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Chapter 19
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
Jim and Will finally get home and their parents are angry that they have been gone so long. Both boys are sent to their rooms. “Will…” Charles says to his son, “…be careful.” Will waits in his room. It is too early to sneak down the drainpipe, but soon Charles will leave for his nightly trip to the library. When the coast is finally clear, Will sneaks outside and tosses a few rocks at Jim’s window. He waits, but Jim never appears at the window.
Charles’s warning implies that he knows Will is in danger. Even though Will is depicted as exceedingly good, he still chooses to disobey his parents and sneak out of the house late at night, which underscore’s Bradbury’s argument that even the purest souls are capable of wrongdoing. This kind of sneaking out is also closely linked to growing up and finding one’s independence.
Themes
