When I Lose My Hundred Penny Box Analysis

Michael's great-great aunt Dewbert is one hundred years old and she has a penny for every year that she has been alive. Aunt Dew keeps her pennies in an old wooden box that she calls her hundred penny box. When Aunt Dew moves from Atlanta to live with Michael's family, he is drawn to the hundred year old woman. Michael spends a lot of time with her counting the pennies from the box, and with the count of each penny aunt Dew tells him a story about that particular year that the penny was added into the box. Michael's mother wants to get rid of the battered old box that holds the pennies, but Michael understands the value and the importance of the box to aunt Dew. Her life is in that box, "When I lose my hundred penny box, I lose me" (Mathis
19). Eventually, Michael comes to understand that aunt Dew is every bit as old and frail as the wooden box that holds her pennies. Michael makes it his duty to protect this old box from ending up in the furnace as his mother has been tossing out a lot of his aunt's old junk. The author has done an outstanding job in presenting a-day-in-the-life-of tale, rather than a complete story.

It describes the importance of age, respecting the elderly, and the relationship between the young Michael and his old aunt Dew, demonstrating an affectionate and a developing relationship between the two. The text illustrates how the very young and the very old frequently find more in common with each other than with those in the middle. Michael is a young character stuck in between a sensitive battle between the two women he loves most, his mother Ruth and his great-great aunt Dew, neither of whom can comprehend nor appreciate one another. Ruth thinks that she is being compassionate and sympathetic to aunt Dew by feeding her and putting her to sleep. She is eager to be the leader and the center of attention in her household and perhaps that is why she is being controlling over aunt Dew, Michael and her husband John. Consequently, it feels like she is intentionally playing the victim. On the other hand, aunt Dew herself admits that she pretends not to see or acknowledge Ruth, her caretaker. The only reasonable explanation for her actions is her age. Sometimes her thoughts are clear, but other times she dances or sings to herself and confuses Michael for his father John. Sometimes the old box means the world to her, and other times she simply wants to sleep. This is a touching story that looks at aging through a child's eyes. Michael's love for his great-great aunt is as deep as his lack of ability to realize how her age affects her. John has a neutral role in this story, as he is stuck in between his beloved wife and his aunt who practically raised him ever since his parents died. This story is a great specimen of the writer's "show don't tell" rule.
It is a touching story of familial devotion and loyalty. Even though the story feels kind of incomplete, however, there's a message, but one that is not as forcefully implemented or fulfilled as could be. Perhaps the author needed to be more precise and should have included a more extensive exploring into Dew's life and her holding onto the box. That is why the story is a bit disappointing with the way it ends. In my opinion, Dew needed to die. Without her death, the reader is left wondering about the future of the household. Did they get rid of aunt Dew? Was Ruth successful in throwing out the old box? If that is the case, then the mother was made to be more evil than she needed to be. This is nothing more than a glimpse, a short story. The father's story as a boy in the creek could have been fleshed out. Despite the flat ending, fourth elementary students can relate to this inter-generational tale. It is a wonderful way to help children understand aging, amnesia, and physical fragility at the surface. And even though he is a child, Michael has a better grasp of his great-great aunt's need for pride and shows more love and respect to aunt Dew than his mother or father does. It's a good reminder to adults to respect the elderly and not to try changing them into a new person, since they have lived their entire lives based on a certain conception, principle, or even belief an old box, and not to fall
into the trap of becoming so blinded by the daily drudgery that we can't see what's truly important, our families.