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Chapter 20
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
Alone in his room, Will hears a distant clock strike ten. Jim always comes to the window, he thinks. What is going on? The minutes pass and Will faintly hears the “funeral dirge” playing backwards from the old calliope. Suddenly, Jim’s window opens. Jim slips down to the yard without noticing Will and begins to walk down the street. “Ditching me!” Will thinks as he slides down the drainpipe. He begins to follow Jim and they stop right in front of Miss Foley’s house.
Chopin’s “Funeral March” serves as a type of siren song to draw Jim to the carousel. As Will hears a clock strike in the distance, this references Charles’s explanation of each tick of the clock being another opportunity to embrace good and reject evil. Will can either stay home and do as his parents say, or he can sneak out and follow Jim.
Themes
