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Literary critics typically consider Susan Warner's 1850 novel. The Wide, Wide World, a paradigm of the conventional domestic fiction of the mid-century -- a genre generally understood to promote home as central to the happiness of U.S. citizens. Such a generic classification at first seems only a benign reflection of the narrative movement of the novel. The protagonist, Ellen Montgomery, has lost her parents and must make her way through life alone; she becomes increasingly pious, submissive, and cheerful until she is ultimately rewarded with a suitable husband -- the minister John -- and thus the makings of domestic bliss. In such a way the narrative of The Wide, Wide World participates in the basic plot line of "domestic fiction." taking readers through its heroine's trials and tribulations to her heavenly home here on earth.(1)
The expectations of domestic felicity that accompany the term "domestic fiction" are dashed within Warner's narrative, however; ominous undercurrents beneath the surface of the text destabilize all promise of familial happiness. One scene, for instance, focuses on a conversation among several women about the minister John. A character comments, "Do you remember...the chastising [John] gave that fine black horse of ours we called the `Black Prince'? My conscience! [John] frightened me to death" (376). This violence. along with the novel's subsequent references to John's "judicious use of the whip and spur" (377), casts a menacing shadow over Ellen's future with this man. As one woman warns. "I advise you, Ellen....not to trust your pony to Mr. John; he will have no mercy on him" (377). The warning becomes even more troubling for Ellen, given that she, like the pony, needs to be domesticated. Throughout the novel, Warner's heroine exhibits demonlike characteristics that can never be quite contained: she has an uncontrollable, undomestic underside, which stands in contradistinction to the angel in the house. For instance. Ellen resists all household obligations: regarding her domestic duties, she unhappily muses, "I am doing nothing -- I am learning nothing -- I shall forget all I have learned directly" (141). Moreover, she is constantly battling a passionate anger that is referred to in the text as "evil spirits" (181), and Warner frequently draws parallels between Ellen and the novel's "bad girl." Nancy Vawse. While...