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Chapter 40
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
Mr. Dark enters the library and formally introduces himself. “Where are the boys?” he asks. Charles doesn’t tell. “I could kill you,” Dark says, quietly. The Dust Witch is waiting outside, and she can stop Charles’s heart with her thoughts. “I hear your heart beating rapidly,” Dark says to Charles. “How old are you?” Dark asks.
Mr. Dark asks about Charles’s age because he knows that this is a sore spot for Charles—if Mr. Dark tempts Charles with the carousel too, he can own Charles’s soul as well.
Themes
Charles remains silent. Mr. Dark offers to make him young again if he tells him where Will and Jim are. He offers to make Charles forty, then thirty-five, if he points him in the right direction. “Stay there,” Mr. Dark says to Charles. “Listen to your heart. I’ll send someone to fix it.” Then, the strange man begins yell. “Boys…? Hear me…?”
Mr. Dark continues to taunt Charles’s age and tempt him with the carousel, only intending to kill him anyway. He means to send the Witch to “fix” Charles’s heart, which is to say stop it and kill him.
Themes
