[Introduction to] The Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy

Authors

Terryl Givens, University of RichmondFollow

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Description

Nineteenth-century American writers frequently cast the Mormon as a stock villain in such fictional genres as mysteries, westerns, and popular romances. The Mormons were depicted as a violent and perverse people--the "viper on the hearth"--who sought to violate the domestic sphere of the mainstream. While other critics have mined the socio-political sources of anti-Mormonism, Givens is the first to reveal how popular fiction, in its attempt to deal with the sources and nature of this conflict, constructed an image of the Mormon as a religious and social "Other."

ISBN

9780195101836

Publication Date

1997

Publisher

Oxford University Press

City

New York

Keywords

Mormonism, Mormon church, Nineteenth-century literature, Mormons in literature

School

School of Arts and Sciences

Department

English

Disciplines

American Literature | Christian Denominations and Sects | Comparative Methodologies and Theories | History of Christianity | Nonfiction | Religion

Comments

Part of the Religion in America series.

Read the introduction to the book by clicking the Download button above.

Recommended Citation

Givens, Terryl. The Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.