Female Physicians in American Literature PDF
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Female Physicians in American Literature Female Physicians in American Literature traces the woman physician character throughout her varying depictions in 19th-century literature, from her appearance in sensational fiction as an evil abortionist to her more well- known idyllic, feminine presence in novels of realism and regionalism. “Murderess,” “hag,” “She-Devil,” “the instrument of the very vilest crime known in the annals of hell”—these are just a few descriptions of women abortionists in popular 19th-century sensational fiction. In novels of regionalism, however, she is often depicted as moral, feminine, and self- sacrificing. This dichotomy, Jessee argues, reveals two opposing literary approaches to registering the national fears of all that both women and abortion evoke: the terrifying threats to white, masculine, Anglo-American male supremacy. Margaret Jay Jessee, PhD (University of Arizona, 2012) is Associate Professor of English at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where she is also Director of the Undergraduate Program. She guest edited a special issue of Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Theory, and Culture on medical women in 19th-century American literature and her essay “‘Cutting Up Dead Babies’: The Literary Legacy of the Woman Physician as Abortionist” appears in Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Her other work has appeared in The Journal of Modern Literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne Review, South Atlantic Review, and in various essay collections. 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Wittman Female Physicians in American Literature Abortion in 19th-Century Literature and Culture Margaret Jay Jessee For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Focus-on-Literature/book-series/RFLT Female Physicians in American Literature Abortion in 19th-Century Literature and Culture Margaret Jay Jessee First published 2022 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Taylor & Francis The right of Margaret Jay Jessee to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-22843-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-22712-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-22844-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780367228446 Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC For all of the women in healthcare on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic. Contents Acknowledgments ix Preface xi Introduction: The Woman Physician Character and Anglo-American Nationalism 1 Fearing the Woman Physician as Trope 6 Abortion and Nationalism 10 1 An “Atrocious Foreign Woman”: White Nationalism and the Abortionist 17 The Sensation of Madame Restell 19 Embodying the Abortionist 25 2 The Corporeal Legacy of the Abortionist 32 Abortion and Melodrama 38 Sensation as White Supremacy 40 3 “Truly Womanly Work”: Sentiment and Reform Fiction 46 Radical Gender in the Social Problem Novel 50 The “Abominations” of the Woman Physician 54 4 Absorbing the Terror: The Idealized Woman Physician 59 Curing White Male Nationality 62 The Woman Physician as Christ Figure 68 viii Contents Conclusion: Curing the Sentimental Feminist with the “Doctress” 74 Genre and Gendered Medicine 79 Queering the Doctress 85 Affective Metanarratives 87 Index 90 Acknowledgments The seed of this project was planted almost 20 years ago in my Masters’ thesis project at the University of Tennessee under the direction of Mary E. Papke. Dr. Papke was my first academic mentor, and her guidance was an invaluable first step on the journey to completing this book. That MA thesis focused on women physician characters in three novels of American literary realism, and while I took a different path with my PhD research and subse- quent scholarship for many years after, I remained intrigued by the woman physician character and her significant role in the literature of the nineteenth century. I return to the subject with incredibly fond memories of my time in that program. Nancy Goslee and Thomas Haddox, who served on my thesis committee, completed a fantastic support system that I try to emulate with my own MA students. I am immensely thankful for supportive colleagues who helped me to shape this work from its infancy. I was fortunate enough to have a depart- ment chair, Alison Chapman, who suggested my research for The Theodore Haddin Arts and Sciences Forum, an ongoing lecture series at UAB’s Col- lege of Arts and Sciences. Delivering that talk was the real starting point of this book project, and without it, I am not sure if this project would have ever taken off. Her continued support of my work has made my research a pleasure. Lynda Zwinger’s tireless guidance throughout my doctorate work is a debt I could never repay. Her generosity went even further when she asked me to edit a special issue of Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of Ameri- can Literature, Culture, and Theory on “Medical Women in American Lit- erature,” and that project helped to shape my research focus, especially on the works published in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Other colleagues made me think, made me laugh, and gave me much- needed encouragement and support throughout this process in numerous ways, and without their mentorship and friendship, I am not sure I could have seen this project through to completion. Those colleagues include: Dale Bauer, Melanie Dawson, Myrto Drizou, Jennifer Haytock, Paul Ohler,
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