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.
Themes
Confidence Brings Self-Worth
Content Warning: This section of the guide depicts instances of animal cruelty, difficult childbirth experiences, and pregnancy loss.
Self-confidence is a key component in learning that one is worthwhile and worthy of dignity and respect. The characters of The Midwife’s Apprentice—especially Alyce and Edward—undergo both physical and emotional transformations that help them believe in themselves and gain a better appreciation for who they are and what they should expect from others.
Taking chances helps Alyce’s confidence grow. At the beginning of the book, Alyce is fearful and shy, doing her best to keep her head down and avoid confrontation. As a result, she falls victim to the taunts of the village boys and is treated poorly by most everyone else, including Jane. Seeing the boys torment the cat is the first time Alyce steps outside her comfort zone. She cannot swim and fears retribution, but her fondness for the animal outweighs her fear, allowing her to take a risk and rescue the cat. Though Alyce doesn’t yet know it, this moment triggers the knowledge that she’s capable, and she later uses this capability to further defend the cat, rescue Will, learn to read, and deliver babies. When Alyce’s confidence is shaken after she fails to deliver a baby in Chapter 11, her character development takes a step back, and she returns to menial tasks at the inn for which no risks are required. When Alyce must help another mother through a difficult birth in Chapter 16, she takes a risk despite her shaken confidence, which pays off when she successfully delivers the baby. Time and again, Alyce struggles with her self-confidence, and taking chances to learn that failure is a part of life helps her regain her sense of worth.
Others can help one find self-confidence as well. In the opening chapters, Alyce has been treated like a nobody and called things like “Beetle” because she sleeps in piles of dung to stay warm. The merchant’s kindness in Chapter 5 is a key turning point in her character arc, as his comments about Alyce being beautiful help her start to see her own worth; they feel like something special and “nestl[e] into Beetle’s heart and sta[y] there” (29). The impact of his comments is evident, as soon after the experience, Alyce begins to demand that the villagers call her by her name. Similarly, Will’s words of reassurance at the inn bolster Alyce’s confidence in her competence as a midwife. Thus, simple compliments and recognition catalyze Alyce’s growth and show the role of external influences in finding one’s worth.
In the case of Edward, Alyce is the external influence that catalyzes his sense of confidence and worth. Both Alyce and Edward begin their character arcs unhoused and hungry, having spent their lives stealing and running to survive. Having realized her own worth, Alyce pushes back against Edward’s claim that he is “nobody” and helps him choose a name, in addition to helping him find shelter. For Edward, feeling useful at the manor house brings him confidence and self-worth, as well as contentment. Though he is too small to do much of the work, there are tasks he is suited for, such as collecting eggs, and he is recognized by the man of the house for these tasks, no matter how insignificant they might feel. Being appreciated makes Edward feel important, which leads to him feeling as if he belongs in his new home. His transformation is evident through his imaginary play in the chicken coop, where he is free to experience childhood, rather than focusing on meeting his survival needs. Alyce and Edward thus demonstrate that being seen by others and treated with dignity and respect can inspire confidence, which underpins a sense of self-worth.
The Power of Kindness
Being kind to others, especially when they need it, offers so much more than a simple act. The situations Alyce experiences throughout The Midwife’s Apprentice show her being kind and how that kindness shapes the lives of both herself and others. Through delivering the baby of the bailiff’s wife, rescuing Will, and taking in Edward, Alyce’s character shows that seemingly simple acts of kindness can have significant and lasting impacts.
In some cases, Alyce’s kindness saves lives. When the bailiff’s wife struggles to give birth and Jane leaves to help a rich family, Alyce is frozen with indecision and fear: She doesn’t want to disobey Jane, but she doesn’t want the woman to suffer. Alyce chooses to calm the woman, and though she doesn’t know what she’s doing in terms of childbirth, she “[gives] Joan all she ha[s] of care and courtesy and hard work” (56). Alyce’s kindness helps the woman settle, and though the delivery is difficult, it is successful. Alyce’s kindness in the face of fear saves the lives of mother and child, and though Alyce doesn’t know it yet, this moment gives her the confidence she needs to proceed with another difficult birth in Chapter 16.
