The Diction Of Dr Jewett

In Willa Cather’s essay she unfolds Sarah Jewett’s ability to express her feeling for writing through her diction to form art. In Sarah Jewett’s novel, her feeling for writing is shown through her main character who came to New England to write her own novel. Jewett shows the struggles she feels when writing her own novels through her character. In one of the passages she writes, “Literary employments are so vexed and uncertainties at best and and it was not until the voice of conscience sounded louder in my ears than the sea on the nearest pebble beach that I said unkind words of withdrawal to Mrs. Todd”(18). Miss. Jewett uses antagonizing diction in this passage from her story, in regards to expressing her feeling towards writing. She shows her main character struggling with trying to write when using the words “vexed” and “uncertain” to show how irritated and unsure what to write about.

Jewett writes, she notices the feelings Jewett portrays with her diction and writes it in her own essay, “Miss. Jewett”. In Cather’s own words she writes, “One can, as it were, watch in process the two kind of making: the first, which is full of perception and feeling but rather fluid and formless; the second, which is tightly built and significant in design. The design is, indeed, so happy, so right, that it seems inevitable; the design is the story and the story is the design” (1). This passage from the essay, “Miss Jewett”, justifies how diction is used to create art in writing. Willa Cather uses words like, “design”, “full of perception and feeling” and “two kinds of making”, to justify how authors’ have the ability to express their feelings through their writing. Authors like Sarah Jewett who was able to portray her feelings towards