Something Wicked This Way Comes Good vs. Evil Quotes
How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
He wanted to be near and not near them, he saw them close, he saw them far. Suddenly they were awfully small in too large a room in too big a town and much too huge a world. In this unlocked place they seemed at the mercy of anything that might break in from the night.
Including me, Will thought, including me. (8.4-8.5)
Here we see the domesticity of the home connoting a place of safety. We'll let you puzzle over what Will could possibly mean about being a danger to his parents.
Quote #2
Where the colored rain touched the floor, a pair of dusty small shoes poked out. Just beyond the downpour the evil boy loitered.
Evil? Will blinked. Why evil? Because. "Because" was reason enough. A boy, yes, and evil. (19.51)
The novel relies on gut instincts like Will's reaction here to substantiate the presence of evil.
Quote #3
"Dad? Am I a good person?"
"I think so. I know so, yes."
"Will – will that help when things get really rough?"
"It'll help." (28.4-28.7)
Will's dad seems to be saying that it'll help, but it won't be enough. How do we know Will is a good person? Does it help him when the going gets rough?
Quote #4
"There are times when we're all autumn people." (38.43)
Given that autumn people are defined in the previous paragraph as having worms ticking in their heads, being from dust, and sifting the human storm for souls, we get that autumn people are bad people. Evil, even. Mr. Halloway suggests here that we're all sometimes a little evil.
Quote #5
[Charles Halloway]: "You don't have to stay foolish and you don't have to be wrong, evil, sinful, whatever you want to call it. There's more than three or four choices." (39.6)
Goodness or evilness is presented as a choice in Something Wicked This Way Comes. Try finding other passages that elaborate on this theme.
Quote #6
[Charles Halloway]: "They, that Dark fellow and his friends don't hold all the cards, I could tell that today, at the cigar store. I'm afraid of him but, I could see, he was afraid of me. So there's fear on both sides." (39.6)
Goodness has its own weapons; we see that both sides of the battle are actually able to utilize fear to get at the enemy.
Quote #7
"Have I said anything I started out to say about being good? God, I don't know. A stranger is shot in the street, you hardly move to help. But if, half an hour before, you spent just ten minutes with the fellow and knew a little bit about him and his family, you might just jump in front of his killer and try to stop it. Really knowing is good. Not knowing, or refusing to know, is bad, or amoral, at least. You can't act if you don't know." (39.22)
Will's father seems to be saying that community and friendship is good and can help prevent evil. Try thinking about this in the context of Will and Jim's relationship.
Quote #8
Jim was at the window now, looking out across the town to the far black tents and the calliope that played by the turning of the world in the night.
"Is it bad?" he asked.
"Bad?" cried Will, angrily. "Bad! You ask that?"
"Calmly," said Will's father. "A good question. Part of that show looks just great. But the old saying really applies: you can't get something for nothing." (39.23-39.26)
This is a great passage for illustrating where our three heroes stand on the question of the carousel's evil. Jim is attracted to the carnival, Will is unequivocally against it, and Will's father sees the carnival's complexity.
Quote #9
[Charles Halloway]: "All the meanness we harbor, they borrow in redoubled spades. They're a billion times itchier for pain, sorrow, and sickness than the average man. We salt our lives with other people's sins. Our flesh to us tastes sweet. But the carnival doesn't care if it stinks by moonlight instead of sun, so long as it gorges on fear and pain. That's the fuel, the vapor that spins the carousel, the raw stuffs of terror, the excruciating agony of guilt, the scream from real or imagined wounds." (39.36)
The carnival draws its evil power from the evil and pain that already exists in the world. What does it mean, then, that the carnival has been "defeated" at the end of the novel?
Quote #10
"And Will?" said Mr. Dark. "Let's ride him back and back, eh? Make him a babe in arms, a babe for the Dwarf to carry like a clown-child, roundabout in parades, every day for the next fifty years, would you like that, Will? To be a babe forever?" (45.34)
Look at the way Bradbury characterizes Mr. Dark – there's no room for ambiguity in his character. While we may question the complicated nature of several characters in this novel, Mr. Dark seems to be the only pure, unadulterated force of evil in the text.
Quote #11
He gathered the boy somewhat closer and thought, Evil has only the power that we give it. I give you nothing. I take back. Starve. Starve. Starve.
The two matchstick lights in the boy's affrighted eyes blew out. (52.49-52.50)
This passage suggests that we have control over whether or not evil affects us. This is a good way to think about the carnival – we may all be tempted, but we have control over whether the evil will snare us.