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Article: "Feeling Right": Domestic Emotional Labor in The Wide, Wide World
- Article from:
- The Arizona Quarterly
- Article date:
- January 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Arizona Quarterly Winter 2005. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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The room was dark and cheerless; and Ellen felt stiff and chilly. However, she made her way to the fire, and having found the poker, she applied it gently to the Liverpool coal with such good effect that a bright ruddy blaze sprang up, and lighted the whole room. Ellen smiled at the result of her
experiment. "That is something like," said she to herself; "who says I can't poke the fire? Now, let us see if I can't do something else."
Susan Warner, The Wide, Wide World
THUS, WITH A SIMPLE POKE OF THE FIRE, little Ellen Montgomery begins her "experiment" with domestic labor. Her mother's serious illness makes Mrs. Montgomery unfit for housework, and Ellen recognizes the unspoken arrangement ...