Hello, my name is Annalice Weatherly, and I am a student at LaGuardia Community college. In my ENG260 novel class, I decided for my second blog, it will be a Creative writing reflection based on Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall novel. In this blog, I explore a very specific part of the book that caught my interest.
One of the characters that truly intrigue me in Ruth Hall is Ruth’s mother-in-law Mrs. Hall. Mrs. Hall is a very peculiar woman. She preaches things she does not practice and she makes her own rules. She claims she is a Christian, but her actions prove otherwise. “Young people , now-a-days, seems to think that money comes in showers, whenever it is wanted; that’s a mistake; a penny at a time-that’s the way we got ours; that’s the Harry and you will have to get yours” (Fern 12). She is supposed to be a good Christian and yet she won’t give her own daughter-in-law a penny if she needs it. However, she doesn’t have any problem taking her daughter-in-law’s pension money from her. She is always lecturing Ruth on how to be a better person, yet she is the biggest hypocrite person that ever works this planet. “It is my opinion the child’s death was owing to the thriftlessness of her mother. I don’t mourn for it, because I believe the poor thing is better off” (Fern 50). What a cruel thing to say about a mother who just lost her child; the child being your own grand daughter.
The climax of the novel for me is Ruth’s success. Although Ruth is very intelligent, she is also very humble. She suffers a lot, but she does not let that justifies her. As a matter of fact, Ruth uses her pain and suffering to motivate herself and improve as a person. I love how she proves to everyone she could succeed. I would have paid anything to see the look in her mother-in-law’s face when she found out the book she loves so much had been written by non other than her hatred daughter-in-law. “Impossible! Screamed the old lady, growing very red in the face, and clearing her throat most vigorously” (Fern 261). Ruth would have said in your face, but I would. I thought that was the best part of the book.
