When we were discussing Mrs. Spring Fragrance today in class, I started thinking about the arranged marriage. I found it interesting that the Spring Fragrances were contempt in their marriage, that was arranged, but she wanted Laura to find love for herself. I took this to show that no matter how much Mr. Spring Fragrance thought that his wife was becoming and American, in fact she was helping Laura to Americanize.
In fact, I think that Mrs. Spring Fragrance had very little correct information about all Americans. She said that "many American women wrote books." (515) She says that Tennyson is an American (506). This lack of concrete and true knowledge lead me to question the letter that she sent about the lecture on protecting China. Her incorrect knowledge lead me to believe that it may have been a lack of knowledge that lead her to say this. The times she refers to males as the superior sex (509) even seemed in character since she is supposed to be subservient to her husband.
From this, I thought that Mrs. Spring Fragrance was trying to push Laura to find love because she wanted Laura to be American, especially since she herself was not very American.
Interesting. She isn't wrong (at all) in her claim about American women writing many books. That was true for almost all of the 19th century. It was, in many ways, the age of women writers.
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