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Description And Imagery In Laurie Anderson's Fever 1793

682 Words3 Pages

Laurie Anderson’s historical fiction book, Fever 1793, takes place in Philadelphia during the 1700s. This book mentions about a girl and her family living during the Yellow Fever epidemic. Throughout the story Mattie loses and gains family members while they are trying to protect her. Mattie goes through one of the worst epidemics in the history of Philadelphia, and her family tries to take care of her during it. Anderson uses description and imagery in the story to portray the theme, family is always trying to protect each other.
In Fever 1793, Mattie’s family is always trying to do the best for her. For instance, she is always grasping for her family to stay with her. While her mother was sick she did not want to leave her side. Then …show more content…

For instance, the sentence, “No kin of mine goes to an orphan house, not as long as I have breath in my body”(111). Grandfather’s words mention keeping Mattie with him through the epidemic. Grandfather is talking about how he will take care of Mattie until he dies no matter what situations occur. This connects to the idea of family doing anything to protect each other because Grandfather is risking certain privileges to protect Mattie. The dialogue helps the reader understand the theme because it shows the character's perspective in the novel. Another way the author shows the lesson is using description. For example, “Get away from my granddaughter! Grandfather stood in the doorway in his nightshirt, his rifle aimed at the heart of the man who hit me”(144). This is significant because the author is describing the event of Grandfather trying to protect Mattie. Describing the event allowed the theme to be more visible to the reader because of extra details. The theme of family trying to always help each other is seen in this quote because Grandfather did not mention his well-being, and only wanted Mattie to be safe. On the other hand, if there was not as much description it would be more difficult to see why Grandfather did his actions, and what the theme is. Overall, Laurie Anderson uses two methods to show the theme: description and dialogue. These two methods help the reader to

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