Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...

aising the age of consent, child custody laws, property rights, and the temperance
movement. 34
Second to the chastity stereotype was a divine dictate to nurture and train one’s
children well for society praised or blamed the mother for the child’s success in life. For
the first time, a son bonded with his mother as she instilled her vision of morality and
self-restraint. This was evident in the practice of sons writing letters to the mother rather
than to the father after leaving home. 35 As stated earlier, these mothers were not treated
well in contemporary literature. William James described the Victorian need to dominate
her children in 1907 as the “bitch goddess syndrome” which formed two new stereotypes:
the “bitch of conscience” (moral tyranny) and the “bitch of avarice” (a greed to
possess). 36 The resulting picture of the New England Victorian woman is a stoic, rigidly
moralistic but conniving female who achieves her own agenda through her husband and
children. This stereotype is represented in Show Boat by Parthenia Ann Hawkes, the wife
of the boat’s captain and mother of Magnolia.
The Post-Bellum Southern Belle
Before the Civil War, the Southern plantation wife enjoyed her domestic sphere
within a patriarchal community where the master ruled over the house and slaves as part
of his business sphere. Like her Northern sister, the Southern woman was in charge of
the home and her children. She also became the master-in-absentia for the family
34 Lasch, 163.
35 Pleck, 1951.
36 Freibert, “Images of Women in American Literature.”
47