The Foreigner (1900): Motherhood, Immigration, and Rural Maine

Narrative Frame and Spiritual Reunion. "The Foreigner" (1900) is the fourth Dunnet Landing tale that Jewett wrote after publishing The Country of the Pointed Firs. It provides insight into the role of motherhood in that work, in addition to detailing further the hardship and isolation of life in rural Maine. Through the course of events related by the same unnamed narrator who appears in Pointed Firs, we learn the tragic experience of Mrs. Tolland, a French Catholic woman who married into an old Dunnet Landing family but was never accepted by village society.

Much of the tale is related as a story within a story that is told by the narrator's landlady, Mrs. Todd, who recalls the circumstances surrounding Mrs. Tolland that took place 40 years earlier. Mrs. Todd thinks of the previous event because an August storm that is raging outside reminds her of the storm that was blowing on the day of Mrs. Tolland's death. She also recalls this event because Mrs. Tolland died in the absence of her mother, and Mrs. Todd is worried that the high winds and roaring waves driven by the present gale pose a danger to her mother, who lives on Green Island.

In the final moments of her life, Mrs. Tolland experiences the spirit visitation of her own mother and takes comfort in the certainty of reunion with her in the next life. Mrs. Todd, who witnessed this event and actually saw the ghost of the dying woman's mother, also takes comfort from this event. Knowledge of the reunion ahead leads Mrs. Todd to the conclusion that there is a world beyond, and our aim in this life is to bring the two worlds together: "We've got to join both worlds together an' live in one but for the other" (186)—which is to say that the spirit of all-embracing motherhood should be the guiding force in our mortal lives.

The Mothering Principle and Biblical Echoes. Mrs. Todd's conclusion is particularly important because it first occurred to her years before she met the narrator and helps explain why she has been so welcoming of the other woman, despite the fact that the narrator is a temporary visitor to Dunnet Landing. The spirit of motherhood that so interests Jewett is most clearly expressed by Mrs. Todd's mother, who refused to support the village rejection of Mrs. Tolland and directed her daughter to intervene: "I want you to neighbor that poor lonesome creatur'," says mother, to me, lookin' reproachful. "She's a stranger in a strange land" (169). Jewett's incorporation of biblical language that harks back to the exile of the Hebrew people suggests the ancient nature of the mothering principle that she presents as a desirable foundation for all human relations.

As readers, we share Mrs. Todd's wish to benefit from her mother's rebuke and are glad to see her provide Mrs. Tolland what comfort she can. We also see that there are benefits to her personally, as through her association with Mrs. Tolland she acquires additional knowledge of herbs: "She taught me a sight o' things about herbs I never knew before" (170). As we know from Pointed Firs, Mrs. Todd makes her living as an herbalist, an art that she has been able to develop even further through her willingness to embrace a foreigner.

Jewett's Motives: Regional Hospitality and Immigrant Reception. Jewett may have several motives in drawing attention to foreigners and the need to make them feel welcome. Certainly as a writer with strong regional interests, she would want her national readership to be more welcoming of the strange-seeming denizens of rural New England, who may at times appear odd in the eyes of other Americans, but who also have gifts to offer. Another motive may have been to urge a warmer reception for the waves of immigrants who sometimes appeared to assault America's shores like the storm that frames Jewett's story.

Mrs. Tolland is, after all, of uncertain racial and cultural heritage. We know that she had been married previously to Captain Tolland's taking her to Dunnet Landing; that he met her in Kingston, Jamaica; and that she angered the villagers of Dunnet Landing with her singing and dancing. It may be that Jewett casts her in an unspecified exotic aura in order that readers might see her as representative of any number of immigrant groups struggling to establish a foothold in America.

For Discussion or Writing. The following prompts invite further analysis of Jewett's thematic and narrative techniques.
1. Why do you think Jewett draws so much attention to Mrs. Tolland's guitar? Notice especially the passage in part 5 where the storm wind stirs the strings of the guitar just after Mrs. Tolland dies. Describe the possible symbolic significance of the guitar.

2. Henry James's story Daisy Miller presents an account of hostility to a foreigner that in many ways parallels Jewett's tale about Mrs. Tolland, except that in his story the foreigner is an American. Explain what you see as the advantages or disadvantages of reading both of these works together.

3. Locate as many passages as you can that provide background information and physical descriptions of Mrs. Tolland. On the basis of this information, provide an analysis of her character that you connect to a central theme you see running through Jewett's tale.