as a seamstress, and failing to obtain a position as a teacher, Ruth decides to attempt to support herself by her writing. She asks her editor brother, Hyacinth, for his help, and woman’s economic independence • 2 8 1 when Hyacinth refuses to help her, his denigration of her work only intensi fies her determination to succeed. “I can do it, I feel it, I will do it,” Ruth declares when she receives his cruel letter.4 The italicized words in her assertion and the reiterated “I” indicate a significant break with the passive selflessness of traditional feminine behavior. Remembering her father’s unkind treatment of her daughter when the child was dispatched to ask him for a dollar for the rent when Ruth was sick, Ruth determines that henceforth she...

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