Narrative Voice

The Country of the Pointed Firs is narrated in the first-person, meaning that the narrator is a character in the story and that the perspective she presents to the reader is limited to her own personal observations. The narrator is not named at any point in the book, and little direct information about her is provided. She indicates that she is middle-aged, is a writer, and has come to Dunnet Landing from the city to spend the summer working on a long writing piece. Critics have often praised Jewett for the skill with which she creates the narrative voice in this novel; the narrator is not simply an objective observer of the events she records, nor is she overly intrusive in imposing her own opinions on the reader.

Embedded Narrative

Throughout the narrative of The Country of the Pointed Firs, Jewett employs a literary device known as...