Something Wicked This Way Comes Themes

When Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show arrives in Green Town, Illinois, one week before Halloween, local boys Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade can hardly believe their good fortune. But as thirteen-year-old Will and Jim watch the carnival train clamor into town at 3:00 a.m., pulling a singing calliope that has no one at the keyboard, the boys quickly realize that this is no ordinary carnival. Instead of cotton candy and innocent childhood fun, the…

Protagonist Will Halloway and his best friend, Jim Nightshade, are both one week shy of their fourteenth birthdays, and while they may be on the cusp of manhood, they are not quite adults. Both enjoy typical children’s things, like books about dinosaurs and traveling carnivals, but Jim yearns for the freedom to live outside the restraints of childhood. When Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show comes to town with its mysterious carousel, it…

Something Wicked This Way Comes begins just one week before Halloween, and the novel is fittingly pervaded by a sense of fear and filled with references to the supernatural. Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade’s own names reflect this spooky holiday, which also happens to be Jim’s birthday (Will, for his part, was born just one minute before Halloween). When Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show arrives, it is not long before a palpable dread…