Summary

The Prologue introduces the setting and the two main characters: William Halloway and James (Jim) Nightshade. Will is two minutes older than Jim, with Will born a minute before October 31 and Jim born a minute after. During this last week of October, the boys will "grow up overnight."

It is October 23rd, and a storm brews in the distance. Jim and James recline on the grass outside their houses. They live next door to one another and are best friends. Will, who has light blond hair, is bright and chatty, while Jim is dark, brooding and silent.

Tom Fury, a traveling lightning rod salesman dressed in "storm-dark clothes", approaches the boys, looking for their parents so he can sell them a lightning rod, but neither set is home and the boys themselves do not have any money. Tom gives the boys a lightning rod for free because he believes one of their houses will be struck by lightning come nightfall. The lightning rod, a "half-crescent, half-cross" shape, is marked with ancient languages. Tom then determines that Jim's house will be struck, and departs. Will convinces Jim to mount the lightning rod on his roof.

After hanging up the lightning rod, the boys race to the library, where Will's father, Charles, works as a janitor. Many nights, Charles will stay up late past his shift, reading books in the library. The library is a magical place to them, and they imagine that they hear screams and yelling, marching and canons; they smell spices and hear the sounds of alien deserts. Charles looks old enough to be Will's grandfather, and according to Will, looks just like himself "in a smashed mirror." Charles gives each of the boys books appropriate to their dispositions, showing Jim "black hat" books featuring villains and Will "white hat" books by Jules Verne and Ghandi. Chapter 2 ends with the boys walking out of the library and talking about the storm. They can't hear it, but Will feels goose bumps on his arms.

Charles remains in the library to lock up, though he feels an urge to run out with the two boys. After he closes the library, he walks to a bar for his "one and only" drink. Meanwhile, the clock strikes nine as the boys walk home into the deserted town. They are spooked by Mr. Tetley, the tobacconist, and Mr. Crosetti, the barber, who weeps with nostalgia at the smell of licorice. Will convinces Mr. Crosetti to leave his barber pole burning all night and takes comfort in the thought of its continued light.

Charles walks out of the bar and sees a man in a dark suit and a palm covered in black fur putting up bizarre advertisments for "Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show" and "The most Beautiful Woman in the World," which refers to a block of ice with an empty space inside about the size of a woman. The boys see the same advertisments later.

Analysis

The prologue introduces the theme of good vs. evil. What kind of month will October be? Perhaps it will be both. The two boys' names are symbolic. "Halloway" is very close to "Halloween," while "Nightshade" symbolizes Jim's darker nature. The prologue also introduces the coming of age theme as it promises that the boys will "grow up overnight."

Chapter 1 sets an ominous tone for the rest of the novel. The approaching storm signifies the events of the next week that will change the lives of both boys. Tom Fury plays a kind of reluctantly benevolent advisor. He has spent his life walking before storms, and he knows that one is about to arrive. He gives an impression that this one will be particularly nasty. "No ordinary storm.... Yes, bad, here it comes, feel it, way off now, but running fast...," he says as he takes his leave of the boys. The fact that he feels compelled to give away a free lightning rod underscores the danger that he perceives threatening the two boys.

These chapters also introduce a dichotomy between the personalities of Will and Jim. Jim has many features and tendencies that can be called "dark." He is brooding and silent, with dark hair. He also does not appear to care very much for the safety of his house or his family. Will, by contrast, is bright, eager, and caring. Chapter 2 continues to expand on the light/dark contrasts between Will and Jim. Jim is a "black hat" boy, fascinated by descriptions of torture and weapons. Charles recognizes this contrast, as did Tom Fury. While outwardly accepting of Jim's dark behaviors, Charles is also slightly uneasy, almost as if he senses a deeper, darker nature just beneath the surface. As if to emphasize this, Jim is genuinely excited for the arrival of the storm, whereas Will's goose bumps indicate that he is afraid.

Chapter 3 introduces new themes into the narrative: Innocence, Knowledge and Age. Innocence and Knowledge are two additional characteristics that distinguish Will and Jim. Will's innocence will always leave him shocked by the bad things in the world, and will always leave him looking for an explanation. Jim, on the other hand, already knows that there are bad things in the world, and he doesn't ask "why?" Rather ominously, Charles mentions that there was someone else who "knew" before Jim, someone who "had wolves for pets and lions for night conversants."

