Summary Of Fever In Fever 1793

In the novel “Fever 1793” written by Laurie Halse Anderson, a fever has struck in Philadelphia, and people are slowly dying. The story starts off by Matilda being bitten by a mosquito on the ear. This is foreshadowing for what is to happen in the novel. Matilda explains that her father was a carpenter and he built the coffee house where she lives and works. Her father was repairing something and he fell of a ladder, broke his neck, and died. Matilda and her family slowly begin to hear about the fever and that it is affecting more and more people daily. Her mother slowly doesn’t let Matilda have as much freedom as she had because she wants to protect her daughter. Matilda fins out she that her friend Polly who worked with them at the shop has

Yellow fever which is transmitted by a mosquito can cause: Fever, nausea, it can affect the kidneys and liver, and in most cases it causes death. In the story the people’s eyes and skin turn yellow hence the name “yellow” fever. Yellow fever has affected towns all over and doctors cannot get a grasp on it. The death and sickness gets so bad that people are told to stay inside and not leave for any circumstances other than to leave town. The death in the city rises from the hundreds to the thousands daily. The infected are left outside on the porches or in the streets. Ministers and funerals can no longer be held from how much sickness there is now. The dead are buried into giant graves, because the priest can pray over everyone all the dead and there is too much dead to be buried separately. The sickness was so bad during the months it hit at first slowly it slowed down but the numbers were still big. The only true way to get of the fever is to wait it out until the frost hit in the winter. Yellow fever affected more than the town of Philadelphia in the novel. It hit in more than one way as well it was also spread from the animals that had thrived through the time the economy was bad. Rats and roaches roamed the streets in large numbers and transmitted it to house animals who in turn gave it to their