Sarah Orne Jewett Characteristics

Works of literature are able to influence all forms of society, and the authors of said literature are the forces behind it. Sarah Orne Jewett is a notable author from the nineteenth century and wrote many short stories and novels. Most of these works directly reflect Jewett’s early life in the New England countryside, and the characters take on Jewett’s childhood characteristics. Sarah Orne Jewett is an important author because she displays the many aspects of early country life to the reader. Sarah Orne Jewett was born in 1849 in rural Maine. This date is very important because she was in her late teen years during the Civil War. Being from Maine, Jewett was not affected a great deal by the war, but the economic hardships the union
Martha Hale Shackford stated in an article on Jewett that “As a describer of the shore life of the state of Maine she is without an equal. The clear austerity of the air of northern New England is everywhere in these tales set among rocky shores and gray islands. The stimulating tang of salt breezes and the cool breath from the illimitable east meet here ; for those who know it she pictures the visionary beauty of the northland's clarity of light, its mysterious distances touched with receding shades of blue and dim green glimmering and fading into crystalline colorlessness” (Shackford). In “A White Heron”, Jewett is able to place the reader into the position of a poor young girl living in the countryside. She is able to give the reader the perspective of the world as seen through a child’s eyes. This perspective is arduous to replicate without having the experience of being a child in the countryside and experiencing the world as a young girl. Jewett’s rural childhood setting is apparent in multiple works including “The Country of the Pointed Firs”. The peculiar thing about this work is that it is said to “Have no plot” and the beauty of this work is Jewett’s ability to illustrate an image in the reader’s mind (Carolina). It is said that Sarah Orne Jewett’s stories are “always stories of character. Plots hardly exist in her work; she had little interest in creating suspense or in weaving together threads of varied interests” and that her stories are based on illustrating an image to the reader rather than using a plot to keep the readers intrigued (Shackford