The novel teems with such sentiments of wonder, magic, and mystery: a psychic lightning rod salesman; a library that screams and smells of spices; the mysterious stripes on a barber pole. Much of this is an idealized view of childhood, but it also represents Will's worldview. It is Will who believes the lightning rod salesman; it is Will who asks for the barber light to be kept on; even the book Will checks out from the library, The Mysterious Island, is indicative of this relationship. It is difficult to experience wonder and mystery if - as is the case with Jim - your personality is characterized more by knowledge than by innocence.

The issue of age is addressed primarily through Charles's nostalgia and feelings of emptiness. Seeing the boys running away from the library, Charles is struck with a sense of loss for the days when he himself was a kid, and "a shadow turn[s] mournfully over" inside him. At the bar, he has a drink of alcohol - the Elixir of Life - not for himself, but for the kid inside of him. Charles feels that the boy inside of him his faded and perhaps even died, and his drink is an attempt to bring it back to life. It is also worth noting that age is also an issue for Will in Chapter 2. Will sees his father is terribly old, and thinks his father looks like himself "in a smashed mirror."

This image, and many others, anticipate the coming carnival, which will combine images of fear, innocence, aging, mirroring, and death in a succinct package. The carnival spirit is already in the air, with its combination of nostalgia and terror, thrills and fears.

Summary

While walking home the boys approach Hickory Street, and Jim wants to stop and look through a window in a particular house, which they call "the Theater." One morning, they had been climbing trees and picking apples, when they happened to glance through this window and witness people who "all unknowing, flourished shirts above their heads, let fall clothes to the rug, stood raw and animal-crazy, naked, like shivering horses, hands out to touch each other." To this day, Jim finds himself drawn to the Theater, while Will wants nothing but to stay away. Chapter 6 ends with Jim walking toward the Theater as Will walks home by himself.

Will hears steps running up behind him and suddenly Jim is with him again. The Theater was closed. They notice a crumpled advertisment: "Coming October 24th, Cooger and Dark's Carnival." The flier promises to present Mephistopheles, the Lava Drinker, Mr. Electrico, Mademoiselle Tarot, the Dangling Man, the Illustrated Man, The Skeleton, the Dust Witch, the Egyptian Mirror Maze ("see yourself ten thousand times!"), and The Most Beautiful Woman in the World. They express astonishment that a carnival would arrive in autumn.

Will walks into his house to find his father and mother sitting by the fire. His mother (who is not given a name) is knitting, while his father is "holding a book but reading the empty spaces." His mother is extremely happy to see him, but his father looks sad. Will recognizes the carnival flier in his father's hands. He begins to say something, but his father, as if caught in the act, shoves the paper down into the cushions of his chair. Will tries to draw his father into talking about the carnival ("streets full of paper blowing", he says), but his father doesn't bite, and as Will walks up the stairs, he hears the crinkle of paper being thrown into the fire.

Up in bed, Will presses his ear to the wall and listens to his parents talk. It is something he does often to comfort himself. Tonight, his father is talking about age. Will makes him feel old. People think his wife is his daughter. Then he starts talking about the carnival. Outside the window, caught in a tree, will sees a flier for the carnival, and he thinks he hears his father leaving the house as he drifts off to sleep.

One house over, Jim has a conversation with his mother in which he insists that he will never have children because "People die.... I'm not going to own anything that hurts me." We learn moreover that Jim's father is gone; both Jim and his mother have never recovered from his absence. His mother leaves the room, and Jim looks forward to the coming storm. He thinks that he might climb up to the roof and take the lightning rod down, just to see what happens.

Tom Fury walks through town just after midnight and sees the great block of ice with "the most beautiful woman in the world" inside: blond, and with her eyes closed. The sight of her makes him think back to his childhood, where he has seen similar women in the sculptures of Rome and Florence, or in the paintings at the Louvre or on a giant movie screen. He wonders what would happen if he put his warm hand on the ice. Would it melt? He walks into the store.

Analysis

In Chapter 6, the Theater serves to emphasize the profound differences between Jim and Will. Will's personality, dominated by innocence, wishes he had never witnessed the scene in the Theater that remembered morning. "What are they doing, what's wrong with them?" he asks, just as his father perceived that he is shocked by bad things in the world, and always looking for an explanation. Will eventually falls out of the tree, dazed, and is still afraid of what he might see in the house. Jim, by contrast, stays in the tree and watches, fixated on the scene and taking it all in.

