Literature and Medicine I

31Women’s only excuse to persist with their studies lay in being unattractive enough not to be desired by a man (hence the profession’s negative female role models, who are the only women who have an excuse for studying) or being so extraordinary that the man can respectfully dismiss the “goddess” as someone out of reach and an exception. For these “exceptions,” not attractive to men or in contrast beautiful, but aiming for a career, not being supposed to be interested in men and marriage, fictional failures of female medical students and women doctors can be read as cautionary tales about how love or the wish for a husband can threaten women’s academic studies. There was no “excuse” for a married woman who wanted to have a career, since being a wife was not seen as a civil status but as a “natural” profession for a woman. As long as being a wife is seen as a profession, a woman must make a choice; she cannot have a second profession in addition to her housekeeping. This “fact” could not yet be negotiated in the contemporary discourses, and if it was discussed at all, then only in a vague way. If fictional women doctors do not give up their profession, they pay the price with unhappiness and failure in marriage and motherhood. This is exactly what Sina’s grandmother points out when declaring wisely that Sina would like to be a successful and sought-after woman doctor:

“[…] Und dann, Sina, wenn du dein ganzes Interesse und deine Lebenskraft in deinen Beruf setzen würdest, und du wolltest doch einmal dein eigenes Haus haben, wie käme es dann? Vor lauter Beruf ginge in deinem Haushalt alles drunter und drüber, denn Tag und Nacht, zu jeder Zeit müsstest du laufen, wohin du gerufen wirst, du wolltest ja doch dann eine begehrte Ärztin sein, nicht eine, die niemand braucht.” (Spyri 55-56)

32The novels addressed to “young girls,” i.e., adolescents, make it clear from the beginning that protagonists like Sina, Annemarie, or Hilde are not really meant to be physicians. Even Ury, who in her early book Studierte Mädel allows Hilde’s American friend Daisy to pass the first medical exam, makes it equally clear that this girl needs to support herself because she is an orphan. Daisy is therefore dependent, as Dina Skaroff in Der Kampf einer Ärztin, on a profession. Thus, these girls have an excuse to study. Daisy, a lovely girl, has the satisfaction in the end of hearing the man she loves admit that a woman can be both: beloved wife and faithful companion in the medical profession (Ury, Studierte Mädel 225). But there is no word about Daisy continuing or even finishing her studies – will she only be her husband’s assistant, handing him the sharp knives as a better sort of surgical nurse? Or will she continue to be ambitious or even compete with her husband?

33In the later novel Nesthäkchen, even the ambitious friend of the heroine is done away with – and there is absolutely no question and no discussion about the protagonist Annemarie finishing her studies before marriage or continuing them after getting married. Annemarie does not feel even slightly regretful about abandoning her studies despite having been so decisive about wanting to become her father’s assistant. There seems to be no fear of repentance: Annemarie is doing what is “natural” and there is no attempt to even try to find an excuse.

34Of course, a married woman doctor was still allowed to use her brain – to foster her husband’s career, and to be an interesting companion, as Therese states after her renouncement and defeat, seeing young female students being “pretty as a picture”:

Wenn Therese aber die beiden bildhübschen jungen Studentinnen ansah, die kurz danach auf der Treppe an ihr vorbeihuschten, dann dachte sie in ihrem Herzen: ‘lasst die reine Flamme eurer Jugend nur glühen und lodern für euren idealen Beruf; entwickelt dabei in euch alles, was seine Aufgabe: Hilfe und Fürsorge für den Menschen, von euch verlangen kann! Tritt aber eines Tages, wie ich es für euch hoffe, die Liebe, der Mann in euer Leben, o so gebt euch ihm mit gleicher feuriger Ausschliesslichkeit ganz! Was ihr euch geistig errungen habt, geht ja nicht verloren; es gibt dem Zusammenleben, dem Heim erhöhten Wert, dauernden Reiz, auch ein wenig Glanz...’ (Yver 305)

Conclusion

35At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, the figure of female medical students and women doctors became quite popular in literature, coinciding with a period of great activity by the first-wave feminist movement. Not only avowed feminist authors but also conservative writers chose to portray their protagonists as women doctors. As Kristine Swenson comments about women doctors in the “New Woman fiction” in England, the figure of the woman doctor was becoming “part of the long and rich tradition of nineteenth-century women’s literature” (126). Whether the writer was progressive or traditional, and no matter what kind of book one examines, romantic novels for girls, young adult fiction, or socially critical novels, and no matter what type of literary character – exotic, brave, young girl, or mother – the subject of failure shows up quite often in these works. The women in these early stories about female physicians passionately defend their right to an education, to a profession, and to professional ambition. Yet in the end – failure or, putting it more kindly, renouncement. What is all this good for? What is the reason for all the pros and cons, often over more than just a few pages, only to come back to what is supposed to be “natural”?