Refashioning the Domestic Novel: Literary Form and Fanny Fern’s Biopolitical Imagination in Ruth Hall
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Abstract
Drawing upon the Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse (2008, 2018) explanation of the form of early American novels, Emily Steinlight’s (2018) concept of “demographic surplus” and Michel Foucault’s (1978/2007) concept of “population” and “mechanisms of security,” this paper seeks to extend the discussion of the importance of the presence of the population in Ruth Hall and Fanny Fern’s (1855/1997) imagination of a form of government suitable for mid-nineteenth century America. By doing so, I suggest that Ruth Hall can be considered a novel that shares the legacy of the literary tradition that was once believed to be exclusive to male writers.
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