Women as Writers

The assumptions that were made about women as writers in Nathaniel Hawthorne's letter were not very positive ones. He states, "Besides, America is now wholly given over to a d---d mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash--and should be ashamed of myself if I succeeded." (Hawthorne, 364). First of all, to me, this statement is very arrogant. He is saying that if he was successful then his work would be considered trash, because that is all that Americans are interested in now, the "trash" of these women writers. Then he goes on to say that "worse they could not be, and better they need not be"(Hawthorne, 364). This is sad because his assumption about women's writings of that time were probably not far off from most others. These assumptions may have affected Rebecca Harding Davis in that she wrote her novella to please the reader (with the happy ending, etc.), maybe to the taste of men? After all, she did have much male influence in her writings.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Letter to George D. Ticknor. Rebecca Harding Davis. Life in the Iron Mills. 363-365.