Only brunettes date Indians : women in nineteenth-century American historical novels : [an honors thesis (HONRS 499)]

Many contended over the formation of "the American identity" after the American Revolution. Independence and breaking ties from Europe left questions about peoples' proper places and roles open for debate. The dialogue over appropriate roles extended to gender. Historians have put forward various models of gender role development after the Revolution, including the republican mother and the separate spheres paradigm. Popular literature, most importantly historical fiction, in its attempt to reflect and solidify the unique American character, and its evaluation lends much to the discussion of gender ideals in the early republic. This project includes the analysis of three novels from the historical fiction genre: Hobomok, by Lydia Maria Child, The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper, and Nick of the Woods, by Robert Montgomery Bird. The novels female characters and their treatment by the authors reflect the debate of larger society over appropriate gender roles. Hobomok, The Last of the Mohicans, and Nick of the Woods reflect this contemporary concern as well as the ascendancy of the ideology of separate spheres. Whereas Child contends that women should have a larger role in white society, Cooper refutes this in The Last of the Mohicans, and by the time that Bird writes, female instrumentality has become a moot point. The title "Only Brunettes Date Indians" is adapted from rhetorical devices used in two of the novels in which a highly socialized Fair lady, the paradigm of civilized morality, is contrasted with a socially alienated Dark lady, symbolic of wanton sexuality and forbidden knowledge. This comparison highlights gender role ambiguity and allows authors to depict two very different behaviors in women and the consequences for each.Honors CollegeThesis (B.?.