Jim's personality is brought further into focus in Chapter 9, and a connection is made between knowledge and the darker sides of Jim's character. The reason for Jim's silence and brooding is the result of the fact that he is always watching and listening and "taking it all in." As a result, he talks less and less each year. He thinks he knows everything now. He understands that "people die," in way that Will might not. It's true: people do die. But Jim has taken this knowledge and taken it to what he thinks is a logical conclusion: because people die, it's no use making them at all. Therefore, he says he will never have any kids. If he never in fact does have children, he will have allowed knowledge to come between him and one of the great joys in life. Jim says he knows everything, whereas Will accepts--even embraces--his own ignorance. But Jim doesn't really know everything; he just thinks he does. He thinks that his cynicism and silence will prevent him from ever getting hurt, but this is not the case, as his mother knows. His mother knows that no matter how much you know, you can't control everything, just like you can't control the death or disappearance of someone you love. There will always be things outside of your control that can still cause harm.

These chapters also continue to deal with coming of age issues. Coming of age is often associated with a loss of innocence, and this is exactly what is beginning to happen with Will. His revelation in Chapter 8 as he walks in the door - that he suddenly loves his parents more for their smallness than when they seemed tall - is a true sign of growing up. He no longer sees his parents as invincible. He recognizes sadness in his father and feels almost afraid for their vulnerability.

Chapters 6-10 also elaborate on Charles's preoccupation with age. He feels sad because he feels old, and thinking about his son only makes him feel older. The carnival depresses him because it makes him think back to when he was a kid, which in turn makes him think about how much he has aged and how little of that kid is left in him. In light of this, it is interesting that Will, while their relationship is slightly awkward in person - looks to his father for truth. This, despite the fact that Will is beginning to recognize his parents as fallible creatures. Will's search for truth in his father stands in contrast to Jim's, who searches truth and knowledge out for himself, soaking in information from the world around him.

Summary

At three in the morning, the boys awake to the sound of soft calliope music and a train engine. Looking out of their windows, they see cloud of steam "like the first of a storm cloud yet to come" and then the train itself. It looks old, like it should be from the Civil War. Jim gets dresses and slides down a drainpipe to go meet the train. Will reluctantly follows.

They reach the rail bridge and suddenly the train thunders across, carnival music screaming. They look inside to the calliope, but no one is at the keys: the music plays itself. The train's whistle blows steam, and Will hears within it the "protests of a billion people dead or dying." It brings tears to Jim's eyes, too, and both boys cover their ears. Then the train passes and the whistle ceases.

The train stops in Rolfe's moon meadow, where the boys watch from under a bush. They watch the carnival eerily assemble itself, seeming to draw its materials from the clouds and the darkness with the help of a huge balloon. Terrified, Will gets up to run, but Jim stays under the bush for a second, mesmerized. Then they both run home. Charles is in the library and sees Jim and Will run by, though he does not call out to them. He looks out the window and over the town to the field where the carnival has been assembled. He is torn between wanting and not wanting to go to the carnival. On his way home, he passes the shop where the block of ice once lay. In its place is a pool of water, a few shards of ice, and some long strands of hair. He returns home, overheard by his son, and obsesses on the nature of time, parenthood, gender and aging.

The two boys wake, wondering if the past night had really happened. They find the carnival in the meadow, though it looks like a regular, cheery carnival, far from the dark scene they saw the night before. At the carnival they see Miss Foley, their seventh-grade teacher, who is out early because she loves carnivals. However, she can't find her nephew. They were supposed to meet, but "you know boys," she says. In the meantime, she says, she thinks she will go and check out the Mirror Maze. Will hears this and tries to talk her out of it. She walks in anyway. Both boys agree that the Mirror Maze retains some of the ominous character of the night before.

They see Miss Foley's reflection in the mirrors and wave, but she does not wave back. Entranced by the mirrors, she begins to scream for help. The boys plunge into the maze and an old woman's hand reaches out. Together, they are able to haul Miss Foley out of the Maze. Outside, Miss Foley tells them that she saw herself as a little girl "drowning" in the mirrors. Will wants to leave, but Jim wants to stay till sundown to "figure it all out.".Even so, Jim is afraid of the Maze.

Analysis

The mystery of the carnival intensifies. The prologue tells us that Halloween comes early this year, at three hours past midnight on October 24th. This is the time at which the train arrives, so the carnival's arrival marks the beginning of Halloween. It is here that we also realize that there is no approaching storm in the conventional sense. The storm, which Tom Fury said would be "no ordinary storm", is indeed no storm at all. The storm is the carnival, and the approaching train, whose steam looks like the beginnings of a storm cloud, marks its arrival. We don't know whether or not Jim ever removed the lightning rod from his house, but it is a safe bet that his decision - for good or ill - will play an important role in the rest of the novel.

