Who Is Sarah Orne Jewett Changing Society

Sarah Orne Jewett: Changing Society Through Writing
Sarah Orne Jewett had a challenging life, struggling with rheumatoid arthritis and the death of her father in the late 1800’s. Amidst these challenges, she continued to write excellent novels that challenged the customs of the time (GVRL 2009). A famous saying of hers states, “How seldom a book comes that stirs the minds and hearts of the good men and women of such a village as this” (GVRL 1997). This saying connects to how her novels would make readers think differently. In Sarah Orne Jewett’s novel, The Country of the Pointed Firs, many of the characters are women and play a massive role in the plot, in the course challenging cultural and sexual norms. The novel is centered around a
The town of Dunnet Landing was known to be a quiet place, with a large number of widows who lacked the effort to socialize. This aspect about the town can be witnessed when the narrator says, “It was a long time after this; an hour was very long in that coast town where nothing stole away the shortest minute” (Jewett 9). When the author states, “nothing stole away from the shortest minute,” she is explaining how quiet and deserted the town can be at times, not to mention how boring it may be for her at times. On the other hand, the narrator does not always mind some silence, but there is a big contrast to her life in the bustling city compared to her current town where nothing happens. Later in the novel, the author continues to claim how quiet the town of Dunnet Landing as well as Green Island, an isolated island off the coast of Dunnet Landing. An example of the noiseless town appears when the narrator says, “For the village was so still that I could hear the shy whippoorwills singing that night as I lay awake in my downstairs bedroom, and the scent of Mrs. Todd’s herb garden under the window blew in again with every gentle rising of the seabreeze” (36). Although the calmness of the town is soothing to the narrator at night, she ends up believing that the town is too quiet and that there needs to be a change to save the town. After many days of making friends and traveling around the area, the narrator realizes that she is helping the people of the town and unifying them. Throughout the novel, the narrator attempts to make a wealth of different friends in the town through her writing and meeting residents as she explores the area, therefore changing the essence of Dunnet Landing and making the town more tight-knit. The narrator has a flashback to a lonely woman, living by herself on an island close by to Dunnet Landing after hearing a loud