Amarantha’s Traumatic Experience in How Beautiful With Shoes Essay Sample

Oftentimes we go through different circumstances that may traumatize us for the rest of our lives. Trauma usually results from a terrible incident that may have severely scarred you. In the short story “How Beautiful With Shoes'' Amarantha is a young, engaged woman, who lives on a farm with her mother. After Amarantha is done taking care of the animals and doing her daily routines; Amarantha and her husband are informed that there is an escaped killer on the loose. The escaped killer goes by the name of Humble Jewett and he escaped from Davyville Asylum. Later the dangerous man shows up to the farm where he later kidnaps her. The crazed man takes her deeper into the forest-like area where they end up at the top of the hill. Humble Jewett caresses Amarantha, tells her to lie down, and recites poetry to her. As Jewett recites the poetry, Mare decides to make a run for it where she ends up at a farmhouse that belongs to a man named Wyker. Wyker returns to his home seeing that Amarantha is in danger, he shoots Jewett allowing Amarantha to successfully run away. After all the troubles, Amarantha returns home safely although she is feeling the outcome of her horrific experience. The author utilizes the theme of knowledge, imagery of the environment, and symbols of the fire to shape the work.

In the short story “How Beautiful With Shoes” discusses the main ideas of pain and experience but the overall theme is knowledge. Amarantha goes through a traumatic experience getting kidnapped which personally transforms her. While committing his crime, Humble Jewett recites poetry lines that mostly deal with love and romance that later open Amarantha’s eyes in life. Author Wilber Daniel Steele demonstrates Mare’s different thinking process with “ Mare could not have said why, but now she was more frightened than she had ever been.’’(15).  Jewett oddly teaches Amarantha that the outside world is not always delightful and enlightens her into a new idea of romance. “How are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter! The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman” (7). Through poetry and getting kidnapped Amarantha gains knowledge of romance and a different aspect of life outside of her husband, mom, and the farm.

When Amarantha attempts to escape from Jewett there is detailed description of her surroundings. The author uses the imagery of the environment to help the audience visualize Amaranthas experience and help develop the theme of knowledge. The author describes Amarantha’s experience with “ The man’s ecstasy magnified his strength. When a snake fence came at them, he took the top rail in flight, like a college hurdler and, seeing the girl hesitate and half turn as if to flee,  he would have releaped it without touching a hand’’ (11). By applying similes and descriptive language the audience fully understands Mare’s encounter and how Humble Jewett consistently makes an effort to capture her.  Author Steele describes Mare’s newfound knowledge with “ Here was a misgiving so deep that it touched her special knowledge. She had never known an animal so far gone that its instincts failed it; a starving rat will scent the trap sooner than a fed one.”(11). Furthermore, the descriptive imagery of her experience and how she escaped further develops the theme of knowledge of what she learned.

There is a series of emotions throughout the timeline of the kidnapping, Steele uses the fire as a symbol to represent bad energy. Humble Jewett, known as the crazed man, enforces a negative conflict with Amarantha and her life. The author William Daniele Steele details the fire with “ There is a horror knowing animals trapped in a fire, no matter what the animals” (16). The fire overall represents the terror and bad energy of what has come into town: a crazed man. 

In closing, Amarantha’s traumatic experience was stressful and in general, caused her and others a lot of stress. Humble Jewett kidnapped and quoted a lot of poetry throughout the story which later transforms Amarantha and opens up her eyes to a new outlook on life. At the end of the story, Amarantha is more knowledgeable of the world around her, meaning that there is more to life than what she had experienced.