45 pages • 1 hour read
Something Wicked This Way Comes
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Themes
Time, Mortality, and Regret
The novel is a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel, which explores a formative time in Will and Jim’s lives. The novel’s preoccupation with aging and the passage of time also applies to Charles. Time impacts Will, Jim, and Charles in different ways. Charles looks to the past, regretting the years that, in his mind, alienate him from his son. Jim is impatient for the future, where he will have the agency and freedom of an adult. Will wishes to exist in the present: He is the constant in his relationship with his best friend and father, trying his best to assuage Charles’s regrets and Jim’s impatience. Time is the key factor that allows Mr. Dark to tempt Jim and Charles. He offers Jim swift passage into adulthood via the carousel, and offers Charles the Faustian bargain of betraying Will and Jim for the opportunity to regress to a younger age.
The carnival’s main weapon is the ability to control aging through the carousel. Of all the temptations that the carnival offers, this is the most powerful, as it speaks to humanity’s fear of mortality. The Mirror Maze expounds this fear, showing Charles and Miss Foley visions of the future and past to tempt them further. Miss Foley demonstrates the danger of mismatched mental and physical age when she is excessively “de-aged” by Mr. Dark to keep her quiet. This is the same risk Jim would have faced, in reverse, if Will had been unable to save him. Even after seeing how much she regrets accepting Mr. Dark’s offer, Jim still wants to change his fate through the ride.
The notion of time is meaningful and pervasive throughout the novel. For example, the prologue claims that the carnival’s three a.m. arrival brought Halloween a week early to Green Town. Charles arranges the books gathered for research in the shape of a clock. Numerous references are made about “ripeness” and acting at the right time, an allusion to the Ancient Greek idea of Kairos, when circumstances are right for action. After destroying the carousel, the wind is “seeded with Time” (261). Ultimately, Time is its own recurring character, personified with human qualities to reflect the values and flaws of other characters.
The Nature of Good and Evil
The novel explores the consequences of giving in to our most base, selfish desires. Will and Jim embody the traditional clash between good and evil, evident in their contrasting white and black hair colors. Will is concerned with his own morality, while Jim is attracted to all things dark and dangerous. Very early on, the reader learns that Jim lustfully engages in voyeurism at the “Theater,” while Will knows it is wrong and refuses to take part. Jim calls Will a “dimwit Episcopal Baptist” (27), signaling his awareness that lust is sinful. This sets the stage for Jim’s ultimate sin: the desire to supernaturally advance time. Had he gone through with this fully, he would have joined Mr. Dark’s legion of carnival “members” all of whom made a deadly deal with the Illustrated Man.
Mr. Dark feeds on the sins and malice of humanity. Without humanity’s capacity for evil, Mr. Dark would have no power. This proves what Charles claims in the end: Evil is only as powerful as we make it.
Charles acts like a moral compass to help Will and Jim find their way. He explains that good people are good because they feel guilt, while evil people are at ease with their sins. He tells them of the evil “autumn people,” who gorge on human souls and surrender to darkness. He encourages the boys to seek knowledge: “Really knowing is good. Not knowing, or refusing to know, is bad, or amoral, at least. You can’t act if you don’t know […] We can’t be good unless we know what bad is” (181). For Charles, evil is an informed choice, one he claims he decided against long ago when he chose to wear a metaphorical “white hat” instead of a “black one” (14). Even though everyone has some evil inside of them, Charles helps Will and Jim understand that good can triumph with joy, laughter, and love.
The Power of Family and Friendship
The most prominent relationship in the novel is that between Will and Jim. Raised together their whole lives, they have formed a tight bond and behave almost like brothers. This bond is tested when Jim succumbs to the carnival’s temptation, but in the end, his connection to Will brings him back from the darkness: “[A]s if by some lone lost and final instinct, [Jim] gestured the other hand free to trail on the wind, the one part of him, the small white separate part that still remembered their friendship” (242). Even in his hypnotized state, Jim reaches out to Will. His love for him is so deeply rooted that it’s instinctual and life-saving.
Will and Charles use their own love to revive Jim after his fall from the carousel. Charles declares:
Half in, half out, Jim’s been that, always. Sore-tempted. Now he went too far and maybe he’s lost. But he fought to save himself, right? Put his hand out to you, to fall free of the machine? So we finish that fight for him (255).
This shows the importance of having people stand behind and support one when one needs them.
Will and Charles have an evolving father-son relationship. Jim also grows to rely on Charles as a friend and paternal figure after losing his father. Bradbury’s early drafts depicted a separate character for the library janitor. However, he decided to combine this character with Charles to encompass different roles: father, friend, mentor, and lover of books. Due to this conflation, Charles represents both the power of friendship and connection of family. The bond between Will and Charles grows stronger as they work together to stop Mr. Dark. Their connection is so potent that Charles feels almost supernaturally drawn to Will hiding under the sewer grate. Their connection is also how Charles is able to break Will out of his hypnotized state, calling for him to help shoot the witch. The love the three main characters have for each other is the true hero of the story.
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By Ray Bradbury
