Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in It, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Evil and the Supernatural
Friendship and Loyalty
Domestic Abuse
Fear and the Power of Fantasy
Storytelling and Memory
Summary
Analysis
Bill stands naked in Mike’s bedroom, looking at his aging adult body. He puts on his underpants and thinks of how he cannot remember what he and his old friends did that week, or how Audra ended up in a catatonic state. He finishes getting dressed and looks at himself in the mirror again. He thinks that he looks like a man nearing middle-age who is wearing children’s clothes. He leaves the room.
Though Bill cannot remember defeating It, he still acts purposefully, as though working from rote memory. He dresses like his younger self, for instance, which strikes him as ridiculous, though he knows that it is also necessary for him to tap into his younger self to get Audra back.
Themes
In the dreams that Bill will have in his later years, he sees himself leaving Derry alone at sunset. The town is deserted. He can hear the echo of his footfalls, and the other sound is water rushing through the storm drains.
Sunset is a symbol of a scenario coming to an end. Everyone has left Derry, and It has been defeated at last.
Themes
Bill rolls Silver out of Mike’s garage. He oils the chain-and-sprocket and lightly squeezes the horn. Then, he goes back into the house and gets Audra. She does not move and her hand lies in his like warm wax. He leads her to Silver. He tells her to get on, but she does not move, and he helps her. As Bill mounts the bike, he prepares to reach for Audra’s hands to place them around his waist, but they creep around his middle, as though of their own accord. He calls to her, but there is still no answer. He tells his wife that they are going for a ride. He decides to go to Upper Main Street, which will run him downhill. He is initially reluctant to do this, but decides to let his child-self take over—the part of his being that just does things instead of counting the cost of his actions.
Audra slowly comes back awake after Bill puts her on Silver. When Bill rode the bike, he lost his sense of fear and became capable of doing what seemed impossible, like when he and Richie outpaced the werewolf on Neibolt Street. He figures that if he believes Audra will come back to life, then she will. In this instance, Bill’s use of Silver is akin to how princes from fairy tales speed ahead on their horses to rescue sleeping beauties from evil spells.
Themes
Bill tells Audra to hold on. He still has thoughts of falling in the street, causing both of their skulls to split open. He starts pedaling faster when he reaches Upper Main Street, then he cries out, “Hi-yo Silver, AWAYYYYY!” Audra’s hands tighten around his middle and he feels her stir. Bill cries out deliriously and feels, once again, that Derry is his place and that he is alive under a real sky. He feels overwhelmed by a feeling of desire and races down the hill on Silver, riding to “beat the devil.”
Now that Bill has conquered It, he feels that he can call Derry home without being burdened by memories of guilt and fear of lingering evil. Though he retains his adult cautiousness, he has also retained his childhood desire for adventure and risk-taking. His fear of injury is overcome by that desire, as well as his happiness that Audra is coming back to life.
Themes
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Bill feels himself driving away from memory, but not from desire. All the rest is darkness. Someone then calls for Bill to look out. He drags Silver hard to the left to avoid crash barriers. Audra awakens. Up ahead, he strikes a barrier that closes off a sidewalk at forty miles per hour. Bill yells out again, “Hi-yo Silver, AWAYYYYY!” He feels tears in his eyes. Audra cries out, with a mixture of fear and excitement, that he is going to kill them both. She asks him what is happening. She says that she can only remember getting off a plane at Bangor, but nothing after that. She asks if he is still stuttering, and Bill says that his stutter is gone, forever. Bill thinks of how he will write about all of this one day—or so he thinks, on those mornings in which he almost remembers his childhood and his old friends.
Bill is no longer beholden to the past, which is why both his memories and his stutter disappear. It is also unlikely that he will write about the experience because he has nothing to exorcise anymore. As if knowing that Bill is fully in the present and can therefore commit to their marriage more fully, Audra awakens. The presence of the stutter would mean that Bill has not relinquished the fears and memories of his childhood, but Bill is certain that he has moved on, which is why he declares that his old stutter is gone “forever.” While the loss of his memories of his old friends is bittersweet, its suggested that this is kind of amnesia necessary for each member of the Losers’ Club to escape Its horrifying influence and move forward into a healthier future.
Themes
