Over the course of history, a recurring theme of American literature authors utilizing their stories as “moral purifiers” has manifested. These authors use their works of literature to attempt to draw attention to and reform ideals and occurrences that they deem wrong or immoral within their time period. Three stories that efficiently display this concept are “A New England Nun” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, “A Pair of Silk Stockings” by Kate Chopin, and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce.
One prevalent example of an attempt at moral purification by an American literature author is “A New England Nun” written by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. In this short story, Freeman denounces the societal ideal of the 1900’s that a woman is …show more content…
“In “A New England Nun” as well as many other of her stories according to Victoria Aarons, Freeman views marriage as a social institution that restricts women's mobility and freedom to find a comfortable position within male-dominated traditions”(Maik). Without a doubt, Freeman does not agree with the concept that it is a woman’s duty by birth to marry a husband. By writing her short story “A New England Nun” she aims to rectify the ideals of society which obligate women to wed because she sees marriage as simply a means of empowering the societal notion that women are dependent on a man. Incontestably, Freeman’s mentality that women should not be expected by society to have a husband is mirrored in her novel “A New England Nun” by the short story’s main character Louisa and this acts as a moral purifier. "If Louisa Ellis had sold her birthright she did not know it, the taste of the pottage was so delicious, and had been her sole satisfaction for so long. Serenity and placid narrowness had become to her as the birthright itself" (Freeman 17). Truly, Freeman utilizes Louis to