CupsOfSilver

Question: What does the novel Fried Green Tomatoes by Fannie Flagg suggest about the nature of love?

Throughout the book “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe,” any reader can observe the constantly developing versions of love between both major and minor characters. This is apparent in the exclusively intense “friendship” shared between Ruth Jamison and Idgie Threadgoode and the fierce and tender love Big George and Onzell distribute to their twin boys, Jasper and Artis. Throughout this novel, the nature of love is transcribed as unique but similar to any kind of relationship.

Onzell and her husband, Big George, have opposite twins; Jasper: fair-skinned, kind, smart, and innocent and his counterpart Artis: mean, has criminalistic behaviour, is headstrong, and so dark-skinned he has blue gums. Both parents display true love equally to their offspring, though sometimes one deserves more praise than the other. Even with Artis’s distasteful behaviour and Jasper’s smooth demeanour, the trials of love between family are everlasting. No matter the competition for the best child, or favourite troublemaker, the family values of love cross all borders skin complexion does not exempt a child or family from true love.

To define love, one must not only focus on family, regardless of it being the first form of love humans ever experience; the next focal point for intense attraction is friendship. Within this novel, it is observable the many complex and different types of friendship. The association between Evelyn Couch and Ninny Threadgoode is a pact that attempts to push our defining borders of love and what it takes to be a friend. In modern society, relationships of any kind with another who is many years older are not a familiar nor common sight. For Evelyn Couch and Ninny Threadgoode, it is a life-sustaining, accidental, entertaining refuge from everyday life dramas. This unexpected friendship that grows and develops from storytelling and understanding company can corroborate and own a branch on the tree of the types of love. The love between friends is a fascinating, complicated trial; this is true with Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison. Since both are easily qualified in this novel as ambiguous idolizers, readers can interpret their “friendship” in two common ways. The first being strictly friends and the second being secret lovers.

Idgie and Ruth, as strictly friends, is a loving friendship similar to Ninny and Evelyn.; both couples have an age gap separating them, both share and are trusting, and both relationships sustain the “weaker” partner. Idgie is presented as independent and strong when in reality, after Buddy’s death, she is a frail girl in need of a sidekick. That sister-in-arms who parachute in to save the day is Ruth Jamison, a homely, quiet girl who brings emotions into the people she convoys. These two women counterbalance each other, creating a shared harmony. Their friendship is very odd, it is too close to be strictly friendship for most readers, and therefore it becomes apparent that the women are lovers. This love is unique since it is shared between two women with a substantial age gap. The intense and personal love Idgie and Ruth share between them is distributed throughout the cafe, from feeding the hobos to caring to feed the coloured people; their passion creates goodness and serenity.

~The border-jumping ambiguity of love defines each character and conforms to every known person regardless of actions or attributes.~