Rivised Blog Two

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.

 Ruth Hall was a naive little girl who thought she just needed to improve her physical appearances to be loved by her family, but as she grew from adolescent to a mature woman, she realized there is a lot more to this world than what she originally thought. She suffered through her mother-in-law’s cruel behaviors, her parent’s abandonment, the loss of her first child, and her husband. She went hungry to make sure her kids ate. She used her brother’s negatives attitudes toward her as her motivation and became a bestselling author. Her braveness along with her humility touched the heart of readers.

            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 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 granddaughter.

            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 her pain get the best of her.  As a matter of fact, Ruth uses her pain and suffering to motivate herself and improves as a person.  I love how she proved 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 not have said in your face, but I would.  I thought that was the best part of the book.                   

Works Cited

Fern, Fanny. Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time. New York. Penguin Group, 1997. Print.