Friday, November 21, 2014

The Fears, Anxieties, and Worries of Amos Owen

In Glaspell's Her America "A Jury of Her Peers," reading about Amos Owens' life in Beloved Husband was very good and interesting. It took place in April of 1918. In the chapter, Amos talks about his fears and anxieties when he was a boy and also when he grew up to be an adult. His fears and anxieties when he was a boy were about having to get up early enough because he had to go deliver the morning papers when he was 10 years old. It seemed like as soon as he had come home, his mother would always say to him, "Amos, you get to bed and right to sleep, or you'll not be able to wake up when I call you" (135). So, at age 16, he started working at a fish market. When he became and adult, he purchased the fish market at age 32. However, another fear he always worried about was money. When the owner of the fish market started to get ill, Amos knew he wanted to buy the market., but worried that he wouldn't have enough money to purchase it before the owner died (136). He always worried about things that he didn't need to worry about at all. He would just deal with the "nervous chill" these type of things would give him (137).

I feel like I can relate to Amos so much. Even though I didn't have the type of anxieties or worries that he did when I was young, but as I got older I got them more. Everyone has anxiety once in a while right? Also, societies in Amos' time most likely did not know how to deal with anxiety yet. However, in today's society, we now have all kinds of medications, techniques, therapy sessions, etc. to help us cope with our anxiety.

1 comment:

  1. Many young boys have fears like you stated and as well as anxiety about things in this world that we are going to be facing sooner or later. As well as the money issue, everyone if they were not born rich because of their family worry about money. We all deal with this pain like Amos did and I liked that you stated that you feel that you can relate to Amos in the things he felt like we all should or will at some point.

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