Brent has a Ph.D. in American culture, specializing in film studies, from the University of Michigan. She is a freelance writer and teaches courses on the history of American cinema. In the following essay, Brent discusses the theme of death in Jewett's novel.

On first reading, Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs may strike the reader as lighthearted and quaint, depicting a series of quirky elderly characters in a quiet, sleepy town where not much happens. However, there is an atmosphere of darkness and death that permeates the novel, constituting a central focus of the narrative.

The inhabitants of Dunnet Landing encountered by the narrator are all between the ages of sixty and ninety years old. Because of their advanced age, they carry with them an awareness of their own approaching death. The awareness of their own mortality fills these characters with a sense of...