Sentiments, Symbolism, and the Hall House.

“On one side of the room hangs a piece of framed needle work, y the virgin fingers of the old lady, representing an unhappy female, weeping over a very high and very perpendicular tombstone, which is hieroglyphicked over with untranslatable characters in red worsted, while a few herbs, not mentioned by botanists are struggling for existence at its base... It was principally to preserve this chef-d’oeuvre of art, that the windows were hermetically sealed to the entrance of vagrant flies” (165).

By the time this passage occurs in chapter 58, Fanny Fern has given us ample opportunities to conclude that the Halls are utterly despicable, hypocritical, and ridiculous people-- shallow and unfeeling in their Christianity as they are in their familial obligations and the doctor’s business. However, Fanny Fern takes so much time with this image, that it must prove something even more fundamental about the Hall household, and I would posit in particular, the character of Mrs. Hall.
The tightly closed room is mentioned first in this chapter-- nothing goes in and nothing comes out, even on a day as hot as the one mentioned. This characteristic alone would be enough to set up the scene of Katy’s captivity in this emotionally arid, hostile environment, but we continue to the contents of the livingroom table-- the place where articles of daily, practical concern are trafficked in a household. In my own case, this surface on any given day could be populated by bills, boardgames, newspapers, catalogs, birthday cards, keys, pet supplies, and the remains of breakfast. In the Hall household, we are given four items of probable significance-- “the Pilgrim’s Pilot, last year’s Almanac, the Directory, and what is the likely equivalent of a tabloid story of a miraculous escape from scalping. 
 I think the point here is that what you keep in your house says something about how you live. We create special places for the things which are important and general spaces for everything else. There is nothing of Ruth or the children in this house (Katy is told to be seen and not heard, ironically making her into the ornament that the couple falsely criticizes Ruth for being). Farming, religious conversation, and common gossip all occupy an equal, mundane place here. There are no religious icons on the bare, white walls-- a place for images and items of which a household generally wants to make an example-- wants other people to see. There is mentioned only Mrs. Hall’s needlework, the preservation of which against all of nature, we are told the windows are so tightly shut.
This needlepoint is its own icon-- a cartoonish elevation not of self sacrifice within the Christian model but of Mrs. Hall’s own childish grief. Badly conceived, poorly executed and static, this is an image of self-pitying bitterness that not a thing in the world is permitted to touch or criticize-- not even a fly. This sentiment controls the house and everyone in it and makes the place an unconscious tomb from which no one can ever be reborn.