History Literature / TheThornBirds

%%* HeroesWantRedheads: Ralph and Meggie, Rain and Justine.

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Averted. Poor Ralph has to explain to Meggie what's actually happening when she starts menstruating, since her mother hasn't bothered to tell her anything at all and Meggie thinks she's dying from a tumor.

%%* BlackSheep: Poor Frank.

* OedipusComplex:
** Fee and Frank, to a downright disturbing level--he flips out at the sight of Fee's pregnancy, horrified at the undeniable evidence of Fee and Paddy's sexual relationship. The animosity between him and Paddy is outright described as "the rivalry for Fee".
** Reversed with Meggie and Dane--though she actually wants to her son get married and have children, rather than keeping him to herself (though she still sees his decision to become a priest as an attack on her).
** Ralph and Meggie can be seen as a gender swapped version as well.

* TheHerosBirthday: The book opens on the female protagonist, Meggie Cleary's, fifth birthday... which her mother just barely acknowledges by tossing her an unwrapped doll. She's the youngest child (at the time) and only daughter in a large family of boys. The brothers nearest her age destroy the toy before the day is out. These things set the stage for Meggie being ignored and/or taken advantage of by most of her family right on into adulthood.

Just starting on a character page.

** Meggie. She spends years lusting after a priest, wanting him to forsake his vows to be with her. She also denounces the church constantly, blaming it for costing her both of the men she loves--Ralph and Dane. She also ultimately commits adultery with said priest and passes his child off as her husband's and blasts her mother for neglecting her and her siblings and blatantly favoring her oldest son. But she won't divorce her husband even though she's left him because she's a "good Catholic" and she neglects her daughter in favor of her son just as her mother did to her. She also blasts Ralph for failing to realize that Dane was his son, overlooking the fact that ''she herself'' never told him.

* PosthumousVillainVictory: Incensed by Ralph rebuffing her advances and over his love for her niece Meggie, Mary amends her will. Whereas she was originally going to leave everything to her brother Paddy (Meggie's father) and his family, she now leaves the bulk of it to Ralph, even though she still leaves a significant amount to Paddy. Had she left everything to Ralph and left her brother penniless, she knows Ralph would have been angry to refuse the new terms, but this way, he has no reason to do so. Furthermore, with her financial backing, Ralph can begin to advance in the Catholic Church, something else she knows he desperately wants, but simultaneously be separated from his beloved Meggie. Despite their love for each other and even a romantic interlude that results in a son, they're never able to be happy together.

* HollywoodFire: A massive one destroys some of the Drogheda property, and kills Paddy; his son Stuart finds the body, only to be killed moments later by a wild boar.

%%* IrishPriest: Ralph.

* DiedOnTheirBirthday: Mary Carson flat-out declares that she's going to die the night of her 65th birthday and indeed she does.

* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: Mary flat-out declares that she's going to die the night of her 65th birthday and indeed she does.

* LoveTriangle: Between Meggie, Ralph, and ''God''. Ralph at one point admits to his superior that it's only after ''hours'' of prayer that he finds the strength to not walk out of the church and go to her, and even after they finally consummate their relationship and he tells him that he found a peace with her that he's never found with God, he ''still'' can't find it in him to leave the priesthood and be with her.

* PlayingGertrude: Rachel Ward is only a few years older than the actress and actor portraying her children, but this is justified in that she's been playing the role since Meggie was a teenager.

* DeterminedHomesteadersChildren: Meggie and her brothers can be considered examples.