Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fever 1793, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom and Independence
Mothers, Daughters, and Familial Love
Disaster and Human Nature
Ingenuity, Ambition, and Survival
Summary
Analysis
Mother Smith sends a mule cart to the cooperage, and Mattie and Eliza pack the twins and Nell securely inside. Mattie “asked my heart to be hard,” knowing she can’t be helpful if she falls apart. Mother Smith supports Joseph as they watch the cart drive off into the darkened city.
Mattie’s hardening heart is reminiscent of Lucille. She is learning that sometimes being strong for someone else requires an emotional toughness that looks unfeeling from the outside. As she cares for Nell and the boys, she’s gaining empathy for her own mother.
Themes
At the coffeehouse, Mattie and Eliza wrestle the mattress inside and settle the children in the cooler front room. As Eliza prays, Mattie paces. She stubs her toe against an object in the dark and discovers it’s Nathaniel’s flower painting. She presses the painting against her cheek and wills Nathaniel to stay safely inside.
Though Mattie is certainly afraid, Nathaniel’s painting steadies Mattie with reminders of happier times and the promise of better in the future.
Themes
Eliza wakes Mattie up a short time later, anxious about the children’s condition. Mattie reassures her: “We can do this. I know exactly what you’re going to tell me to do. Stoke the fire and prepare to wash more dirty sheets.” Caring for the children is uniquely difficult, though. As soon as one twin is made comfortable, the other jolts awake, screaming. Nell has nightmares and doesn’t recognize Mattie. One day blends into the next as they try desperately to cool the children’s feverish bodies, bathing and fanning them constantly. They run low on food and medicines, and the purgative remedies have little effect.
Once again, Mattie doesn’t need direction in order to care for the children. She’s now experienced in tending fever victims, and she can predict their needs and even tell Eliza what they should do. Nevertheless, the children’s plight is especially poignant—in some respects the hardest they’ve faced—both because of Mattie’s and Eliza’s love for them and because of their shortage of resources.
Themes
As the children’s condition worsens, Eliza frets that they should be bled. Mattie argues that even though Dr. Rush swears by the bleeding remedy, the French doctors reject it, and she survived without it. Others, like Joseph, have survived in spite of having been bled, not because of it. Surely, she argues, the insights of French West Indian doctors are most valuable—they have much more experience with yellow fever. Finally, Eliza agrees.
Mattie draws on the knowledge she’s gained about yellow fever in order to talk Eliza out of a potentially dangerous course. This shows Mattie’s openness to newer ideas as well as the confidence she’s gained in weighing options and making decisions recently.
Themes
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The children’s urgent needs end their discussion. After a wearisome night, Mattie goes outside for water, struggling to keep her eyes open and fearful that the suffering is never going to end. She tries to draw the bucket up from the well, but lacks the strength even for this. She stares at the bedraggled garden, thinking of her younger self planting the bean seeds so long ago. She remembers Blanchard’s yellow balloon and wonders what became of her former hopes. Finally, she lays down in the garden and falls asleep.
Despite her newfound confidence, Mattie is nearing the end of her capacities. Her younger self, including her hopeful memories like Blanchard’s balloon that promised Mattie an unfettered future, now seems distant and naïve. Exhausted, she just can’t press on.
Themes
