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by Sarah Orne Jewett (Author)
Sarah Orne Jewett. The book, which was first published in 1884, was based on the relationship between Jewett and her physician father. The main character of A Country Doctor, Nan, is a young woman that encounters much strife when she decides to go against the traditional values of the day and become a doctor. Analysis The work has been compared to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward's Doctor Zay, which also depicted a woman seeking a medical career in the late 1800s. 3] The book has been listed as an example of the shift in the perception of the role of women in society, with the main character of Nan choosing to pursue her career in medicine rather than a marriage and family.Themes addressed in A Country Doctor include the difficulty of meshing together the past and the future.The role of women in society, the eschewing of traditional roles and gender conventions, and whether or not it is possible for a woman to choose both a family and a career is also brought up as a theme in the novel.There is also reference within the book to the idea that "all people, regardless of sex, receive individual vocational calls"....... Sarah Orne Jewett (September 3, 1849 - June 24, 1909) was an American novelist, short story writer and poet, best known for her local color works set along or near the southern seacoast of Maine. Jewett is recognized as an important practitioner of American literary regionalism. Jewett's family had been residents of New England for many generations, and Sarah Orne Jewett was born in South Berwick, Maine.Her father was a doctor specializing in "obstetrics and diseases of women and children." and Jewett often accompanied him on his rounds, becoming acquainted with the sights and sounds of her native land and its people.As treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that developed in early childhood, Jewett was sent on frequent walks and through them also developed a love of nature. In later life, Jewett often visited Boston, where she was acquainted with many of the most influential literary figures of her day; but she always returned to South Berwick, small seaports near which were the inspiration for the towns of "Deephaven" and "Dunnet Landing" in her stories. Jewett was educated at Miss Olive Rayne's school and then at Berwick Academy, graduating in 1866. She supplemented her education through an extensive family library. Jewett was "never overtly religious," but after she joined the Episcopal church in 1871, she explored less conventional religious ideas. For example, her friendship with Harvard law professor Theophilus Parsons stimulated an interest in the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth-century Swedish scientist and theologian, who believed that the Divine "was present in innumerable, joined forms - a concept underlying Jewett's belief in individual responsibility." She published her first important story in the Atlantic Monthly at age 19, and her reputation grew throughout the 1870s and 1880s. Her literary importance arises from her careful, if subdued, vignettes of country life that reflect a contemporary interest in local color rather than plot. Jewett possessed a keen descriptive gift that William Dean Howells called "an uncommon feeling for talk - I hear your people." Jewett made her reputation with the novella The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896).A Country Doctor (1884), a novel reflecting her father and her early ambitions for a medical career, and A White Heron (1886), a collection of short stories are among her finest work. Some of Jewett's poetry was collected in Verses (1916), and she also wrote three children's books. Willa Cather described Jewett as a significant influence on her development as a writer, and "feminist critics have since championed her writing for its rich account of women's lives and voices."............
