Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Something Wicked This Way Comes

First edition paperback cover
Author	Ray Bradbury
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Fantasy, Soft science fiction, Horror novel
Publisher	Simon and Schuster
Released	1962
Media Type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	304 pp (Mass Market Paperback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-380-72940-7

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two thirteen-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October, and is presided over by the mysterious "Mr. Dark" who bears a tattoo for each person bound in service to the carnival—many unwillingly. Mr. Dark's malevolent presence is balanced by that of Will's father, Charles Halloway, who finds his own life force tempered by middle-age melancholy.

The novel combines elements of fantasy, soft science fiction, and horror, analyzing the conflicting natures of good and evil, and on how they come into play between the characters and the carnival. Unlike many of Bradbury's other works, including the tangentially related Dandelion Wine, which were collections of loosely related short stories, Something Wicked This Way Comes can be considered a "true" full-length novel with a consistent plot throughout.

Contents 1 Background and origins 2 Plot summary 3 Characters 4 Major themes 4.1 Structure 4.2 Viewpoint on life 4.3 Belief 5 Literary significance & criticism 6 Film, TV or theatrical adaptations 7 The novel in popular culture 8 Release details 9 Footnotes 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Background and origins

One of the events in Ray Bradbury's childhood that inspired him to become a writer was an encounter with a carnival magician named Mr. Electrico who commanded him to "Live forever!" The twelve-year-old Bradbury, intrigued at the concept of living forever, visited Mr. Electrico, who spurred his passion for life by heralding him as the reincarnation of the friend he lost in World War I. After that memorable day, Bradbury began writing nonstop.^[1]

The actual novel originated in 1955 when Bradbury suggested to his friend Gene Kelly that they collaborate on a movie for Kelly to direct. He offered his 1948 short story The Black Ferris as an 80-page outline treatment. When Kelly was unable to obtain financial backing for the movie, Bradbury expanded the treatment to novel length, converting the benign presence of Mr. Electrico into a more sinister one and also incorporating several members he met at the same carnival with Mr. Electrico, including the Illustrated Man and the Skeleton Man.^[2]

The novel's title was quoted directly from William Shakespeare's Macbeth: "By the pricking of my thumbs / Something wicked this way comes."

Something Wicked This Way Comes can be interpreted as an autumn sequel to the summer of Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, also set in the fictitious Green Town (based on Bradbury's hometown, Waukegan, Illinois), but with an emphasis on the more serious side of the transition from child to adulthood. While none of the characters in Dandelion Wine make an appearance in Something Wicked, William Halloway and Jim Nightshade can be viewed as one-year older representations of Dandelion Wine's Douglas Spaulding and John Huff, respectively.^[3] These two novels, coupled with Bradbury's 2006 sequel to Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer, make up a Green Town trilogy.

[edit] Plot summary

The novel opens on an October 24 evening. Two friends, William Halloway and Jim Nightshade, both on the verge of their fourteenth birthdays, encounter a strange lightning-rod salesman who claims that a storm is coming their way. Throughout that same night, Will and Jim meet up with townsfolk who also sense something in the air; the barber says that the air smells of cotton candy. Among the townspeople is Will's fifty-four year old father, Charles Halloway, the local librarian, who broods philosophically about his position in life, including on how he misses being young like his son.

Later on in the night, Will and Jim discover a flier advertising the coming of a "Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show," a carnival with many wonders and delights. At exactly three o'clock on that evening, the boys hear an old train rolling past their homes, and they follow it to watch the carnival being assembled, although they are disquieted by the way the people set the tents up silently, in an almost ghost-like manner.

The next morning, Will and Jim head on down to the carnival. It appears to be an ordinary carnival — until Miss Foley, their gradeschool teacher, gets lost and bewildered in a Mirror Maze, and claims that she saw a girl in there that looked just like her when she was young. The mystery surrounding the carnival deepens when, at sunset, the boys meet the flame-haired Cooger and Mr. Dark, an illustrated man covered in tattoos, in person next to an apparently broken-down carousel. When the boys hide in a tree to spy on them, they witness Cooger riding the carousel backwards, growing a year younger with each revolution, until he becomes a twelve-year-old child.

The boys learn that the twelve-year-old Cooger is posing as Miss Foley's nephew, trying to get her to ride the carousel. That night, Will begins to fear that Jim, realizing that if he rides the carousel forward, he can become older, will attempt to ally with Cooger. His suspicions prove true; Cooger invites Jim to ride the carousel with him, but Will manages to stop Jim in time. He also causes the carousel to spin madly forward, so that when it stops, Cooger becomes an extremely old and withered man.

Frightened, the boys tell the police what happened, but Dark at the carnival convinces them that Cooger's aging was an elaborate stunt of "Mr. Electrico," and the police drive the boys home. Will becomes frustrated when he realizes that Jim still hasn't completely renounced the carnival yet. When they get home, they learn that they have been accused by Miss Foley of stealing her jewelry, thanks to Cooger's scheming — a plot by the carnival to ensure that nobody will listen to them if they attempt to warn anybody about its dangers.

