Thomas Caldwell and Sarah Orne Jewett were very successful American writers. Both writers are critically acclaimed, but they were also criticized for works that challenged social and traditional norms. Tobacco Road by Thomas Caldwell and The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett are set it two completely worlds, but the stories have some very striking similarities.
             The most discussed similarity between the two books is that they both call attention to the deplorable conditions and injustices faced by certain groups. Jewett sheds light on the conflict between traditional and revolutionary ideas regarding women's rights. She dissects society into male and female spheres, which determine how each respective group fits into society, and the roles each group should play. In The Country of the Pointed Firs, women are expected to be a wife and a mother about all else. Here lie the first few parallels between Tobacco Road and The Country of the Pointed Firs. In Tobacco Road, Thomas Caldwell intricately describes impoverished life in the rural South during the great depression. People were shocked by the blatant sexuality and extreme poverty surrounding the characters lives. In this book, the people who live on Tobacco Road often separate the types of people into two categories, just as Jewett did in The Country of the Pointed Firs. There are the farmers who stayed around after all the money left town, and then there are the people who moved to Augusta to work in the mills. Those are the only two classes in all of America; so much as it mattered to them. The women in Tobacco Road were also treated in much the same way, as are the women in The Country of the Pointed Firs. Take the women of the Lester family for example. Lov's wife won't sleep in the bed with her husband, and everyone is dumbfounded because that's no way fer' a fittin' wife to ac's. Women were supposed to take care of the house, produce baby after baby, and take car...