Every person in this world has their own reality. Just the same, everyone’s reality may differ from one another. What may seem an illusion to one person, may be the reality of someone who has a mental illness. Either way, it is all about perception and what we believe to be an illusion versus what we believe to be reality. An illusion does not represent actuality rather; it is something that has been invented by the human mind. Reality is something that people face on a day-to-day basis, and it is true. In the novel Tithe, the main character Kaye, watches her less-than-impressive reality mix with this illusion to the point where even she cannot distinguish the two. Her life was never truly normal; after all she did see faeries. Even though this was considered her reality, it was turned upside down and she was forced to flee to her hometown in New Jersey. Even there things start to get crazy and what she considered to be her “normal” world started getting thrown upside-down. In the modern faerie-tale Tithe, the author develops the main theme of the novel, illusion vs. reality, through the characters, imagery, and the setting.
In the novel, there are two main characters. There’s Kaye Fierch who is a sixteen year old drop out from New Jersey, and there is also Rath Roiben Rye, who goes by Roiben, who is the Unseelie Queen’s top knight. In the book Kaye’s reality is the fact that she is a high school dropout that works at a gas station and has an alcoholic for a mother. Growing up she was always different, but she knew that. As a kid she always had faery friends and in her eyes they could do no wrong. That was her reality. As the book progresses, she starts to get confused because these faeries who could once do no wrong, were turning out to be the bad guys. Also, Kaye finds out that she is a faery. This former illusion of faeries and Thistlewitches and magic is now becoming her reality. What she once knew as her