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The Struggles Of Women In Lyddie Worthen By Katherine Patterson

1609 Words7 Pages

For centuries, women were portrayed as objects and property that could be disrespected for no reasonable explanation, but today that has changed. Many bright and exceptional women have been acknowledged and brought to attention to inspire many other women to be brave enough to show how unique they are. This has occurred because other brave women like Lyddie, have helped fight for women’s respect and rights. Lyddie is a historical fiction book created by Katherine Patterson. This intriguing book includes struggles a teen in the 1840’s encounters like being treated similar to how a slave would be. This is what many women in real life have faced and fought for during this time period. Lyddie Worthen was a simple farm girl living with her loving …show more content…

In the words of Patterson, “She worked so hard because work was all she knew, all she had. Everything else that had made her know herself as Lyddie Worthen was gone. Nothing but work.” The amount of hours Lyddie worked drained her and her best aspects of her personality were torn from her. The book goes on to explain, “How can I even stand straight and look out upon the world? I am doubled over into myself and, for all the weight, find only emptiness.” This illustrates how working in the factory has soaked up all the wonderful characteristics that made Lyddie proud to be who she is. Loosing all these qualities makes Lyddie feel like she has nothing worth to be proud of. If she’s going to work, Lyddie has to be in an environment where her personality isn’t taken away for someone else’s satisfaction of gaining money from these factory …show more content…

Patterson states in Lyddie, “She had thought a single stagecoach struggling to hold back the horses on a downhill run was unbearably noisy. A single stagecoach! A factory was a hundred stagecoaches all inside one’s skull, banging their wheels against the bone.” This demonstrates that the noise from the factory alone, made Lyddie almost deaf and she wanted to turn around and run away because of it. If just a noise can cause serious health problems then Lyddie should definitely sign the petition because this shouldn’t be a given standard in the factory. To add on to this, Patterson goes on to write, “Before she could think, she was on the floor, blood pouring through the hair near her right temple…the shuttle, the blasted shuttle…Lyddie’s head pounced, but when she opened her eyes she could see nearly as well as she ever could in the dusty, lamp-lit room. She closed her eyes almost at once against the pain.” This further illustrates how from one of the machines Lyddie had a serious accident where she injured her head. There shouldn’t be any injuries in the factory and being that there are many accidents that are even worse than Lyddie’s in the factory shows only one thing. It is evident that it is necessary for Lyddie

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