Controlled Identities: From Reality to Fantasy in Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie

Abstract

In her prominent novel, Hope Leslie (1827), Catharine Maria Sedgwick explores the delicate and complex relationship between Natives and white settlers in the seventeenth century as it defines American history through the two female protagonists: Magawisca and Hope. Magawisca and Hope’s complex relationship to their respective communities conflict with their own worldviews, thus leading them to conform to and subvert their roles throughout the novel. In this essay, I trace two possible outcomes for America’s future by following Hope and Magawisca’s differing paths with fantasy and reality. In doing so, I argue that Sedgwick highlights the respective natures of these female characters, and how they come to embrace the roles their communities expect them to play. This paper posits the ideals of gender and race in relation to Magawisca and Hope to contextualize how they find their place as individuals within their community and religion. They approach their complex relationship with their roles differently, because their race and communities’ expectations impact them differently. Their journeys offer them nuanced perceptions of their identity, and they eventually conform to their roles with a better understanding of their place in their communities.