Alyce again saves a life when Will nearly drowns, paralleling her kind act of rescuing Purr early in the novel. Despite Will being one of the boys who torment Alyce in the book’s early chapters, Alyce is unable to watch him drown and lowers a tree branch for him to grab, hauling him to shore and saving his life. From this point forward, Will sees Alyce in a new light because, though he’d treated her terribly, she was kind to him. Alyce’s kindness changes Will, and he becomes a friend and confidant in Chapter 13 when he visits the inn. Because of the relationship they’ve cultivated, Alyce feels comfortable telling him why she left the village and how ashamed she feels, to which Will offers words of kindness that contribute to Alyce’s final decision to return to the village. Kindness not only changes both characters but results in stronger connections.
The novel also demonstrates that even transactional acts of kindness can have an impact. In Chapter 1, Jane agrees to feed Alyce in exchange for work, which is an act of kindness even if it’s a transactional one. This act leads to Alyce becoming apprenticed and renaming herself as her confidence grows and she begins to find where she belongs among the villagers. Ultimately, Jane’s decision to take Alyce in allows Alyce to find her place through some trial and error, showing how even unintentional acts of kindness can bring about change. In Chapter 10, Alyce extends a similar kindness to Edward. When she finds the boy huddled among the cows for warmth, she doesn’t chase him away like the other villagers would. Rather, she offers him food and points him toward work in an act of kindness similar to Jane’s. Though Alyce doesn’t realize it, her act is also a transaction; instead of asking something of Edward, Alyce receives the knowledge that she’s helped someone else and is not a failure, a fact that’s confirmed when she discovers how happy he is in Chapter 15. Whether one expects to get something in return for kindness or not, a transactional relationship does not diminish the effect kindness can have.
The novel demonstrates that being kind is an act of giving that benefits both parties. The effects of kindness make a loop, coming back to help one when least expected and strengthening one’s capacity to pay kindness forward.
The Comfort of Finding One’s Place
At its core, The Midwife’s Apprentice is a novel about the journey toward belonging, as well as the strife one faces on the way. Through Alyce’s and Edward’s character arcs, as well as the role of the cat, the novel explores the characters’ journeys help them find their places in the world and the contentment that results.
Alyce’s character arc exemplifies the comfort that results from finding belonging. In the beginning, Alyce is both unhoused and frequently on the run due to depending on petty theft for survival, making it impossible to settle anywhere long: “She took what she could from a village and moved on before the villagers, with their rakes and sticks, drove her away” (1). Once Jane apprentices Alyce, she gains both credibility and recognition as the midwife’s apprentice, though the villagers still call her insulting names, such as Beetle. Importantly, because she has her immediate needs for food and shelter met, she is able to form ambitions and explore her wants for the first time in her life, taking pleasure in the skills she learns regarding herbs and childbirth. This also gains her esteem among the villagers, as she is summoned by name to the difficult birth in Chapter 11.
While failing to deliver the baby makes Alyce question her ambitions and competence and leads to her fleeing the village for the inn, her temporary exile presents an additional opportunity to explore what the world has to offer as she begins to learn reading and writing. By the time she leaves the inn, she has multiple paths forward—assisting Magister Reese, being a nursemaid to the baby she delivered, or returning to the village—and thus realizes the magnitude of her transformation: “From someone who had no place in the world, she had suddenly become someone with a surfeit of places” (109). Though it takes time for her to overcome her feelings of shame and doubt, Will’s and Jane’s visits to the inn solidify her ties to the village and facilitate her return to the place she feels is right for her.
Edward, too, finds comfort once he has a place to belong. When Alyce visits him at the manor, she is initially taken aback by how comfortable he is because he can do little of the work that the other boys do. However, as Alyce watches Edward participate in chores, she sees how feeling important and included has changed him. In Chapter 15, after a long day of hard but good work, Edward feels content with his place at the manor, and in turn “he suddenly felt not so small” (99). Through inclusion among the other children and the manor cook’s care for him, Edward has internalized a sense of belonging and grown as a person. His small size doesn’t seem like a barrier when he is able to be useful, even if it’s in a different way than the other boys. This usefulness makes the manor feel like home, meaning it is where Edward feels he belongs.
The novel highlights that the journey to find belonging is as important as the destination because where one belongs is influenced by where they’ve been. Whether it be a physical location, a person, or a calling, a place in the world is about where one feels comfortable, at home, and wanted.
