Tuck Everlasting Flashcards
Mother Tuck
Mae Tuck
Father Tuck
Angus Tuck
Love Interest Tuck
Jesse Tuck
Antagonist
Man in yellow suit
Protagonist
Winnie Foster
Theme: Immortality
Natalie Babbitt began writing Tuck Everlasting when she considered why living forever might not be such a good thing. The novel suggests four distinct reasons why immortality is not a good thing. it removes one from the cycle of life, it is lonely, it would make the world too crowded, and it would allow evil or unpleasant creatures to remain in the world forever. Tuck say that it is unnatural, that it removes a person from the cycles of growth and decay that characterize the lives of every living creature.
The Tucks explained to Winnie how their former community had driven them out because they did not age, and they did not dare to make new friends who would eventually learn their secret. While on the pond, Miles points out that the world would get very crowded if no one ever died. Winnie wonders about a world in which creatures like mosquitoes could never be killed, and the arrival of the wicked man in the yellow suit, who wants to exploit the spring for profit, raises questions about the difficulties resulting from an evil person drinking from the spring of immortality.
Theme: Death
One of the primary messages in Tuck Everlasting is that every living thing must die someday, and that death is actually not such a bad thing, because you have to die if you are going to live. Learning this lesson helps Winnie take the first steps on the road to adulthood, allowing her to speak truthfully and to exercise compassion to other living creatures.
The Tuck family is not actually thrilled by their immortality. For example, Miles loses his wife and children when they grow suspicious of his immunity to aging, and Jesse longs for a wife to enjoy the world with. However, Angus Tuck remains the most vivid example of the discontent with immortality, especially when he gazes almost longingly at the near-dead form of the man in the yellow suit, implying that he actually actively wishes for death (p. 101).
Theme: Love
Love, especially familial love, is a major theme throughout the novel. Winnie leaves her overbearing family of origin to meet the Tucks, but her relationship with the Tucks does not replace her relationship with her mother, father, and grandmother. She is happy to return to her family of origin, but her love for the Tucks also pushes her to take an extreme risk for them: helping Mae escape from prison and then taking her place. The Tucks, for their part, love Winnie deeply and seek to educate and protect her. Mae even kills the man in the yellow suit when he threatens to force Winnie to drink the water.
The love within the Tuck family also allow them to cope with the difficulty of their immortality. Mae and Tuck are extremely close, and the family reunions they have with their sons every year allow them to maintain these important family bonds.
Motif: The Toad
The toad symbolizes Winnie’s freedom and maturity. Early in the novel, Winnie discussed her desire for independence and freedom with the toad, and eventually decided to run away.
At the end of the novel, Winnie poured the spring water on the toad in order to keep it free from harm and safe forever. This act of generosity allowed Winnie to symbolically keep part of herself alive while also enjoying a normal life.
Symbol: The Pond
The pond that Tuck took Winnie to resembled the cycle of life, which the Tucks are removed from. The pond’s water travels from river to ocean to cloud to rain then back again, symbolizing the cycles of birth and death. It is also home to many animals that grow, reproduce, and die. Tuck takes Winnie to this place to explain that his immortality has removed him from these beautiful natural cycles, and that she must not make the same mistake.
Motif: The Wheel
The wheel is a frequent motif in the book. In the beginning, the author describes the characters as being like spokes in a wheel. In the middle, Tuck describes the cycle of birth and death on the pond as resembling a wheel. At the end, the immortal toad that Winnie gave the spring water to narrowly avoids being crushed by the wheel of the Tuck’s cart.
The wheel symbolizes the cycle of life, which is always moving and never stops. Just like a wheel rolls up, people and animals are born, and just like a wheel rolls down, they eventually die. Yet the turning of a wheel isn’t cause for mourning or sadness, because all wheels eventually turn to where they were before. Only the Tucks are removed from this cycle because of their immortality.
Author and date
Natalie Babbitt wrote Tuck Everlasting in 1975
