Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Something Wicked This Way Comes, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Good vs. Evil
Age, Time, and Acceptance
Love and Happiness
Fear, the Supernatural, and the Unknown
Summary
Analysis
All day long Will and Jim ride the carnival rides and play games for prizes, but at sunset, Jim disappears. Will walks around the carnival looking for his friend and stops just outside the Mirror Maze. He steps inside. “…Jim…?” he whispers. He can see Jim’s reflection in the mirrors. “Get outa there!” Will yells. He grabs Jim and pulls him outside. “What’d you see in there?” he asks.
Jim disappears because he is drawn to the evil of the Mirror Maze, and Will insists that Jim get out of the maze because he senses this evil and is appropriately afraid. Will’s own reflection doesn’t seem to be altered within the maze, suggesting that he isn’t as eager to grow up as Jim is.
Themes
Jim is shaken. “Can’t tell you, Will, wouldn’t believe,” he says in a daze. It is nearly dinnertime, and the boys should head for home. “Will, we got to come back. Tonight—” Jim says. Will refuses and Jim stops walking. “You wouldn’t let me come alone. You’re always going to be around, aren’t you, Will? To protect me?” Jim asks. Will already knows the “familiar answers: yes, yes, you know it, yes, yes.”
Presumably, Jim’s reflection in the Mirror Maze is that of a grown man, and this is why he doesn’t think Will will believe him. Jim asks Will to protect him because he knows that he is vulnerable to the evil of the carnival and he needs Will’s goodness and purity to counteract it. Will knows he will never leave Jim—their friendship is too strong.
Themes
