The Third Wish By Joan Aiken

“The Third Wish” by Joan Aiken is a fantasy story taken place at Savernake. Mr. Peters, one of the main characters, is a lonely old man that helps The King of The Forest and is granted three wishes. He uses his first wish to ask for a wife. The next day Leita appears who was previously a swan, and she becomes his wife. However, Leita grows very sad, mourning the separation from her sister. Aiken uses different craft moves, two being word choice and use of dialogue to display the theme that sometimes you have to put your needs before others.

In the story, Leita faces hard times with changing to a human from a swan and not being with her sister. Unfortunately, she never tells Mr. Peters how she feels and once he is finally known of this, she refuses to change her sister to a human or for her to turn back into a swan. Leita declines both of these offers made by Mr. Peters because she knows it will hurt someone else. While

An example of Aiken using dialogue to display the theme is when Mr. Peters sees Leita crying. “Is it so very hard to be a human being?” asked Mr. Peters sadly “Very, very hard” she answered (2). With Leita not telling Mr. Peters about how it is hard for her, it shows that she was trying to keep this issue away from him. By having the characters reveal this rather than just including this in the narration, it makes you feel more sad for Mr. Peters and for Leita. In the story Aiken also uses word choice to support the theme. Mr Peters also begins to notice that Leita is physically changing. “For a time he thought that all would be well, but then he saw how thin and pale she was growing” (3). By using the words thin and pale it describes that she must be growing sick. These words, create a sad mood and it seems that Mr. Peter cannot be happy, because things start to go wrong when he lets his guard