Mrs. Silence Dogood: A Self Analysis

Experiences I had working as an apprentice to my brother, James, and my subsequent running away resulted in my finding independence and establishing myself as a cool bean. When I was twelve, I was apprenticed to my brother, James, who was a printer; he started publishing The New England Courant when I was fifteen. Though I wanted to write for the paper, my brother rejected anything I submitted under my own name. Deciding that using a pen name would be the best way to get my writing in the paper, I carefully constructed the persona of Mrs. Silence Dogood, a middle-aged widow who made fun of life as she lived it, when I was sixteen. I scrawled a letter onto parchment and signed it with her name, later slipping it under the door of my brother’s office in …show more content…
Consequently, I decided to write more letters pretending to be this character. Letter after letter written with ink I obtained from the print shop was published in James’ newpaper. Remarkably, I was not suspected of being their author. However, I soon revealed that I was. James wasn’t very thrilled about this, and showed his appreciation for my contributions to the paper with a beating. I got welts on my back that thankfully faded after a few days in addition to bruises that stayed as reminders of my apparent infraction for a month. James continued accepting my letters, however, so there were no long-term consequences. When a certain controversial article I wrote appeared in the paper, the Assembly took offense to it and demanded to know who had written it. My brother was put in jail for a month on charges of “contempt” because of his refusal to answer, and I ended up being responsible for the paper while he was incarcerated. James was soon released on the condition that he wouldn’t run the Courant