In Karen Cushman’s Newbery Medal-winning novel The Midwife’s Apprentice, the character known as “Magister” is the village’s male medical authority, a doctor. He represents the established, formal medical practices of the medieval interval, contrasting sharply with the standard, experiential information of the midwife, Jane Sharp, who takes on the younger protagonist, “Brat,” as her apprentice. He interacts with the midwife and her apprentice on a number of events, typically providing help, different occasions highlighting the distinction of their approaches to therapeutic.
This character serves a number of essential narrative features. He embodies the patriarchal medical institution of the time, offering a foil to the female-centric world of midwifery. His presence underscores the challenges confronted by girls healers looking for recognition and respect in a male-dominated society. Moreover, interactions with him illustrate the evolving understanding of drugs in the course of the medieval period, with conventional people practices step by step giving solution to extra formalized approaches. His character helps illuminate the social and historic context of the story, including depth and complexity to the exploration of girls’s roles and the follow of drugs within the Center Ages.
