Diary Of Mattie Spenser Analysis

The Diary of Mattie Spenser by Sandra Dallas tells a story of a young girl who moving West. While in the West Mattie goes through many trying times, however the human spirit always pushes her forward. Mattie Spenser looses three out of the four of her children while shes in the west. During her second pregnacy Mattie looses the baby due to premature birth on Christmas (123). This death wasnt hard on Mattie, but it did cause some sorrow in the house. Mattie loosesher third child, Sallie, because she was too small, and hadnt quite developed lungs (179). This death made Mattie more upset because she believed that “ God would not take from me one who already had a Christian name” (179). The death of her first born Johnnie put Mattie in a depressed state for weeks. Johnnie had died of scarlet fever at the age of two (197). Loosing Johnnie changed everything for Mattie, and she soon didnt want to remember anything from the West (201). Mattie had a fourth child, but she didnt want the “child concieved in sin” (219) Mattie had tried multiple ways to either kill herself, or kill the baby (219). Even …show more content…
Mattie witnessed the kiddnapping of her best friend Sallie, and the death of Frederick (101). When Sallie was found she was killed “within an arms reach of freedom” (123). For days after Sallies’ death Mattie had worried that she had made the worng choice, but she convinced herself that she had. Mattie had also lost one of the oher woman living on the prarie, Lucinda Osterwald. Mattie wasn’t that close to Lucinda, but she was still sad about her death. When Mattie was told of the death she shed “tears... which [she] was nit aware” had been shed (188). She was upset over the death of Lucinda Osterwald, but didn’t really relize how upset she had been until she noticed the tears. Mattie lost many of he r own woman on the praire, and she was nsure if it would happen to her. Even with this fear her human sprit kept moving her