During that same night, a hot air balloon with the Tarot Witch, a fortune teller who is another member of the carnival, is sent to find out and mark the location of the boys' homes. Will and Jim see the Witch leaving a huge splotch on both of their roofs, and hastily wash them off. Then, after Jim has returned to his bedroom, Will takes the initative and lures the Witch to an abandoned warehouse, puncturing her balloon with an arrow there to ensure that she will not be able to scout them out for a while.

The next day, Will and Jim, out walking the streets, hear the sound of a little girl crying under a tree. Will recognizes the girl as a more youthful form of Miss Foley, and appears to be confirmed when he and Jim check her home to find it deserted. However, when they head back, they find that the girl has been picked up by the other carnival freaks, presumably after promising to restore her to her original age.

Aware that Dark and his followers are seeking them out, Will and Jim decide to hide in the carnival so that its members will not follow them to their families. Charles Halloway, checking the carnival out, happens upon their hiding place in a gutter and manages to prevent Dark and the Tarot Witch from finding them. After the freaks leave, Charles tells the boys to meet him in the library where he works at, to discuss more about what to do with the carnival.

When they meet, Charles explains his views on the nature of the carnival, and how it preys on weak, sinful souls for energy. He says that the carnival was created by the "autumn people" to feed off on the greediness and unhappiness of people; they entice people to ride the carousel by exploiting their fear of death. When the newly young (and miserable) people realize that they want to return back to their normal age, the carnival employs them to their line of freaks, probably for eternity.

As they debate on what kind of weapons to use against the carnival, they suddenly hear someone enter the library. The boys hide, and Charles finds that the visitor is Dark. Dark first attempts to seduce Charles into helping him in exchange for becoming young again; when Charles refuses, Dark crushes his right hand, and locates the boys at the back of the library. The Tarot Witch comes in to "slow down" Charles' heart. She almost succeeds, but Charles suddenly laughs at the sight of her "tickling" him, and the Witch flees.

Charles chases after Dark who is leading the boys to the carnival. He volunteers to participate in a magic bullet catch act with the Witch, where he takes advantage of the freaks' fear of others' happiness by carving a smile on the wax bullet and shocking the Witch to death by firing it with Will standing by as his "good right hand."

As the carnival closes, Charles and Will run after Jim in the Mirror Maze. Charles almost gives way when he sees progressively older versions of himself in the mirrors, but when Will tells him that he doesn't care if he's old, he suddenly understands who he is, and professes his acceptance with a laugh, which shatters the Mirror Maze.

The carnival is in disarray now, thanks to them, but Jim is successfully lured into stepping on the carousel. Will tries to pull him from the carousel, but ends up knocking Jim unconscious. Meanwhile, Charles is led away by a boy who claims that Dark frightened him, until Charles realizes that the boy himself is Dark. He kills Dark by embracing him, knowing that he cannot endure love, and revives Jim by having himself and Will sing and dance away all misery, experiencing only pure joy. The novel ends with the two boys and Charles running away in the night together as comrades, Charles having finally found self-acceptance.

[edit] Characters

• William Halloway — Born one minute before midnight on October 30, Will is described as having done "only six years of staring." Will is naturally obedient and wary to get involved in difficult situations; nonetheless, he takes on an active role in fighting the carnival's evil power.
• James Nightshade — Born one minute after midnight on October 31, Jim is brooding and brash, acting as a foil for Will's cautiousness and practicability. Jim especially wants to become older, which makes him vulnerable to the carnival's temptations, but is ultimately saved through his friendship with Will.
• Charles Halloway — A middle-aged man who starts out in the novel as a quietly unhappy man, but eventually gains self-awareness and confidence while up against the carnival, and becomes a fighter in his own right by the end of the novel.
• Mr. Dark — A sinister man who bears illustrations all over his body for each person seduced by the carnival into work with the freaks. Dark initially holds sway over the other main characters, but his power weakens when Charles uses happy emotions against him, something he cannot comprehend or withstand.
• Cooger — Dark's partner in running the carnival. Cooger, in his guise as a twelve-year-old nephew, was able to persuade Miss Foley to come to the carnival. The tables are turned on him, however, when Will increases the speed of the carousel as he is riding it to such an extent that he becomes an ancient crone. He later crumbles into dust when the freaks try to escort him back to the carousel.
• The Tarot Witch — A blind soothsayer with a sixth sense and the ability to perform many magic rituals, the Witch is portrayed as one of the carnival's most dangerous members. She attempts to put Charles to sleep permanently after Mr. Dark crushes his hand, leaving him in frail condition, but is unexpectedly driven away when Charles laughs at what he sees as her tickling him, a sound she is unused to. Charles uses this fear to kill the Witch by carving a smile on a bullet for the bullet catch act and firing it at her to frighten her to death.
• Miss Foley — A forty-year-old schoolteacher of Will and Jim. Much like the other victims of the carnival, Miss Foley wished to become young again. However, when she got her wish, she became a frightened little girl who was found by Will and Jim, crying under a tree. It is not stated in the novel what happened to Miss Foley at the end; the best theory is that she ran away with the freaks as the carnival collapsed.

