The Frozen River

Throughout The Frozen River, Lawhon pays close attention to the systems of sexual shame, facilitated by Puritan culture, that oppress the women of Hallowell. Nearly all of the book’s female characters encounter threats of sexual shaming, censure or assault throughout the book: Martha marries Ephraim to save herself from social ruin after being raped; Rebecca Foster endures intense ostracization after coming forward with her accusations against North; Sarah White is openly mocked for having a baby out of wedlock, and both May Dawin and Sally Pierce hurry to marry their partners when they fall pregnant to avoid the same fate. Such profound fear of sexual shame has obvious negative emotional impacts, and as Lawhon outlines, it was a legally codified aspect of life in colonial New England:

The law, passed four years ago by the Massachusetts General Assembly, is bluntly titled ‘An Act for the Punishment of Fornication, and for the Maintenance of Bastard Children.’ It was designed to make sure that unwed mothers had a means of providing for their children, but in practice it is little more than a ritual of public shaming (66).

Lawhon’s novel implies that patriarchal institutions, such as the state court system, perpetuate a Puritanical culture of shame that dehumanizes and humiliates the book’s female characters.