Motif and analogy definitely play some very important parts in theme. They can be used to help identify the theme in any story. Tuck Everlasting has many motifs along with plenty of analogies. The main three motifs are fantasy, wheel, and bars, gates, and fences. Fantasy symbolizes imaginative situations, such as magic. Wheels symbolize cycles, such as the water cycle. Bars/gates/fences symbolize places of entrapment, such as jails or prisons.

The first motif is fantasy. The main example of fantasy in Tuck Everlasting is immortality. The Tucks are immortal in the story, they became immortal by drinking water from a spring in the Foster’s woods. When Jesse is talking to Winnie she asks how old he is, on page 28, he responds with this, “All right. I’m one hundred and four years old,”. Nearing the end of the story, the Tucks give Winnie some water from the spring to drink when she turns seventeen. Winnie decides to not drink the water and she pours the water on a toad, the toad absorbs the water and turns immortal. …show more content…
The focus in Tuck Everlasting for wheel is the wheel of life, mentioned on page 61 and 62. “Life. Moving, growing, changing, never the same two minutes together.” Tuck states on page 61. He is explaining to Winnie how he and the rest of his family are stuck in time because of their immortality. Since they don’t age they cannot follow the cycle of life, they are trapped. The analogy life is to changing as wheel is to turning supports this motif