Setting The action takes place in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century on two Louisiana plantations, one called Valmonde, a family name, and the other called L'Abri (French for shelter). ... Themes Racism and Gender Bias Like many other American men of the mid-nineteenth century South, Armand Aubigny bases the worth of a person primarily on his or her race and gender. ...
According to Barbara Epstein, in Industrialization and Femininity: A Case Study of Nineteenth-Century New England, women were told that they had special abilities for raising children due to their innate warmth and morality. ...
What is the American family? This question was answered by John de Crevecoeur, in "what is the American?" (1782), when he said: "I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have four wives of different nations."1 In fact, Crevecoeur summarized the history of the American family, in particular, and the American man, in general. There are many kinds of family systems in the world; the English family is but one of them. ...
