“Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”1 In the book “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe” by Fannie Flagg, it is suggested that the idea that getting older is not a fun one is incorrect and that getting older is actually a luxury. An individual who is self conscious may have difficulty when confronted with aging, but if they adapt to and accept this concept they may gain confidence in it. This essay exhibits how a fearful housewife overcomes her doubt and gains control of her life.

One of the main characters, Evelyn Couch is very self conscious and worried about what others think of her. She is worried about “getting so fat” that she starts to bring “carrot sticks and celery”(P. 217) instead of a treat to the nursing home she visits. Mrs. Couch consciously worries and seeks help for herself. She thinks that the “world has become a different place”(P. 40) that she can no longer recognize. Evelyn thinks she will always be the same while everything around her changes, she does not want to be who she is. Mrs. Couch gets ridiculed, living her nightmare of “being called names,”(P. 236) by an aggressive teenager’s abuse at a mini-mart. She cares about what others think of her and does not want to be seen in a demeaning manner. …show more content…
She has “both her children pass her”(P. 41) and no longer has a goal to work towards. Feeling like no one depends on her anymore. She thinks she is “too old”(P. 219) to find something else to work toward. Mrs. Couch thinks that being older means she cannot try new things. She feels that in her forty-eight years ”she was lost somewhere”(P. 40) and that means she has changed since she last was herself. She does not think she is as successful as she was in high school and it is too old to find success