Fried Green Tomatoes :: essays research papers

Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Café "HER ORIGINAL NAME was Patricia Neal"(Reynolds1), but the author of Fried Green Tomatoes is better known under the alias: Fannie Flagg. In the novel Fried Green Tomatoes she uniquely compares the modern day world to the world in the early and the middle 1900’s. As the novel shifts from the 1930’s to the 1980’s the significance of life is seen through two of the main characters, Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode and Evelyn Couch, as life ends and begins. Fannie Flagg shows that living life to its fullest indeed has its consequences, but is the only way to live a happy life without regrets. From her start in the late 1920’s Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode knew a little girl by the name of Imogene but everyone called her Idgie. Idgie was one of the Threadgoodes and back in Whistle Stop the name Threadgoode was a good name to have. They were the basic life of this little town in Alabama. The Threadgoodes were people known and well liked by the rest of the sparsely populated area. The name she carried did not stop Idgie from doing whatever she wanted to do whenever she wanted to do it. "Idgie used to do all kinds of harebrained things just to get you to laugh. She put poker chips in the collection basket at the Baptist church once. She was a character all right†¦"(12). This shows that nothing would stop Idgie from doing her pranks and having her laughs. Maybe she was lectured by her priest or by her parents but she didn’t regret it. Idgie was concerned with the present, not the past or the future. Of course she had her hardship that wouldn’t let her forget, like when her brother Buddy died, and she even looked forward to a day, but she lived in the present. She lived life for the moment. "Now, seriously, Idgie, I’m not trying to run your business or anything, but I just want to know if you’re saving any money, that’s all. What for? Idgie said. Listen, money will kill you, you know that"(31). This shows that Idgie was not concerned with what tomorrow will bring and if she is prepared for it or not. It also shows that Idgie is not concerned with wealth, she is more concerned about the well being of others. This next passage gives a better impression of her pure unselfish heart.