Article
The Pacific Northwest (Re) Writes New England: Civic Myth and Women's Literary Regionalism in Ella Higginson's Revision of The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne Review
(2014)
Abstract
"Don't you see that we can never escape the results of a sin? We have to bear and suffer them always." (Ella Higginson, Mariella, of Out-West)
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When we scan a list of U.S. authors who were asked to contribute to a collection of written tributes honoring the 1904 centenary of Nathaniel Hawthorne's birth, it is perhaps unsurprising to see names of women closely identified with New England such as, for example, Katharine Lee Bates, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, and M. Alphonsa Lathrop (Rose Hawthorne Lathrop). (2) However, we might not necessarily anticipate that such a list would include a female author from what was then the far Pacific Northwest. (3) Indeed, that Pacific Northwest author Ella Rhoads Higginson (1862?-1940) was invited to pay written homage to Hawthorne may inform our impressions regarding both U.S. literary regionalism and Hawthorne's literary influence. Later in this essay I will turn to the Hawthorne tribute that Higginson wrote, but I wish to begin my discussion by focusing our attention on the role that Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter played in Higginson's writing.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2014
Publisher Statement
Published by the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society
Citation Information
Laura Laffrado. "The Pacific Northwest (Re) Writes New England: Civic Myth and Women's Literary Regionalism in Ella Higginson's Revision of The Scarlet Letter" Nathaniel Hawthorne Review Vol. 40 Iss. 1 (2014) p. 18 - 40 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/laura-laffrado/5/