Brat Farrar is a mystery novel by Josephine Tey, written in 1949.The story is about the Ashbys, an English country-squared family. Their centuries-old family estate is Latchetts, near the south coast of England. It takes place in the late 1940s, after World War II. The Ashby family consists of Beatrice Ashby ("Aunt Bee"), a spinster of about 50, and the four children of her late brother Bill: Simon, 20; Eleanor, 18–19 and the twins Jane and Ruth, 9.Bill and his wife Nora died eight years earlier. When Simon turns 21, he will inherit Latchetts and a large trust fund left by his mother. Simon had a twin brother, Patrick, who was older than him by a few minutes, but soon after Bill and Nora died, Patrick had disappeared and left what was taken to be a suicide note. The title character, Brat Farrar is an orphan who has been persuaded to pretend to be Patrick Ashby, the missing heir to the Ashby family, who was presumed to have committed suicide years before. While living with the Ashbys — Patrick's siblings Simon, Eleanor, Jane, and Ruth, and their Aunt Bee — Brat develops suspicions regarding Patrick's disappearance and his presence leads to the discovery of Patrick's actual fate of being murdered by Simon.
In the face of the temptation of interests, the revelation of personality varies. Everyone will face temptations, especially the temptation of money and benefits, which can sometimes distort one's soul. Simon in the novel is widely recognized as a clever and excellent person. When he reaches the age of 21, he can inherit his mother's inheritance. Everyone has high expectations for him and believes that after inheriting his inheritance, he can lead his family to a happy life. The fact is, many years ago, he personally killed his twin brother Pat. Because according to the will, although the twin brother was only born a few minutes earlier than him, Pat may have the right to inherit. The excellent Simon couldn't accept the fact that he couldn't obtain inheritance rights. He planned to kill his twin brother and even forged a letter, making everyone think that Pat had run away from home on his own. In daily life, Simon is almost perfect in front of people, but his greed for inheritance distorts his personality and exposes the primitive evil of human nature.
No matter how perfect a lie is, it will be exposed. Life may be full of lies. Some people lie for personal gain, some lie for a living, and some kind people cannot bear to expose lies and cooperate in concealing the truth. Simon and Brat in the novel are both lying. Simon knew when he saw Brat that he wasn't really Pat, because Pat had been killed by him a long time ago. But in order not to expose his crimes, Simon cannot expose that Brat is lying and impersonating Pat. On the other hand, Brat was commissioned to play Pat in order to inherit the estate and receive compensation. With his interaction with Simon, he discovered the truth that Simon had killed Pat, and he also saw that Simon had been lying and deceiving everyone. Simon's purpose was to obtain family inheritance. The kind-hearted principal in the story never wants to believe that Simon killed Pat, but when he saw Brat, he knew he wasn't the real Pat, and the Rector always knew that Pat was dead. But he chose to conceal this truth because he felt that Simon was excellent and unwilling to accept the fact that Simon had killed his twin brother for inheritance. He unconditionally gave Simon a chance to become a good person again. Perhaps everyone lies for their own reasons, but life will not accept lies, and even the most perfect lie will be exposed.
Conceit and pride can easily destroy a person's character. Pride and arrogance can deceive people's hearts, causing them to not accept setbacks and failures themselves. In a way, this is a story about a certain kind of male pride–one of the key clues to Simon’s real character is the fact that he drops a girl he was interested in as soon as she has a good horse and the chance of beating him. As Brat thinks, “What kind of creature was this Simon Ashby, who could not bear to be beaten by the girl he was in love with?” Due to Simon's proud personality, he cannot accept that he cannot enjoy the same inheritance rights as his twin brother Pat. People's praise for his excellence made him increasingly arrogant, and ultimately, driven by inheritance interests, he personally killed his twin brother. It’s the way that pride operates within the kind of excusing, “boys will be boys,” culture which allows Simon to get away with it for so long.
In conclusion, the book ends with a kind of bittersweet hope. Brat survives; Simon does not; Latchetts survives; Bee and Brat leave. For all the worry over keeping an unending line of Ashbys at Latchetts, everyone seems to accept that Eleanor and the younger girls will stay there. The hope lies mostly in Bee and Brat making a new life and a new place together, in Brat’s being given his own place in the family, in Patrick’s finally being given justice. It’s a less positive ending than many mysteries of that era, and yet I find it all the more memorable for that. Readers stand from the perspective of God, as Brat enters the life of the Ashbys family, following Brat step by step to uncover Simon's lies and the secrets he has hidden for so many years. This novel is suspenseful and exciting, revealing people's greedy personality in the face of profit, and also showcasing the arrogance and pride of men during that period. But no matter what, lies will eventually be exposed, and people cannot live with masks for a lifetime.
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