Abstract


This paper attempts to locate the concept of “True" womanhood in Colonial and Early National American Fiction. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had confined the concept of womanhood in various ways. So, locating the forces behind this concept can help us gain a true insight into its evolution in present-day America. The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman was judged by society, could be divided into four fundamental virtues: piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Also, the integration of women into the American body politics was just as reluctant as its social counterpart. Ideas ran parallel and often built upon English and French Enlightenment political theory. This undermined image of women is widely detected in the various literary genres of the period. Women writers have been systematically excluded from the canon of American literature. For reasons related to the size and scope of this paper, focus will be on the genre of fiction as a representative area in which women were neglected as competitors to men writers. Notably, the dilemmas and stereotypes of womanhood seem to overlap repeatedly, irrespective, in many cases, of cultural contexts. This is an issue which requires and deserves further probing. And our Arab context is arguably a priority.
Key Terms: American womanhood – Stereotyping - Fundamental virtues - Body politics - Fiction