Fried Green Tomatoes Human Nat :: essays research papers

Coping with situations within FRIED GREEN TOMATOES Human Nature, it’s our instinct, our reaction, our thoughts, and our ability to make decisions. It has been examined from every conceivable angle. It has been scrutinized, interrogated, glorified and even corrupted by every medium in the world, but none so extensively as the written word. Literature has explored every component of human nature from pride to envy and insecurity to depression. Fannie Flagg’s novel FRIED GREEN TOMATOES pays particular attention to human nature and specific ways we choose to cope with the situations that life places before us. Flagg explores humor, nostalgia, and avoidance as common examples of how, not only her characters, but humans in general confront the circumstances surrounding their lives. Humor is and integral part of human nature. It has the ability to lighten almost any situation and put people at ease. Humor is a common bond between any person on earth, from the very wealthy to the impoverished. Idgie Threadgoode is the perfect emb odiment of humor. Her wisecracks and tall tales helped her to face a number of less-than-comfortable situations throughout the novel. A prime example of her use of humor was with Smokey Lonesome. When Smokey first comes into the cafà © for a bite to eat, he is so nervous that he can’t stop shaking and he most certainly cannot eat. Idgie, seeing his discomfort, introduced herself and proceeded to tell Smokey a joke. “On November, a big flock of duck, oh, about forty or more, landed right smack in the middle of that lake, and while they were sitting there, that afternoon, a fluke thing happened. The temperature dropped so fast that the whole lake froze over, as solid as a rock, in a matter of three seconds. One, two, three, just like that…. They just flew off and took the lake with ‘em. That lake is somewhere in Georgia, to this very day…'; Idgie’s exaggerated use of humor allowed the wanderer to settle down and relax. Later, when her nephew Buddy jr. is run over by a train and loses his arm, Idgie once again uses her sense of humor to help him look at the situation from a lighter side. “When he was little and there was somebody new in the cafà ©, Idgie would bring him in and have him tell this long story about going fishing on the Warrior River, and he’d get them all caught up in the story and the Idgie would say, ‘How big was the catfish Stump?