'The Third Sex': Interpellation of the Woman Physician in Nineteenth-Century Literature

As American women entered the medical profession for the first time, the literature of the late nineteenth century America reflects the debates surrounding women professionals. I will focus on three novels written during this controversial and interesting time. William Dean Howells's Dr. Breen 's Practice (1881) and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's Dr. Zay (1882) deal with similar subjects, both novels portraying a female doctor and her struggle to decide between marriage and a career. Published in 1884, Sarah Orne Jewett' s A Country Doctor was the third novel seen in three years with a female doctor as the main character.

The focus of this project will be to investigate the historical framework surrounding these novels in greater depth than has been done in the past. Many critics either largely ignore the historical context, or they only touch on it superficially. It is important to revisit the ongoing debates of the time concerning women professionals to determine how gender ideology is both subverted and supported in these texts. That is, the debate over woman's role in society is the rhetorical/historical exigency out of which these novels are produced. It is therefore important to read these novels closely and to locate the origin of the discussions that take place within the novels about the professionalization of women in order to understand how each novel is a representation of the limitations placed upon women who wanted something other than a family.