Local Color Fiction and A Country Doctor Annmicha Blugh College

Local color is a genre of literature which seeks to record a specific way of life at a certain time and space therefore the main components of a local color fiction is: One of the prime features undoubtedly of local color fiction is location – temporal and spatial. Jewett takes meticulous care in detailing the rural village of Oldfields, Boston. The very name of the novel “A Country Doctor” already gives the book local color character for its rural setting. Oldfields is situated in a quiet wilderness inhabited by a few residents where the characters’ movements are confined to this space. Dunport is also another rural setting and Jewett describes it for the reader as Nan visits her aunt, Anne Prince. Because of the natural country setting, the pastoral genre has a clear influence. The romanticism of the times and sentimentality come into play.

The whole point of local color fiction is to recapture and preserve the past through literature. Hence the detailed location arouses feelings of nostalgia accompanied by the romanticizing of the past golden age when things were idealized. “It will be good to remember the white rose road … and…, I wonder if they will have to others a tinge of sadness; … fresh and delighted consciousness of...