How would you illustrate Mae Tuck based on Chapter Two's description in Tuck Everlasting?
I definitely can't draw you a picture of Mae Tuck. I can type for Enotes but not draw. According to my own students, you definitely don't want me to draw either. I can help identify key parts of chapter two's narration that will help you formulate a more dialed in drawing of Mae Tuck.
The first description of Mae's physical appearance is that she is a "great potato of a woman with a round, sensible face and calm brown eyes." I'm not 100% sure of what a potato woman looks like, but I do know that most women would not want to be compared to a potato. Potatoes are oddly shaped, which is not flattering. Second, potatoes tend to be . . . not skinny. However you draw Mae, do not draw her as having the stereotypical "hourglass" female shape. In fact, don't highlight a waste line at all. Round face and brown eyes is fairly straightforward. She also needs gray-brown hair and a blue straw hat.
Next, you need to put clothes on Mae. Stick with browns for coloring. Make them look worn. A few patches maybe. Definitely pile on more clothes or clothing layers than normal. The text says that she wore three petticoats at a time and then a cotton jacket on top of it all. Put Mae in a skirt, not pants.
Mae Tuck climbed out of bed and began to dress: three petticoats, a rusty brown skirt with one enormous pocket, an old cotton jacket, and a knitted shawl which she pinned across her bosom with a tarnished metal brooch.
If you are basing your image on only Chapter Two, I recommend having Mae be smiling. She is excited to see her two sons after not having seen them in many years.
In Tuck Everlasting, what clues suggest something unusual about the Tuck family?
The Tuck family is different from every other family that Winnie Foster will ever meet, because the Tuck family is a family of immortals. That's right, they will live forever. Makes me wonder if Twilight took any inspiration from this book. After all, that book was about a "regular," loving family of immortals too.
Eventually the author explicitly tells readers that the Tuck family is a family of immortals, so I assume that your question is asking about early clues that the Tuck family is more than a family living in the woods.
Chapter 2 introduces the reader to Mr. and Mrs. Tuck. Mae wakes Tuck up from a peaceful sleep, and he says the following line:
"Why'd you have to wake me up?" he sighed. "I was having that dream again, the good one where we're all in heaven and never heard of Treegap."
That seems like a very odd thing to say. Earlier Treegap was described as a peaceful little hamlet. It hardly sounded like a place people would flee from. The heaven comment is weird too. Essentially, Tuck is wishing he were dead and in heaven.
Mae Tuck tells Tuck that he should get over having that dream because nothing is going to change.
"But, all the same, you should've got used to things by now."
Got used to what? Why won't things change? In fact, what things won't change? It's a very odd conversation that they are having and more than hints to readers that there is something different about the Tucks.
Chapter two's closing line drops the big hint that the Tuck family is not normal.
For Mae Tuck, and her husband, and Miles and Jesse, too, had all looked exactly the same for eighty-seven years.
Wait, what? 87 years! How does anybody look the same for that long of time? I mean, some Hollywood stars definitely try, but Treegap doesn't seem like a place for high priced plastic surgeons. From this point forward, the reader quickly learns about the spring water and its ability to give immortality, and Winnie must decide whether or not she would like to join the Tuck family in their uniqueness.
What metaphor describes Mae Tuck's appearance in Tuck Everlasting?
Mae Tuck is compared to a potato.
A metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to a person, idea, or object to which it is not literally applicable” (Guide to Literary Terms). In this case, when we are first introduced to Mae Tuck, a metaphor is used to describe her.
Mae is compared to a potato. The figure of speech is a metaphor because the author does not say that Mae is like a potato, she says that she is a potato.
Mae sat there frowning, a great potato of a woman with a round, sensible face and calm brown eyes. "It's no use having that dream," she said. "Nothing's going to change." (Ch. 2)
Of course, the author does not mean that Mae is literally a potato. She just means that she shares the characteristics of a potato. Both the potato and Mae are round and brown. This figure of speech helps us picture Mae Tuck. It may not seem very nice to describe someone like a potato, but the author does not do so maliciously.
Mae Tuck might feel a little old and wary, because she has been immortal for over eighty years. Mae does not age. She does not even need to look at herself in the mirror, because her reflection never changes.
Mae Tuck didn't need a mirror, though she had one propped up on the washstand. She knew very well what she would see in it; her reflection had long since ceased to interest her. For Mae Tuck, and her husband, and Miles and Jesse, too, had all looked exactly the same for eighty-seven years. (Ch. 2)
Mae is excited because she gets to go back to Treegap. She has not been there in ten years. She and her husband have two sons, Miles and Jesse, and they rarely get to see them. The boys became immortal when they were still young, and they like to travel. Jesse was seventeen and Miles was twenty-two. They will always be those ages.
What was peculiar about Mae Tuck's family's appearance in "Tuck Everlasting"?
The "odd" factor relates to their age. In Chapter 3, we are told that Mae did not look in the mirror because her reflection has not changed in 87 years. In Chapter 5, when Winnie meets Jesse, he tells her that he is 104 years old. However, Winnie doesn't believe him because he only looks 17. The Tucks do not look their age, and that is what is weird. As the book continues, of course, we learn that the reason they don't look their age is because of the water that they drank to make them immortal. The details in Chapter 3 and 5 specifically are an example of foreshadowing. Babbitt is letting the audience know that something is odd and hinting at what that "oddness" is before giving the full story to the readers. This builds suspense and expectation.
What is also interesting about the way the Tucks look is that they have been preserved at relatively young ages, even the adults. However, while this might seem to be a blessing, it is really a curse - the Tucks, like Mae in Chapter 3, are bored with their never-changing reflections and would like to be able to see themselves grow and change.
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