Wednesday, November 18, 2015

In Tuck Everlasting, who tells the Tucks how the ash tree was split by lightning and then was bulldozed?

The answer to this question can be found in the epilogue
of this great novel. As Mae and Tuck return to Treegap once more after a gap of about
seventy years, they are shocked to see that the wood has vanished and that the whole
area has been bulldozed. They decide to stop in a diner to see if they can gain some
news or information about what has happened during the interim and why this
transformation has occurred. They speak to the counterman in the diner who gives them
the following information:


readability="11">

Had a big electrical storm, though, about three
years ago now or thereabouts. Big tree got hit by lightning, split right down the
middle. Caught fire and everything. Tore up the ground, too. Had to bulldoze her all
out.



Thus it is that Mae and
Tuck find out about what happened to the tree and to the spring that was so important to
them and gave them such longevity. The identity of the person who tells them this
information is therefore an anonymous counterman who works in the
diner.

No comments:

Post a Comment

What is the meaning of the 4th stanza of Eliot's Preludes, especially the lines "I am moved by fancies...Infinitely suffering thing".

A century old this year, T.S. Eliot's Preludes raises the curtain on his great modernist masterpieces, The Love...