Fears, they can control people, they're frightening. Everyone has a fear, spiders, the dark, wolves or snakes. The thing about fears is just a bit of bravery can take you a long way. “You Are Now Entering The Human Heart” by Janet Frame is about a woman named Miss Aitcheson who is afraid of snakes. By looking at the advice given, the directly stated theme, the recurring symbols and the lessons learned we can learn that a person can not promise to love and preserve what he or she fears unless they are brave enough to overcome their fear.

The first point to show the theme of being brave about your fears is from the advice given in the story. The attendant was giving advice to the children about the snake not being scary and that they don't have to be brave to overcome their fear, which is wrong because it takes bravery to overcome any fear. “The snake is absolutely harmless. Where's the bravery when the snake is harmless?” (237), and “Miss Aitcheson smiled at them and whispered how brave they were” (237). These quotes show the difference between someone who has no fear of the scary item and Miss Aitcheson who is terrified, but the main difference with this is Miss AItcheson understands how brave you must be to confront your fear even if it is in a small way. The advice given is that the children don't have to be brave to confront their fear is wrong! You have to be brave to face your fears no matter how big or small your fears are.

Another point to show the theme that you have to be brave to overcome your fears is through the directly stated theme. It states clearly that she was afraid of the snake and could not love or care for it because of her fear though these quotes “A city woman. Never handled a snake in her life. Her face was pale. She just managed to drag the fear from her eyes…..”(236), and “She could not promise to love and preserve what she feared” (237). These quotes show that  first she's never been around snakes so this creates her fear. After the snake seems to try to bite her, the fear is increased and her bravery was destroyed. The directly stated point of her being terrified of the snake she had a little bit of bravery to try to overcome the fear, a little bit of bravery is the most important to overcome our fears.

Recurring Symbols helps us see the fears that we have to be brave enough to overcome. The snake represents a fear we all have not confronted because we're not brave enough to try. These quotes from the story help show the point. “(Miss Aitcheson) A city woman. Never handled a snake in her life. Her face was pale. She just managed to drag the fear from her eyes…..” (236), and “I wondered when the torture would end. The two little girls did not touch the snake, but they smiled at it and spoke to it” (237). The bravery that Miss Aitcheson showed was a cover for the fear she felt, but her bravery help the girls to be brave and start to overcome their fear. Everyone has a fear, the snake in this story represented the fear, but we must have bravery to work to overcome our fears or we will be afraid forever.

There are good and bad ways to be brave to conquer your fears, but the way that the Attendant tried to help Miss Aitcheson was the wrong way, and she learned to fear more what she already feared.. “Miss Aitcheson, recovering, sat helplessly exposed by the small piece of useless torture” (236), and “She (Miss Aitcheson) looked at the children in some way to force their admiration and respect; they were closed against her” (237). These quotes prove that the way the Attendant forced Miss Aitcheson to be brave was cruel and accomplished nothing but to make the poor woman more afraid of the thing she feared already. Don't pressure people into being brave and conquering their fears, some people have enough bravery to conquer their fears immediately and move on. But people like Miss Aitcheson aren't quite as brave and take more time to conquer their fears. Either way is fine but pressuring people like the Attendant did is wrong, and just ruined what he was trying to accomplish.

We can not promise to love and preserve what we fear unless were brave enough to overcome our fear. The Attendant was giving advice to the children about the snake not being scary and that they don't have to be brave to overcome their fear, which is wrong because it takes bravery to overcome any fear. The theme is directly stated that Miss Aitcheson is terrified of snakes and thus can not force herself to care or love the thing that she fears. The recurring symbol in the story is the snake, it represents fear, the fear that Miss Aitcheson has and the fear that we all harbor somewhere making us unable to love the fear unless we overcome it through bravery. From the advice given, directly stated theme,the recurring symbols and the learning it shows that we can not promise to love and preserve what we fear unless were brave enough to overcome our fear.