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Chapter 31
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 next morning, while rain drenches Green Town and the carnival grounds, the carousel “suddenly spasms to life.” Hearing the calliope music, Miss Foley “hurries” out her front door and heads toward the carnival.
Miss Foley “hurries” to the carousel, suggesting that she can’t wait to ride and be young again. Like Jim, the calliope music lures her onwards.
Themes
That same morning Will and Jim find a terrified young girl weeping under a tree. They don’t immediately recognize her, but the girl knows who they are. “Jim! Will! Oh God, it’s you!” she cries. Jim begins to leave, but Will convinces him to stay. Obviously, the girl needs help, Will argues. Suddenly, Will realizes who the girl is. “I know who you are,” he tells her. “But I got to check.”
The fact that Will wants to stay and help the young girl while Jim wants to leave is further evidence of the boys’ different natures and Will’s innate goodness. For all intents and purposes, the girl is a stranger, yet Will is compelled to stay and help her despite not initially recognizing her.
Themes
Will and Jim run down the street to Miss Foley’s house. They step inside and yell loudly, but no one is home. “She’s gone out to shop,” reasons Jim. “No,” says Will. “We know where she is.” Suddenly, the boys hear Chopin’s “Funeral March” playing backward. Running outside, they can see the carnival parade coming up the street, just like in Jim’s dream. They know it’s not really a parade—it is a search party. The boys hide in the bushes as the carnival passes by, and then they run back to the tree to find Miss Foley gone.
Miss Foley has been abducted by Mr. Dark and forced to become one of his sideshow freaks. No one, other than Will and Jim, will ever believe that she is really a fifty-year-old woman, and now that she is a child, she is unable to care for herself. In this way, Miss Foley sacrifices her autonomy as well as her life experiences when she chooses to ride the carousel, a benefit of age she failed to appreciate before.
Themes
