Transcending Gendered English American Social Positions: Gender and Racial Multiplicity in The Female American; or, the Adventures of Unca Eliza Winkfield

Abstract

Early in The Female American, Unca Eliza Winkfield tells her readers, “I was obliged to run every risk” (Vol. I, 80).^1,2 With this statement, she reveals her personal nature and identifies herself as the classic, reluctant hero, pushed over the threshold of adventure by force of circumstance. As is often the case with this hero, both the call and the border crossing are unlooked for, unavoidable, and unwelcome. However, unlike other heroes, including Mary Rowlandson, Winkfield will not return to the everyday world with a boon to help her community. Instead, she will send the boon back to that world via an emissary, while she remains in the mythological underworld and makes her life there. In this way, she asserts her link to the development of the American hero within the American wilderness and among Native American peoples. With this voluntary action, Winkfield introduces a characteristic of the American frontier hero—that of consignment to the wilderness—which will become compulsory for later, male iterations of this hero.