Matilda Bone- Digging Up Themes

Matilda Bone, a gripping historical fiction novel written by Karen Cushman stresses and lightens your heart with moods such as anger, annoyance, admiration, confusion and many more. Its genre being historical fiction takes the reader back to the middle ages. The novel deals with themes such as religious acceptance, lack of Medical Knowledge and Daily chores in the middle ages. Religious acceptance is a significant theme that was stressed upon in this novel. Matilda was taught to live and breathe Religion at the manor, her previous home. After moving to Blood and Bone Alley Matilda feels her knowledge on religion is of no use and that her way of viewing things is different from others which depress her. Religious acceptance was emphasized especially when Matilda meets Tildy, a kitchen maid, “Matilda jumped down from the well and said, ‘I should not be laughing.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘It would be better for me to spend the time in prayer.’ ‘I myself think laughing is mighty like praying,’ said Tildy, “as if saying ‘Listen, God, how much I enjoy this world You have made.’” (Page 59) What people said around her gave her a lot to think about, making her realize that they weren’t wrong, and she was religiously accepted by everyone, as well as her accepting everyone else. The novel also points out lack of medical knowledge numerous times. As told in the book Matilda is both taken aback and intrigued by the ways of healing patients at this new town and how astrology was used to verify the issue. An example of this would be when Matilda went to consult Master Theobald, a physician about Nathaniel Cross and his weakening eye sight. What Master Theobald had prescribed was to combine ingredients to make a mixture for Nathaniel to drink to aid his eye sight, ingredients such as “One part pounded earthworm, one part ants’ eggs, two parts bulls urine, the fat of a medium- sized viper, and a pinch of asses’ dung.” This concoction did not heal Nathaniel one bit; instead keep costumers at bay that seek help from him at his shop. This gave the reader a chance to see how shocking the procedures were and what type of ingredients were encouraged to be brewed in order to heal, easily spreading infection caused by the unhygienic tools and mixtures with absurd elements. Daily chores in the medieval times was hard for Matilda to cope with, she was surprised that simple things as such would ever be challenging an example of this would be tending the fire. “‘She treats me like a kitchen maid,’ thought Matilda. ‘As if I am fit for nothing but measuring and brewing.’” This was Matilda’s attitude at the beginning doing chores being strange for her due to the maid’s handling all of this at the manor but soon she found this simple and usual to do. Matilda Bone goes through a personal journey, her view on things changes giving her a wider understanding on life and the people around her. She accepts people and people accept her for who she is what she believes in. At the end of the book she is in awe of how Peg, the bonesetter and Margery work, patient and determined. Even though the procedures being harsh at times, Matilda understands that this helps people and doesn’t remain surprised. She finally realizes these small chores are a part of her life now and get used to her new life. I found this book rather interesting, sitting in shock and disgust in some parts wondering how people coped with such treatments, and whether or not these actually worked. While in other parts enjoying learning about the various chores that had to be done and what people learned about religion and beliefs.