The Thirteenth Tale: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|"All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won't be the truth: it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story."|Vida Winter}}

 

 

The title comes from the first book that Vida Winter ever published - ''Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation'', which only contained twelve stories. The title of subsequent editions of the book was ''Tales of Change and Desperation'', but that didn't stop readers from wanting to know what had happened to that thirteenth tale and what it was about.

 

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* [[Creepy Twins]]: Adeline and Emmeline.

* [[Dark Secret]]: {{spoiler|The Missus and John-the-dig can't let anyone know there is a third girl in Angelfield, or else Charlie's rapes and incest will become open public knowledge.}}

* [[Disappeared Dad]]: The twins' father dies sometime around their birth.

* [[Don't Split Us Up]]: Adeline and Emmeline react very badly to being separated. {{spoiler|Vida helps Emmeline through this, though. Vida later has this with Emmeline.}}

* [[Free-Range Children]]: Emmeline and Adeline go wherever they want to in the village because the Missus and John-the-dig are too busy taking care of a huge house and too old to keep up with them.

* [[Gentle Giant]]: Aurelius Love.

* [[Heroic Bastard]]: {{spoiler|Aurelius Love.}} And {{spoiler|Vida Winter.}}

* [[Idiot Ball]]: {{spoiler|Even horribly burned and mentally fragile, it shouldn't be that hard to identify which twin survived as Emmeline had recently given birth.}}

* [[Meaningful Name]]: Both Vida and Winter point to a theme of emptiness and death.

* [[Missing Mom]]: Isabelle's mother died giving birth to her; {{spoiler|Isabelle herself vanishes from her children's lives}}. Margaret's mom is emotionally absent.

* [[Only Known by Their Nickname]]: John-the-dig's legal name is John Digence, but Vida insists that if you really knew him, you knew that John-the-dig was his real name.

* [[Only Sane Man]]: John-the-dig, especially considering that Missus becomes blind and raving as time goes by. In Margaret's story, Dr. Clifton qualifies.

* [[Perspective Flip]]: On the story within a story.

* [[Platonic Life Partners]]: The Missus and John-the-dig. Vida believes that they'd have [[December-December Romance|been lovers]] if they'd lived in a different time, but she was older and social conventions got in the way.

* [[Reclusive Artist]]: Vida Winter, very much so. She never allows anyone into her home, and whenever she speaks to reporters, she concocts elaborate lies about her childhood. No one knows anything about her, despite her outselling every book except for the Bible.

* [[The Reveal]]: An epic one, via an [[Eureka Moment]] on Margaret's part; specifically, {{spoiler|that there were three little girls at Angelfield and Vida Winter isn't exactly the ''real'' Adeline March.}}

* [[Shout-Out]]: Both explicitly and implicitly to ''[[Jane Eyre]]''.

* [[The Spock]]: Hester Barrow.

* [[Story Within a Story]]: The Angelfield family's decay alongside Margaret's tenuous friendship with Vida Winter.

* [[Ugly Guy, Hot Wife]]: Mathilde is said to be incredibly beautiful while George is nothing special, as emphasized by their first child Charlie being something of a potato.

* [[The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter]]: Isabelle has her [[Everyone Looks Sexier If French|mother's beauty]] and [[Green Eyed Red Head|her father's coloring]], making her extraordinarily beautiful.

* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: Both in and out of universe. Vida has a reputation for lying to people about her life story, so much so that Margaret refuses to work on this project without independently verifiable sources. Also, certain details of Vida's story raise questions for the reader {{spoiler|such as whether it was Emmeline or Adeline she saved}}.

* [[The Unsolved Mystery]]: Margaret never figures out how the treasure box was taken safely from the house. Likewise, the true parentage of {{spoiler|the twins}} is left ambiguous (was the father {{spoiler|Roland or Charlie}}, making Vida {{spoiler|their half-sister instead of their cousin}}?) and though it's heavily implied that it was {{spoiler|Emmeline}} who died in the fire, there is plenty of evidence to support the theory that it was {{spoiler|Adeline}}. Furthermore, {{spoiler|Vida}} never finds out who her mother is.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Literature of the 2000s]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thirteenth Tale, The}}