Themes In Tuck Everlasting

978 Words4 Pages
Themes in Tuck Everlasting The author uses metaphors and symbols to make her theme clear to the reader. As I mentioned in the explanation of symbolism previously, the wheel becomes a symbol for life and is used throughout the story. The major theme is that there is an order and cycle to life and everything in the world. All things are born, live, and then die. The disturbance of this order is wrong and creates an unhappy situation. The immortality experienced by the Tuck family is an unnatural disturbance of the order and cycle of life. The book explores the concept of immortality and the reasons why it might not be as desirable as it appears. Angus Tuck uses the image of the wheel to make Winnie understand the importance of the cycle of life, just as the author uses the imagery of the wheel repeatedly to show the reader how the wheel works, how life moves things along as they should be moved. Angus says: “Everything’s a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping.... Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s the way it is.” And when Winnie blurts out that she doesn’t want to die, Tuck reassures her: “Not now. Your time’s not now. But dying’s part of the wheel, right there next to being born.” When Winnie and Angus Tuck are in the rowboat on the pond, Angus explains to Winnie that his family has fallen off the wheel of life, and that they are in an unnatural state. “We ain’t part of the wheel no more. Dropped, off, Winnie. Left behind. And everywhere around us, things is moving and growing and changing.” Angus Tuck sadly explains: “Can you picture what that means? Forever? The wheel would keep on going round, the water rolling by to the oceans, but the people would’ve turned into nothing but rocks by the side of the road.” Angus Tuck says that life is like a wheel,
Open Document