Charlotte Temple: Rowson

During the last week we have been reading Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson in which the main character is Charlotte Temple who becomes another symbol of the fallen women in this story similar to that of The Scarlet Letter.
Rowson writes this novel as a cautionary tale for women in England that are thinking about "eloping" away from their families, possibly to join another man in marriage or as a mistress. However Rowson wrote this novel and it was the most popular piece of literature in the new western world, until the release of Uncle Tom's Cabin in the mid nineteenth century. In class the discussion didn't get focused on Rowson as a person or author and the conventions of the novel and how that is an inlet into Rowson as a person, her values, and morals.
First learning more about the biographical content of her life helps Charlotte Temple hold more significance, and truth to the constructs of the novel."Susanna Haswell was the daughter of an office in the Royal Navy. She grew up from 1768 in Massachusetts, where her father was stationed, but the family returned to England in 1778 .In 1792 she went on the stage with her husband, whose business had failed. The Rowsons performed in Scotland and in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston. Rowson also wrote numerous plays and musicals and in the process helped promote the development of the performing arts in the United States. Then when She retired in 1797 she opened The Young Ladies Academy in Boston, which was the first all girls boarding school in the colonies.
Knowing the biographical content of Rowsons life helps understand the story, she lived on the cusp of the Western Frontier to the New World. She also lived poor and working class for the majority of her life, raising children with her husband who had a failed business. Charlotte Temple and Rowson's biography I think speak part into the conventions used and her life story to compare with Charlotte Temple. As much as this novel goes through the themes of suffering and misogyny towards women, this novel served as a cautionary tale to alter the perception of women thinking they need to find a husband. Rather that they should be content to stay with their own families, until they find a proper situation for marriage if that is possible.
This novel reads like a play, the narrator constantly communicates with the reader through the titles of chapters or just side notes when reading. For example chapter 33 title is "Which People Void of Feeling Need Not Read" which is Rowson talking to the reader summing up the novel and if the reader is not connected with the text than there is not point in continuing reading. Some other things from her biography that translated to Charlotte Temple were this novel was probably released serially through periodicals in newspapers. Where the conventions of keeping tension is more crucial to keep the readers reading, which communicates to the pace of the rising action in the plot.

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Susanna-Rowson (Biographical Content)