![]() ![]() This resolution to take things as they come may account for the calm of the Tuck family. She emphasizes that even though she and her family are immortal, they still try to accept their lot with calm and equanimity. Mae Tuck says this when she is discussing the peculiarity of the Tuck's immortality. We just go along, like everybody else, one day at a time." p. "Life’s got to be lived, no matter how long or short,” she said calmly. "People get to wondering" is slightly grammatically incorrect, which suggests that they are simple, ordinary people, without any special education or status. The phrasing of this quote also emphasizes the homey, down-to-earth quality of the Tuck family. This is exactly what the Tucks are trying to avoid - they don't want other people to notice the fact that they do not age, and they don't want these other people to start seeking the source of their immortality. People always wonder what's happening in the lives of other people, and often start judging without knowing the real story. Mae here underscores an important trait in humans - curiosity. Mae says this when explaining how the miraculous youth of the Tucks began to draw suspicion from their small rural community. Despite her fear, she chooses to follow her own path, and as the next quotation reveals, she takes her first steps in the road to adulthood. This moment marks a huge coming-of-age moment for Winnie. ![]() Still, she chooses to run away anyway to get away from her strict mother and grandmother, and this adventure eventually leads to her meeting the Tuck family. She has heard from so many adults that the world is a dangerous place, and that she won't be able to manage by herself. When Winnie plans to run away, she is a little frightened. Her own imagination supplied the horrors. No one ever said precisely what it was that she would not be able to manage. And she would not be able to manage without protection. ![]() The characters in the stories she read always seemed to go off without a thought or care, but in real life-well, the world was a dangerous place. Though Mae and Tuck seem to all appearances like an ordinary couple, in fact they are far more ancient than they seem and conceal a great secret. This quotation connects with the theme of the magical in the everyday that occurs throughout the book. There are a few features of their conversation that seem strange (such as Tuck voicing concern about Mae traveling to Treegap, and Mae replying that she has not been there in ten years), but it is only with the sentence above that it becomes clear that this is no ordinary couple. This quotation comes at the end of the chapter where the reader is introduced to Mae and Angus Tuck, very ordinary-seeming couple who wake up and discuss the day ahead. Lastly, this quotation is an example of the poetic writing that characterizes Natalie Babbitt's novel - phrases like "the weary old earth" and "tremb like a beetle on a pin" are colorful and evoke an emotional response in the reader.įor Mae Tuck, and her husband, and Miles and Jesse, too, had all looked exactly the same for eighty-seven years. The suggestions of something hidden also evoke curiosity in the mind of the reader. With its use of words such as "disaster" and "trembling," this quote suggests that this spring contains a very terrible secret, so severe that it could cause life as we know it to change forever. 8Įarly in the novel, the narrator makes a reference to the hidden spring that has granted the Tucks immortality, identifying this as the reason why the road seems to travel around the forest in Treegap. And that would have been a disaster so immense that this weary old earth, owned or not to its fiery core, would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin. The people would have noticed the giant ash tree at the center of the wood, and then, in time, they’d have noticed the little spring bubbling up among its roots in spite of the pebbles piled there to conceal it. Like Babbitt's daughter, Winnie will eventually come to see the significance of her own mortality, and will make the best of her life. The Tucks long for mortality, which Babbitt’s daughter and all other human beings already possess. This quote also suggests the reason why Babbitt wrote this book: to convince her daughter that living forever actually wouldn’t be that great after all. The quotation above suggests that this is because she has always known that she has the option of visiting it, and so it has never seemed like a priority to do so. However, she has never been particularly interested in this area until recently. Winnie looks out at the forest, which her family owns, from the gated yard. Nothing ever seems interesting when it belongs to you-only when it doesn’t. ![]()
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