Jane Elton, the heroine of A New England Tale, is a merchant's daughter, orphaned at the age of twelve and adopted by a stern, Calvinist aunt, who, together with her "wilful and
trickish" children, abuse and scapegoat Jane (38).
If irony characterizes our epoch, then the trickster is our god, a play that King makes when he bases his novel about history and its effects on the punning of God and dog (2) and places his
trickish narrator divinely above all.