Jonathan Singer
October 3, 1994
Life Cycles
Concept Note #1
Dr. Ray Hawkins

"Tuck Everlasting:"
A Sense of Purpose?

    "Tuck Everlasting" (1975) is the story of 10 year old Winnie Foster. We meet Winnie playing in her yard during the hot summer of 1880. She is hopelessly bored and tired of being "caged in." She wants to be free, like the toad she watches hoping lazily across the dirt road outside her fence. "It'd be better if I could be like you, out in the open and making up my own mind" (p.15). She believes that leaving her home will give her the chance to do something important. "I'll never be able to do anything important if I stay in here like this. I expect I'd better run away" (pg. 15.) Early the next morning she does just that.

    Despite her fear of being alone, Winnie escapes into the woods behind her house. Much to her surprise she meets a young man, Jessie Tuck, sitting under a tree drinking from a tiny spring. For reasons revealed to her later, Jessie does not let her drink from the spring. Winnie protests because the spring is on land belonging to her family. To prevent her from drinking from the spring, the Tuck family kidnaps her to their far away cottage. She is told that the Tucks will live forever because they drank from the tiny spring 87 years before. For the Tucks, immortality is a curse and they wish they had never come across the spring. Winnie learns that they will not let her go until she promises not to tell anyone about the spring.

    Winnie's feelings for the Tucks swing between like and dislike. At first she is very afraid because she has been kidnapped. Then she believes the Tucks to be really gentle "...and in a strange way - childlike. They made her feel old" (pg. 44). For the first time in her life she feels important (pg. 44). That night, when she misses home and her old routine she thinks badly of the Tucks. But, the next morning she goes fishing and feels good about them again. In the two days Winnie spends with the Tucks she learns to love them. "...she smiled - and found that she loved them, this most peculiar family. They were her friends after all. And hers alone" (pg. 83). They are so different from her family; the Tucks live in a cluttered house, they eat in complete silence, they laugh a lot. Winnie is introduced to a new way of life.

    Papa Tuck convinces her not to tell anyone about the spring water. He tells her about the cycle of life (pg. 62). Things are constantly changing; the world is dies and is born again at the same time. That is the way it is supposed to be, just as a ferris wheel turns around. But the Tucks, they are not part of the cycle anymore. It is as if they fell off. "We just are, we just be. Like rocks beside the road" (pg. 63). Winnie thinks about her own mortality and it numbs her (pg. 63).

    A man in a yellow suit arrives later that day and changes everything. He overheard the Tucks' story and wants to sell the spring water for a fortune. When he refuses to keep it a secret Mama Tuck kills him. She is arrested and sentenced to death. Winnie is taken home and realizes that they cannot hang Mama Tuck. This is her chance to do something important.

    When Winnie comes home, her parents sense something different about her, "as if some part of her had slipped away" (pg. 107). Whereas before, Winnie knew only one family, she now has a new loyalty to her adopted family, the Tucks. She proves this loyalty by breaking the law to help Mama Tuck escape. No one can understand why she does this. She gives her mother the only explanation she can - the Tucks are her friends (pg. 130). Her family gains new respect for her as her own person and the other kids want to be her friend now.

    Winnie's last act is to give something back to the toad. She gives herself a vicarious immortality by dropping some of the water on the toad which first inspired and symbolized her desire for freedom. Winnie herself goes on to lead a full life and ultimately dies.

    Neuman and Neuman (1991) suggest that development can be understood in terms of a succession of stages. Each stage proceeds chronologically (although with each individual moving at their own rate) and combines psychological, environmental and biological demands. The individual is confronted with a different psycho-social crisis to be resolved at each stage. As a general theory it is very useful because it emphasizes the interaction between the self (biological and psychological) and the environment, (or person:environment, as suggested by Germain, 1991).

    In the book "Tuck Everlasting" (1975), we find the main character Winnie Foster in the throes of middle childhood. Erikson describes the crisis to be resolved as "industry v. inferiority". Can she be responsible, does she have a sense of purpose? Can she act independently from her parents and other adults, can she direct her own activities? Can she develop friendships? Can she engage in self-evaluation? Neuman and Neuman suggest she will answer these questions and resolve the crisis through a process of education (pg. 66). This paper will focus on the concept of purpose and how Winnie finds hers.

    One of the most important parts of resolving the psycho-social conflict of middle childhood is determining a sense of purpose. From the beginning Winnie is very eager to do something, but does not know what. She realizes that she must first escape her parents' auspices. "I'll never be able to do anything important if I stay in here like this. I expect I'd better run away" (pg. 15). Although she is not clear on what her purpose is, she does not find it at home and decides to look elsewhere.

    While running away does not give her a sense of purpose, it leads her to an education which does. Papa Tuck's talk about life and death allows her to reflect on her own mortality. Through a process of self-evaluation, she decides she does not want to die. Her education continues when she compares the Tuck's messy house to her very neat house. This provides her with some perspective. She understands the two ways as being separate but equally valid. In "middle school age" this cognitive process is called concrete operation. The same process enables her to accept the Tucks as an adopted family, separate but equal to her own. "...there were new threads now... which tied her just as firmly to the Tucks" (pg. 108). She decides to act in a way that her parents disapprove of, knowing she has the support of the Tucks. This turns out to be very important in discovering her purpose.

    The act of helping Mama Tuck out of jail gives Winnie a sense of purpose. This is the task which, if successfully completed, validates the development that has taken place up to that point. Indeed, so monumental does this seem that that night she thinks "At midnight [I will] make a difference in the world" (pg. 115). For Winnie, the world is now a much bigger place. She has experiences of her own, not just her family's. The resolution of her psycho-social crisis has helped her develop a sense of autonomous identity. After the jailbreak, her parents gain newfound respect for her as an individual and her peers see her as someone with whom to be friends. If the story continued, we would see this new peer group providing her with the grounds for her next psycho-social crisis - group identity vs. alienation. As it is we must be satisfied with watching Winnie successfully resolve the psycho-social crisis of middle school age, and feel good knowing the toad will live forever.