Tuesday, May 21, 2013

What injuries did the Tuck family have in the book Tuck Everlasting?

Jesse falls out of a tree and eats poisoned toadstools, the horse gets shot, Pa gets a snakebite, and Ma cuts herself.

The Tuck family had no idea what they were in for when they drank from the spring.  When the Tucks stopped at the spring, all they thought they were doing was relieving their thirst.



"It looked just the way it does now. A clearing, lots of sunshine, that big tree with all those knobby roots. We stopped and everyone took a drink, even the horse." (Ch. 7)



This would be the most fateful day of their lives though.  Instead of just getting some water, the Tucks got immortality.  They did not realize it at first, however.  It wasn’t until the first accident that they realized that none of them could die.


First, Jesse fell out of a tree.  They were sure that he would break his neck, but no harm came to him.  If that wasn’t odd enough, the incident with the horse was certainly too unusual to discount.



"Not long after," Miles went on, "some hunters come by one day at sunset. The horse was out grazing by some trees and they shot him. Mistook him for a deer, they said. Can you fancy that? But the thing is, they didn't kill him. The bullet went right on through him, and didn't hardly even leave a mark." (Ch. 7)



The fact that the bullet just went through the horse and the horse not only did not die, but was not even injured, is evidence that everyone is immortal.  Soon Jesse ate poisoned toadstools and Pa got a snakebite.  Both should have died, but neither was affected.  Ma cut herself slicing bread, and nothing happened.


That wasn’t the strangest thing, believe it or not.  The greatest evidence of their immortality was looking them in the mirror.



But it was the passage of time that worried them most. They had worked the farm, settled down, made friends. But after ten years, then twenty, they had to face the fact that there was something terribly wrong. None of them was getting any older. (Ch. 7)



So while the cat dies of old age, none of the Tucks even age.  Miles married, but his wife and children aged and he didn’t.  She accused him of selling his soul to the Devil and left him.


Living forever sounds great, but the Tucks find that they are actually very lonely.  Miles loses his family, Jesse never gets to have one, and Ma and Pa have to live far away from others so no one will notice their secret.

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