April 14th 2010
The historical fiction book, 'Catherine Called Birdy' by Karen Cushma is a journey of a noble's teenage daughter's hard life in middle age. Three of the main themes in the book are gender equality, medicine and family freedom. In page 141 and 142, Catherine says that there are many male saints who are bishops, popes, missonaries and other jobs while female saints are mostly just someone's mom or someone who's refusting to marry some powerfull pagan. This proves that gender equality is the theme of the book, because it tells that men could do whatever they wanted and most women couldn't even choose a job they wished to be. In page 155, Catherine's mom is sick for over 3 days while pregnant, she already lost her 5 babies which shows clearly that they didn't have proper medicines in Middle ages. In page 137, Catherine's father tells her that she will be quite,agreedable,and obedient and marry the pig. This proves the lack of family freedom where she gets force to marry. Catherine didn't have any freedom or opportunity to choose the person to marry. To sum up, the life in middle age was extremly frustrating especially for being a noble girl.
Link: http://www.frontiernet.net/~mblow/images/Birdy%20images/birdy%20book%20cover.jpg
