First, of course, there's Polly the serving girl. She's confronted with a series of illnesses and deaths in the novel, each bringing her more and more pain. Stage 2: Matilda the VictimĪs the fever starts taking its toll on Philadelphia, Matilda's life is changed for the worse. Everyone who has ever been fourteen can relate to these angsty feelings, but of course, anyone over the age of fourteen also knows that Matilda has a very long way to go on her road to maturity. Matilda's also always got her head in the clouds, and she dreams of floating out of the prison of her family, much like Blanchard does in his hot air balloon (1.28). She's just a kid!) She's kind of mean to her mother, she sleeps in late, and while she has some responsibilities, she usually has to be badgered into performing them. Stage 1: Matilda the (Slightly) Bratty Teenagerīefore everyone around her starts dying, Matilda is pretty self-absorbed. Matilda hits a number of stages, each important to her developmental arc (um, that means her process of growing up).

Let's take a look at Matilda's development over the course of yellow fever outbreak. In fact, growing up becomes a matter of life and death. It's an extreme scenario, and in order to respond to it, Matilda has to grow up very, very quickly. Matilda will be coming of age during a crisis situation – the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Matilda's character development works a little bit differently, though, than other young adult protagonists, because although she's just an ordinary teenager, the circumstances in which she finds herself are extremely out of the ordinary.

We mean, come on – that's just what teenagers in young adult novels do! This means that over the course of Fever, 1793 she's going to be coming of age, searching for her identity, and learning what it means to be an adult. Fourteen-year-old Matilda 'Mattie' Cook is the teenage protagonist of a young adult novel.

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