[edit] Major themes

[edit] Structure

Something Wicked This Way Comes can be interpreted as an allegory of the struggle between good and evil, with the human characters Will, Jim, and Charles on the side of morality, and Mr. Dark and his carnival on the side of sin and temptation. Just as in many other fictional works revolving around the same concept, good prevails in the end, not with supernatural or physical powers, but with pure emotions and actions that evil cannot taint. Symbolism is prevalent in this theme, with evil represented in concrete objects (e.g. the carousel, Dark's tattoos) and illusionary images (e.g. Death as malevolent when it really is nothing), and good in abstract, intangible concepts of human feeling.^[4]

As in Dandelion Wine, Bradbury infuses the novel with nostalgia for his childhood. However, Dandelion Wine better represents the idyllic days, whereas Something Wicked explores the darker nights, combining folk-tale characters with supernatural elements to relate otherwise fantastical and gothic-themed motifs to American daily life.^[5]

[edit] Viewpoint on life

Self-centered desires and wishes are portrayed as at the base of human malice and unhappiness because they blind people to the blessings of life with an unattainable dream. The novel's main example of this is Miss Foley's seduction by Cooger's promise of youth that causes her to fail to see his deception as her "nephew," and lose her rightful place in society.^[6] It is implied that the counter force against this is a selfless, enthusiastic pursuit of the everyday joys of life, signified by Charles' simultaneous running with Jim and Will at the end of the novel; the fact that he is nearly forty years older than them pales in comparison to the pleasure he gets in partaking in simple human companionship.

[edit] Belief

The novel also conveys the theme that the power people, objects, and ideas have over you depends on the power you instill in them with your own mind, especially the common human fears of aging, death, and loneliness that everyone can relate to, which the carnival takes advantage of.^[7]

Charles Halloway is the character who learns the most about this; he initially views death as unpleasant and it thus becomes a sinister force to him that the Mirror Maze magnifies. However, Will's words of love help him to see that age does not matter if one focuses instead on the knowledge and affections gained along with it, and as his fear vanishes, so does the Mirror Maze. He also is able to defeat the Tarot Witch once he realizes that she does not have ultimate control over him. With his belief in her powers gone, he turns the tables on the Witch by instilling the same fear in her of his smile that he used to have of her magic.^[8]

[edit] Literary significance & criticism

Many critics have praised Something Wicked This Way Comes as a classic of fantasy and soft science fiction, noting its masterful blending of fantasy and horror genres^[9] and Bradbury's unusual and mesmerizing prose.^[10] The magazine Science Fiction Weekly, in particular, published a review of the novel, an excerpt of it going as thus:

A dark fantasy set in a small town, its people are brought to life so expertly readers feel very much like citizens ... even when their adopted hometown is menaced by outside forces against which it is helpless. Bradbury's prose is musical and hypnotic, fully engaging the senses and emotions. This is a book, once opened, that truly makes the real world disappear.^[11]

The Denver Rocky Mountain News greeted the novel with acclaim, stating, "If rational beings had created the 100 best books of the century list, this one would surely have been on it."^[12]

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

The novel was made into the 1983 Disney film Something Wicked This Way Comes, with Bradbury as the screenwriter. In a later interview, Bradbury said that he considered the film one of the better adaptations of his works.^[13]

Bradbury's Pandemonium Theatre Company also debuted a play based on the novel in Los Angeles in the fall of 2003.^[13]

[edit] The novel in popular culture

Something Wicked This Way Comes was one of the influences on Stephen King's works with its horror-themed atmosphere. King's novel Needful Things takes most of its plot^[14] from Something Wicked, transposing Mr. Dark and his carnival into Leland Gaunt and his antique store, the titular Needful Things. Gaunt sells people items that they have been secretly desiring, for what they see as ridiculously low prices — but only for an even more terrible price in the end; namely, their souls.

King also mentions the novel in his The Dead Zone as an acknowledgement of Bradbury's contribution to his genre, and even echoes the beginning scene of Something Wicked by referring to a lightning-rod salesman in a chapter titled "Dark Carnival" after another Bradbury work.^[15]

The TV show South Park spoofed the novel in the episode "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes" with a similar plot about a department store luring townsfolk with its super-low prices.

In the original version of Epcot's Journey Into Imagination, the words Something Wicked are printed on the spine of one of the colossal books in the Literature scenes of the ride.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Release details

• 1962, USA, Simon and Schuster (ISBN NA), Pub date ? June 1962, hardback (First edition)
• 1983, USA, Alfred A. Knopf (ISBN 0394530411), Pub date ? ? 1983, hardcover
• 1997, USA, Avon (ISBN 0380729407), Pub date ? ? 1997, hardcover
• 2001, USA, William Morrow (ISBN 0380977273), Pub date ? ? 2001, hardcover

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

• Bradbury, Ray (1962). Something Wicked This Way Comes. New York: Simon and Schuster.

[edit] External links

• Official Ray Bradbury Web site

• SparkNotes Study Guide Analysis of novel's themes and characters