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
The carnival goers all go home for dinner and the carnival midway looks deserted. Jim and Will pass the carousel and notice a large sign reading: “OUT OF ORDER! KEEP OFF!” Jim doesn’t believe it. “Don’t look broke to me,” he says, climbing on the carousel. “Ho, boy, git!” someone yells. A strange man grabs Jim and lifts him clear off the ground. “Help, Will, help!” Jim yells. As Will runs to his aid, the man lifts Will up too. “Out of order,” he says. “Can’t you read?”
Mr. Cooger’s incredible strength when he easily lifts both boys off the ground makes his later transition into the decrepit and frail Mr. Electrico all the more striking. The carousel is “out of order” not because it is broken, but because Mr. Dark controls who rides and who doesn’t. Only those tempted to become older or younger ride the carousel.
Themes
“Put them down,” a second man says “gently.” “The name is Dark,” he says, and produces a white business card that quickly turns blue and then red. Mr. Dark introduces the other man as Mr. Cooger: they are the proprietors of the carnival. Mr. Dark rolls up his sleeves and Jim notices several colorful tattoos on his wrists. “What’s your name, boy,” Mr. Dark asks Jim. “Simon,” he lies. “Show’s over,” Mr. Dark says. He tells Jim to come back after supper and ride the carousel when it is fixed. “Take this card,” Mr. Dark says. “Free ride.”
Mr. Dark and Mr. Cooger have a sort of good cop/bad cop routine, which serves to further trap the boys and entice them to the carnival. Jim gives Mr. Dark a fake name because, like Will, he senses the danger of the carnival. Mr. Dark likewise senses that Jim is more vulnerable to evil and sin, which is why he gives Jim a free pass to ride the carousel and not Will.
Themes
Jim and Will run from the carousel and quickly climb a tree, secretly watching Dark and Cooger mill about the ride. Mr. Dark goes to the control box, looks around, “glares into the tree,” and engages the controls. The carousel lurches backwards, and the calliope begins to play a backward tune. Mr. Cooger jumps onto the carousel, and the boys watch as his face begins to “melt like pink wax.” He grows younger and younger as the ride moves backward, and soon he is no longer the forty-year-old man who lifted the boys. The carousel stops and Cooger is twelve years old. He looks around and takes off running down the empty midway. Jim and Will jump from the tree and follow.
Of course, Mr. Dark knows that the boys are hiding in the tree, and he wants them to see what the carousel is capable of. Mr. Dark tempts them with the carousel’s supernatural ability to make them their desired age simply by riding it in the appropriate direction. When Mr. Cooger stops and looks around before running away, he is also tempting the boys. If they follow Mr. Cooger to Miss Foley’s house where he is posing as her nephew, Robert, it will only increase Jim’s interest in the carnival.
Themes
