Fever 1792, By Laurie Halse Anderson

In the book Fever 1792, the author Laurie Halse Anderson puts Mattie in a tough position where she has to rely on social values to make decisions. The book Fever 1792, it talks about the yellow fever, and how it impacts their daily life in a coffee house in Philadelphia. Which includes her mother, grandfather, and the servant Eliza. As well as the tough relationships of the main character Mattie, and her Mother. In the beginning of the story, Mattie’s Mother gets the yellow fever, which was making thousands of people sick during the time frame (1792). In this quote, it says how the mother is pushing Mattie away from her so she doesn’t get the fever. ““Go away!” she repeated . I ran sobbing to the window.”” (P.69) No matter how sick her mother is, her mother is always going to put Mattie first, and Mattie knows that.

And put Mattie second because Mattie is already healthy. Mattie is making the hard decision to value her mother’s choice and not make her mother feel any worse because Mattie knows she has a complicated relationship with her mother, and has many differences with her. Mattie does not want to make her mother feel pressure because of the yellow fever sickness. Moving on towards the middle of the story, the Grandfather and Mattie decide to move out of the country, and leave the mother to rest, and get better, and Eliza to take care of the mother. But that doesn’t go as planned. So they decided to go back to their hometown Philadelphia to find Eliza and the Mother. Which they later find out they are not there. In the following quote, Mattie and her Grandfather are currently getting robbed in their coffee shop, and Mattie is making the decision of whether or not she should stick up to the robbers or not, due to the Grandfather still sleeping. The robbers are currently trying to steal Grandfather’s sword, from a war he