pages indicate the pages are from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, a book which is known to have influenced some characters in the novel, such as Margaret Lea and Vida Winter. Jane Eyre provides a link among all these characters, and the ripped pages indicate the ending of all their stories. Themes Death Death is explored throughout the story; from the beginning to the end. In the very beginning, in Margaret's story, Margaret's conjoined twin sister died. In Vida Winter's story, Isabelle's mother died at childbirth, leaving her father, George, depressed. He shut himself away in his room, leaving his children to the care of servants. If Isabelle's mother had not died, perhaps the family would not have been cursed. Isabelle may have grown up normally. Charlie, the disturbed brother, may have improved his behaviour. The many deaths that occurred in The Thirteenth Tale build the story like bricks to a building. Each death determines what follows after. The Missus interrupted George's isolation by giving him the baby Isabelle, who woke him to life again. He became overly attached to his daughter, denied her nothing and asked little of her. Isabelle was raised without order or routine. She would get food whenever she was hungry and grew up to become an unstable girl. When she told him she was going to leave to marry Roland, he attacked Isabelle, and died from septicaemia because he wound a piece of her hair around his finger. The next death was Isabelle's, years later. She died from the flu in a mental institution. Her brother Charlie, who loved her, died next. He followed in his father's footsteps by locking himself in his room. He left to go to a place where he used to go with Isabelle and shot himself. Leaving the family without a legal owner and financial manager of Angelfield, the Missus and John-the-dig were left to manage the family themselves. The Missus died of a combination of old age and shock after part of the building collapsed, and John-the-dig died in a fall from a ladder, as he was trying to care for the deteriorating mansion. Adeline fiddled with the safety hatch when he was on the ladder. Adeline is purported to have died in the Angelfield house fire. Emmeline died near the end at an old age, and Vida Winter let the 'wolf' inside of her win when she finished telling