40 pages • 1 hour read
Karen CushmanThe Midwife's Apprentice
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Alyce/Brat/Beetle
Alyce (also Brat and sometimes Beetle) is the protagonist and main point-of-view character of The Midwife’s Apprentice. Living without a home or family and unsure of her age or much else about herself, Alyce begins the book focused primarily on her most immediate needs—food and shelter—keeping herself alive by stealing the occasional turnip or onion and leaving town each time she is run off.
At the beginning of the book, Alyce has the “frightened air of an ill-used child” (2), which represents both the emotional journey she takes as well as how much she changes over the course of the story. As Brat, Alyce is timid and unsure, deferring to others and giving in to her fear so that she only takes definitive action by accident or after waffling about what to do. Nonetheless, she proves herself to be both resourceful—choosing to sleep in a dung heap due to its warmth—and generous and kind, as evidenced by her sharing her food and space with the cat.
Adopting the name Alyce jumpstarts her growth and character arc. Rather than frightened and hesitant, Alyce becomes bolder and more confident, speaking her mind and taking clear measures to better her situation. This leads to overconfidence and the second half of her character arc, which entails rebuilding herself in the wake of failing to deliver a baby—an event that shakes her deeply. Alyce’s journey exemplifies how Confidence Builds Self-Worth. Only after she starts to believe in herself does she grow. By the end of the novel, she not only has choices and the freedom to consider them but understands what she wants and has the confidence to go after it.
Jane
Jane is the village midwife, an antagonizing character, and the most influential character on Alyce’s character arc. When Alyce first sees her, she thinks that Jane is “an important-looking woman, with a sharp nose and a sharp glance” (4), and this description matches Jane’s personality. Though her role in the village is important, as she is the lone midwife, Jane is also full of self-importance and arrogance. She uses her skills and status to manipulate people into paying her more than she needs, and she often leaves behind those who cannot afford her fees. Even her acceptance of Alyce is transactional, as she needs someone to fetch supplies and clean linens.
Jane is sharp not only in her business dealings but also in her methods as a midwife. Often, delivering babies involves her yelling insults at the mother or using physical force and abuse, which is a direct contrast to the soothing methods Alyce learns to employ via Will. Jane represents the difficulty of her profession during medieval times when the book is set. Childbirth was a dangerous process then, often resulting in the death of either or both the child and the mother—the narrative notes that Jane herself lost all six children to whom she gave birth. Nonetheless, she has experience, which Alyce—who has gained knowledge of herbs and remedies and methods to calm mothers—still lacks.
While Jane is mostly a static character, she does display some care and concern for Alyce that is most evident during her exchange with the magister. Her visit to the inn after Alyce exiles herself suggests that she needs—or wants—Alyce around more than she has previously let on.
Will Russet
Will Russet is a minor character, one of the village boys who initially torments Alyce, who refers to him as a “redheaded lout.” After Will slips into the river while drunkenly roughhousing with his friends, they abandon him, not wanting to be in trouble. Alyce rescues him with a tree branch, extending kindness to him despite his previous treatment and her inability to swim. She soon helps him again when Tansy the cow goes into labor, assisting with the birth of twin calves; this is a formative experience for Alyce, who learns gentle methods of calming laboring mothers from him.
Later, Will delivers wood to the inn where Alyce is staying, complimenting her appearance and providing her with reassurance about her competence as an apprentice, especially in light of her skillful maneuvering with Tansy. Narratively, Will’s presence is a device to tip Jane off to Alyce’s whereabouts, and he also represents The Power of Kindness and serves as a tether to the village that Alyce eventually calls home.
Edward
Edward is a young boy, around six years old, whom Alyce finds sleeping in a barn near Tansy the cow. In many ways, Edward represents Alyce prior to her transformation: He, too, has a dehumanizing nickname (Runt), though he calls himself “nobody,” which Alyce immediately corrects by encouraging him to choose a name. Alyce gives him food and helps him find work and shelter at a nearby manor.
When Alyce visits him later, expecting to take him with her to the inn for a better life, she finds that he is in fact being well cared for by the manor’s cook, who tells Alyce that he is much too small for hard work. In the narrative, Edward serves as a lesson to Alyce that she is not a failure: Her success in bettering Edward’s life by finding him a home where he is free to play and be a child boosts her self-confidence and helps her understand that situations are not always as they appear.
