Use Of Characterization In Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever 1793

How can somebody be both a child and an adult? In Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson, the protagonist, Matilda Cook, proves that a girl as young as fourteen years of age can appear so similar to a person who is fully grown-up. Matilda, also referred to as Mattie, is living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the time the novel takes place, in 1793. At this point in history, a disaster was going on in that town: Yellow Fever. Doctors tried bleeding people, feeding them herbal medicines, and anything they could in attempt to cure the ill. However, because they did not know how the disease was being spread, there was very little the doctors could do to prevent it. When the fever reaches Mattie’s house, it infects her mother and forces Mattie and her grandfather to vacate the area. When they return, all is out of

For instance, on page 126, as Mattie was trying to survive the widespread fever, she began to cry without reason. “A tear surprised me by rolling down my cheek. ‘None of that, Mattie girl,’ I whispered to myself as I scrubbed the tear away. ‘This is not the time to be childish.’” When a tear rolls down Mattie’s cheek, she is in utter shock. After watching her mother have yellow fever, being thrown off a wagon in the middle of nowhere, and getting yellow fever herself, she has managed not to cry. For her to cry over her house being wrecked would make very little sense, so the reader can only infer that she was not shedding tears because of her house only. She has been holding in a cluster of emotions since the fever began, and hasn’t let it out until now. She made an effort to regain her self control again, get her anger out, and show matureness by “scrubbing the tear away.” All in all, with her actions and dialogue, Mattie has manifested herself to be fearless and bold, as a young women would act in those