SOURCE: "Craddock's Girls: A Look at Some Unliberated Women," in The Markham Review, Vol. 3, No. 4, October, 1972, pp. 74-7.

In the essay below, Nilles examines Murfree's stereotypical heroines.

". . . gals air cur'ous critters, ye know yerself; thar's no sort o' countin' on 'em . . ."

—"Dancin' Party at Harrison's Cove"

Even a cursory look at the heroines in the fiction of Charles Egbert Craddock (Mary Noailles Murfree, 1850-1922) reveals that they were the antithesis of "modern" or "liberated" women. These female characters were often shallow and shadowy repetitions of each other, usually simple and uneducated, dependent upon and completely submissive to males. They had little chance to determine their own lives and were considered weak beings, inferior to the stronger males in their fictional realm. In a rural Tennessee milieu of nearly a century ago, they were "charmin" and proper foils for the rounder, more believable men. Only a few possessed a...