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
As Jim and Will chase a twelve-year-old Mr. Cooger down the street, they can’t believe what they have just witnessed. “Twenty-eight!” yells Jim. “Twenty-eight times!” Will had been counting too, and he never once took his eyes off Mr. Cooger. Suddenly the man/boy turns and runs down Miss Foley’s street, then he turns and runs right through her front door.
Each turn of the carousel represents one year of aging, and Mr. Cooger rides the carousel exactly twenty-eight turns backward so he can become twelve years old, the age of Miss Foley’s nephew.
Themes
“Her nephew…?” questions Will. Impossible, says Jim. “You see his face?” Jim asks. “The eyes, Will! That one part of people don’t change, young, old, six or sixty! Boy’s face, sure, but the eyes were the eyes of Mr. Cooger!” As the boys approach the house the front door opens and Miss Foley steps out. She smiles down at the boys. “Robert?” she yells into the house. “Come meet two of my students.”
The eyes, often referred to as the window to the soul, don’t change because Robert is still the evil Mr. Cooger. Will also identifies the Dwarf as Mr. Fury because of his eyes, and this underscores Charles’s later realization that riding the carousel doesn’t change who a rider is on the inside.
Themes
Robert steps out of the house. “We got to tell you a terrible thing,” Will blurts out to Miss Foley. Jim elbows Will to “shut him up,” and suddenly, Will remembers seeing a sign outside of Mr. Crosetti’s shop: “CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF ILLNESS.” Will tells Miss Foley that Mr. Crosetti has died. “What…the barber?” Miss Foley asks. “What a shame.” Jim offers his hand to Robert. “You look familiar,” Jim says.
Of course, Will doesn’t know for sure that Mr. Crosetti has died; rather, he seems to sense it, like the evil of the carnival. Whether or not Mr. Crosetti dies never is revealed, but Bradbury implies that he took a ride on the carousel.
Themes
Jim shakes Robert’s hand and finds himself staring into Mr. Cooger’s eyes. “I’m taking Aunt Willa to the carnival,” Robert says. “Join us?” Will makes a quick excuse and the boys quickly run from the porch. Once they have reached a safe distance, Will tells Jim that he has finally figured out why the calliope music has been bothering him. It was Chopin’s “Funeral March” backwards, he says. “Mr. Cooger was marching away from the grave,” Will says, “not toward it.” The boys turn and run down the street.
Robert intends to take Miss Foley to the carnival because, like Jim, she can easily be tempted to ride the carousel. Miss Foley wants to be young again and the carnival offers this possibility. Chopin’s “Funeral March,” also known as Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, was not initially associated with funerals until it was played at Chopin’s own funeral in 1849. This allusion to death increases the boys’ fear of the carnival.
Themes
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