Fanny Fern

I love Fanny Fern's, "Mrs. Adolphus Smith Sporting the "Blue Stocking"." I love it now just as much as I did after reading it last semester in English 312 and I think the reason I love it so much is because I can identify with Mrs. Adolphus. I can completely identify with finally being able to find the time to sit down and write and focus only to be completely distracted with a million and one interruptions (like right now as I am trying to write this). I find the time in between to get work done and convey the message to my family that I am busy for them to completely ignore me and bug me with a bunch of questions that are not life and death and can wait to be answered after I finish the task I am working on. I also love the relationship between the wife and her husband. Fern captures the stereotype that men are incapable of doing anything remotely domestic with the example of the child choking and the husband not knowing what to do. The humor Fern writes with makes the tone of the poem so easy to understand and that is another factor that makes it so easy to relate to. Fern also captures the time period in which she wrote this beautifully. When she wrote this in the 1800s, women were only supposed to be wives and mothers and not really have a life outside the home. Fern shatters that image with this poem as she writes while so many other things in her home are occurring and with her husband saying, "Wife! will you leave off scribbling?". To me, that is the best example that women weren't supposed to be engaging in other activities that do not relate to their kids or husbands. I could continue to go on and on about how easy it is to relate to this poem and how much I love it but I think you all get the point by now.