Lyddie By Katherine Paterson: Character Analysis

Everyday, everybody makes decisions, some turn out great and others face harsh consequences. This was true for Lyddie Worthen who exists only in the mind of the author of the book Lyddie, Katherine Paterson. Lyddie is a young girl whose family is in some big debt, due to her father leaving to find riches. Her mother takes her sisters and sends Lyddie to a tavern and her brother to a mill. After a while at the tavern, she took an unauthorized vacation and got fired in the process. She then went from her home in Vermont, to Lowell, Massachusetts. In Lowell she gets a job in a factory to pay off her father’s debt. Now, Lyddie does not exist in our time, for she is in the 1800’s during the Industrial Revolution. She has a friend that works in the same factory and she has a petition that is working to give a better work experience for the factory girls.

Working 13 hours a day really tires out Lyddie “She was too tired now to copy out a page of Oliver to paste to her loom.”(98) Oliver is her favorite book and she is still too tired from work to even copy out a page. The day before Lyddie is supposed to go to church she gets done working and is so tired “Lyddie did not even attempt to go to church. Her body wouldn’t have cooperated if she’d had the desire to go.” (98) Lyddie works to the point where she cannot even continue the next day to go to church. Lyddie’s work is not only tiring and dangerous but also depressing. She misses out on her surroundings “She never saw the sun.”(101) Nevertheless, she still works with a great desire and determination every single day. The environment was just one of many reasons Lyddie should have signed the petition. This one is another. It tires her to the point of passing out. She works 13-14 hours a day with only a mere breakfast break and then a lunch one later on. On top of already bad enough hours, her pay is less than