The book Brat Farrar was written by Josephine Tey whose real name is Elizabeth MacKintosh and uses Josephine Tey as her pseudonym. This book is about the story of the Ashby family. In the family, Bill and Nora Ashby who’s already dead has five children: Simon, Patrick (who is also dead), Eleanor, Jane, and Ruth, and the family now Aunt Bee is managing. Brat Farrar is from America but he’s a relative of Ashby. So he was acquainted and got the idea of faking Patrick from Alec Loding. However, as he live in the Latchetts as Patrick, he finds out that Simon is the murderer of Patrick’s death and finally, everyone else in the Latchetts knows that he’s not Patrick. The whole story is quite magical, as it was a crime novel, but it reflects three themes during the story. The themes are the reveal of the personality, dilemma in the criminal, and relating to the Tichborne case.
The reveal of the personality, or to explain it as the distinctive traits of mind and behavior of a person, was shown in the story from the characters of Simon and Brat. In the book, Simon’s personality seems to be maverick and mysterious, and he could conceal his real personality and thoughts very well, and make everyone think he's innocent for a long time, just like he hid the truth of Patrick’s death. For Brat, he was a foundling who lived in America and went back to England just now. He was told to be fake Patrick by Alec Loding who wants him to get him the legacy from the Ashby family. He told Brat a lot of the background information, and persuaded Brat successfully by telling him the horses, even though Brat is reluctant. So from this, we can know that Brat actually is not a person who sticks to principles and is changeable as there's something he likes. To compare him and Simon, their personality that they reveal are not the same obviously, but they can do whatever they could for things they want, like money, and the legacy.
Apart from the personality that Simon and Brat reveals, as this book is a crime novel in genre, another theme that was shown through the book is the dilemma of criminals. Dilemma of criminals literally means the predicament of the criminal to decide what to do next in a perfect plan so that no one will find out the truth. In the story, the dilemmas in the story might be easy to sum up, which is that Brat knows himself was an imposter was written, and both he and Simon know Simon is the killer who kills Pat. However, the reader all knows this from the perspective of God. However, even Brat and Simon both know the truth, if Brat reveals, he will be known as a fake; but if Simon reveals, he’ll be known as the murderer. The result for both of them was not good for them and the truth that they don’t want others to know either. So their decision to the dilemma affects the process of story development.
As the truth is finally known by all, the whole case might be related to a case called the Tichborne case which happened in real life, in the 1860s to 1970s. The case is about the claims by a man sometimes referred to as Thomas Castro or as Arthur Orton, but usually termed "the Claimant", to be the missing heir to the Tichborne baronetcy. However, he failed to convince the courts, and was convicted of perjury and served a long prison sentence. Just for having the legacy of a rich family, he decided to make himself a fake status. And even was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment, he still claims that he was the inheritor of the Tichborne family. This is quite similar to the story that happens in the story. To be rich, people did many illegal and absurd actions, but to consider the reality, it’s not surprising that some people try to do this.
To sum up, the book Brat Farrar is a crime novel about the truth of Pat’s death and reflecting what absurd people can do for being rich. The reveal of the personality of Simon and Brat shows this and how dark could the dark side of human nature be for getting the legacy. The dilemma of the criminals shows that they don’t want to let the whole truth be known by all. They want to protect themselves, but also want to make others go away. And in reality, the case of the Tichborne can also prove that the story indicates human nature for real, not the author making it up. Overall, the reveal of the personality, the dilemma of the criminals, and the Tichborne case which really happens, are all the things that could represent in the story, also make people profound deeply.
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