The life of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman has too often been compared to that of the spinsters who populate much of her fiction. Although she lived most of her life in small New England villages and did not...
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Mary E. Wilkins Freeman ranks among the foremost interpreters of New England village and rural life. Though she may correctly be described as a local colorist, she is much more, for in her short stori...
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A small doll-like woman, who never wished to grow old and yet came to resemble so many of her aging heroines, created in her fiction the heart of New England's life and ethos. Mary Wilkins Freeman cre...
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In the following excerpt, Williams discusses Freeman's characters, particularly the female ones, from a variety of her short stories.
Many years have gone by since a writer in Harper's W...
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In the excerpt below, Fisken considers Freeman's ghost stories, particularly those featuring a lost girl, which she suggests may represent Freeman's ambivalence about her own choice to s...
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In the following essay, Cutter probes Freeman's attitudes toward post-Civil War stereotypes of femininity, focussing on “The Selfishness of Amelia Lamkin.”
The nineteenth century ...
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In the following essay, Gardner discusses how the relationships among characters in Freeman's short fiction run counter to prevailing treatments in sentimental literature of the era.
When we fi...
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In the essay below, Johnsen explores Freeman's use of cloth and clothing as principal images representing the artist's relationship to society in “An Honest Soul,” “...
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In the following essay, Marchalonis focuses on the stories in Understudies and Six Trees, maintaining that Freeman employed an “Other” from the natural world—a tree or an animal&#...
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In the below essay, Daniel interprets Freeman's use of enclosure imagery.
In writing about women and their “place” in nineteenth-century New England society, Mary Wilkins Freeman ...
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In the following essay, Shaw describes how Freeman utilized the conventions of mystery and detective fiction as well as elements of the infamous Lizzie Borden murder case in “The Long Arm. ...
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In the essay below, Canfield interprets what he sees as the humorous aspects of “A Conflict Resolved,” “The Poetess,” and “A New England Nun.”
In the traditio...
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In the following essay, Turkes uses Erik Erickson's psychological development model to evaluate various elderly female characters in Freeman's stories.
The revival of interest in the wor...
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In the below essay, Hirsch examines the compulsive behavior of Louisa, the female protagonist of “A New England Nun.” This behavior creates an undercurrent of tension throughout the stor...
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In the following essay, Sherman explicates the goddess imagery in the story “Christmas Jenny” from A New England Nun.
Mary Wilkins Freeman's story “Christmas Jenny” ...
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In the following essay, McElrath explores the four-phase narrative structure in “The Revolt of Mother” that culminates in an ending that is “vintage Howellsian realism” and...
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In the following excerpt, Donovan surveys the various mother-daughter relationships and strong female characters in Freeman's short stories.
Something is dying in the fictional world of Mary E....
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In the following essay, Oaks analyzes Freeman's ghost stories, maintaining that they portray the negative consequences possible when individual will overrides social conventions.
Mary Wilkins F...
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In the essay below, Meese discusses how Freeman uses conflicting cultural/literary, public/private, and personal/social codes to portray the complexity of the feminine gender. Meese also criticizes ea...
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In the following excerpt, Koppelman draws parallels between Freeman's life and her uncollected story “Two Friends.”
“A young writer should follow the safe course of writing...
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In the following essay, Cutter examines the different psychological orientations of the male and female characters in “The Revolt of Mother” as expressed through the characters' u...
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In Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's "A New England Nun" there are two Paralleling story lines. The main story line involves Louisa Ellis and her future wedding with Joe Dagget and the second story line is t...
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Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
