Nostalgia in "Poor Joanna" and "The Hermitage"

History comes alive through the process of remembrance. In the chapters "Poor Joanna" and "The Hermitage" in Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs, the recollection of Joanna's life illustrates how nostalgia is experienced through storytelling between the women of Dunnet Landing.

There are several characteristics about nostalgia that can be gathered from the conversations between Mrs. Todd, Mrs. Fosdick, and the narrator. The most obvious is perhaps the setting where these stories were told.

The telling of the tale in "Poor Joanna" began when the narrator invited Mrs. Todd and her old friend Mrs. Fosdick into her room to keep her company. Mrs. Todd took to her knitting "because Mrs. Fosdick was busy with hers." When Mrs. Fosdick alluded to the name of Joanna for the first time, she said, "I was talking o' poor Joanna the other day… Mis’ Brayton an’ I recalled her as we sat together sewing." It seems that nostalgia and memory were evoked when women gathered in a house or a room, engaged in the quiet activity of clothe-making. It gave them the chance to talk, listen, and reminisce about the past.

Looking back together, these women might begin a conversation with a general memory of town in the past, but their retrospection often narrowed to a single focal person. In "Poor Joanna," as Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Fosdick sat knitting, each in their rocking-chairs, they began to talk about Shell-heap Island, first about the rumors of the "Old Indian times," which evoked a recollection of the day and age when whaling voyages existed and there were many "queer folks" and "a good many curiosities of human natur'" in their neighborhood. After lamenting the rise of "copy-cats" through the years, Mrs. Fosdick alluded to the name for the first time.

Both Mrs. Fosdick and Mrs. Todd knew Joanna, which gave them a deep sense of connection as they reflected on the life of this hermit. As Mrs. Fosdick puts it, "It does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance that knows what you know... Conversation’s got to have some root in the past." Thus, from Mrs. Fosdick's point of view, nostalgia is more than a lonely, imaginative journey to the past; it is joint visit to a historical time and place. It is as much about deepening the present relationship with each other as it is about recalling the past. As the narrator observed later, "The two women had drawn closer together, and were talking on, quite unconscious of a listener."

Talking about the past can be an emotional experience, yet the women were seldom afraid to show their feelings. The narrator noted that, at the mention of Joanna's name, Mrs. Todd lost "her sad reserve in the growing sympathy of these reminiscences." In other places, the narrator described how Mrs. Todd either "sadly shook her head as if there were things one could not speak about," was "confused by sudden affectionate feeling," or spoke "sorrowfully," "soberly," or "mournfully" about her contact with Joanna. As for Mrs. Fosdick, she fidgeted "with eagerness to speak" and "leaned back in her rocking-chair and gave a heavy sigh." Once, she asked Mrs. Todd what Joanna said, and the narrator described Mrs. Fosdick as "much moved." The visitor told her old friend: "Hearin' you tell about Joanna brings the time right back as if 't was yesterday."

Indeed, the women's conversations brought back memories of a time so long ago, but in their old age, these women have taken on new perspectives on old stories. In an earlier conversation, the narrator speculated that "by the polite absent-minded smile on Mrs. Todd’s face [the story Mrs. Fosdick was telling] was no new story." This was probably true, too, with the story of Joanna, but Mrs. Fosdick admitted a change of attitude towards Joanna: "I called her a great fool, but I pitied her then, and I pity her far more now… Her troubles hurt her more than she could bear. I see it all now as I couldn’t when I was young." Even though there were more peculiar personalities in Dunnet Landing in the past, the women were not necessarily very understanding of Joanna's situation and choice. Nevertheless, Mrs. Fosdick remarked that she could "see it all now," with a new comprehension that did not exist when she was younger.

All these features mentioned above characterize the experience of nostalgia among the women of Dunnet Landing. There are of course other aspects of nostalgia that can be explored, including the attention to details and the significance of objects and locations in evoking these memories. But they are secondary when we want to focus on how the women reminisce, rather than what. As exemplified in the entire work by Sarah Orne Jewett, human connection is at the heart of all stories. It is both the reason and the means through which we bring back the past.