Shaming the Self in "The Angel over the Right Shoulder"

Abstract

44AMERICAN women writers early concentrated on describing Z-k the social context that shapes the individual self, writes Judith Fetterley in her anthology of nineteenth-century women writers, Provisions.1 And few nineteenth-century women's texts illustrate this observation with as much insight and economy as one of the stories Fetterley includes in this anthology. First published in I852, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's The Angel Over the Right Shoulder concerns a married woman who, frustrated with the unstinting demands her household makes on her, attempts to set aside two hours each day for solitude and study.2 Instigated by her husband, Mrs. James's system is constantly undermined not only by the children and servants of the household but also by the husband himself (p. 209). Weighed down by despondency at the failure of this plan, Mrs. James goes to bed on New Year's Eve only to dream a dream that seemingly resolves her problems and dispels her unrest. Now she could see, plainly enough, that, though it was right and important for her to cultivate her own mind and heart, it was equally right and equally important, to meet and perform faithfully all those little household cares and duties on which the