The Mirror Maze is set up as one of the most evil parts of this storm/carnival. It clearly plays off of the novel's already established theme of dissatisfaction with one's age, and we can bet that Charles's obsession with his own age will at some point interact with the age-altering properties of the Maze. It is worth noting that mirrors and windows are symbolic of age in this novel. Three examples so far: first, according to Will, his father looks like him "in a smashed mirror"; second, Charles, upon hearing the whistled Christmas carol imagines children walking around amongst the tired and dirty faces of adults whose faces are unwashed of sin and "smashed like small windows by life that hit without warning"; and third, the narrator's musings on an infinite series of mirrors whose images increase with age.

The Mirror Maze, when it appears in Chapter 15, capitalizes on the ominous promise of these images. It seems likely that had the boys not rushed in to save Miss Foley, she would have been stuck in the Maze forever, lost in the strange effect it has on time, age and reality. The Maze is paradoxical: Miss Foley sees a vision of her younger self "drowning," yet she herself grows older. Moreover, Miss Foley doesn't just see a younger image of herself reflected in the mirror, she sees another person acting independently. This younger version of herself speaks to her and seems to think that Miss Foley is the reflection while she (the young "refection") is in the Mirror Maze.

This paradoxical move, while to some degree inexplicable, acts out the anxieties of age experienced by the older characters in the novel. Charles, for instance, feels older when he contemplates his childhood, just as Miss Foley ages when she sees her younger self. Moreover, Charles feels a younger self trapped within -- whom he feeds with his drink a day, among other things -- like an independant being. He feels as though that past, innocent self is the "real" him, and the aging body the false. In general, then, the carnival, and especially the Maze, make concrete the paradoxical anxieties of adulthood, which emphasize age even while reflecting on youth.

The book doesn't just address these anxieties in concrete images, though; it also features ruminations like those in Chapter 14, where the arrival of the train at 3:00 a.m. brings on for Charles thoughts of death, mortality, and old age. He begins to think that his son is not really his own. He does not harbor thoughts or suspicions of infidelity. Rather, he considers the process of conception and birth and thinks that his role in the whole thing was minimal at best, compared with the role of the mother. Fathers everywhere must feel this way, he thinks. Fathers provide one half of a seed, so to speak, but the child grows in the mother. What's more, it is the mother who "makes the flesh" of the child. And it is the process of heredity, children begetting children ad infinitum, that Charles defines as "Time". Looking at it this way, he thinks, women "nest in Time" - i.e. they play a continuous active role throughout - whereas men are really more like bystanders, waiting for their own time to be over, as Time itself marches on. They are "blind to the continuity."

Summary

The boys hang around the carnival all day, going on rides and playing games, but at sunset, Jim vanishes. Will finds him in the Mirror Maze and pulls him out. Jim, silently mesmerized by what he saw, wants to go back later that night. Will reluctantly agrees to accompany him. As they're walking back home, they trip over the lightning rod salesman's leather bag. There are still a few lightning rods within. Will wants to head home to dinner, but Jim convinces him to stay and follow this mystery, so they walk back to through the carnival.

The boys approach the chained-off carousel with an "out of order" sign. Jim jumps the chain and Will follows, but as Jim gets on the carousel a large man with bright red hair, blue eyes, and rippling biceps lifts him up in the air. Will runs to help, but the man lifts him up as well. "Put them down," says a gentle voice. This second man is tall, with a pale, pockmarked face and black hair. He is wearing a black suit with a blood-red vest. This second man is Mr. Dark; the first, Mr. Cooger.

Mr. Dark hand Jim a calling card. It changes colors from white to blue to red to green. Names magically appear on the card. Jim looks at it calmly. Mr. Dark rolls up his sleeves to reveal an arm covered in tattoos of eels, worms, and Latin scrolls. He is the Illustrated Man as advertised on the poster. His tattoos dance on his arms. Jim and Will give Mr. Dark false names, which he realizes. Then Mr. Dark stops his tattoo show and tells the boys to run home for supper.

The boys run away, but Jim climbs a tree when the two men aren't looking and Will follows. The carousel begins to move backwards and Mr. Cooger leaps on. Each time he goes around, he appears to get younger. He stays until he has changed to a boy of twelve and then leaves with Mr. Dark. The boys, embroiled in the mystery, follow him to Miss Foley's street. Mr. Coogar enters under the guise of her nephew and Jim walks up to the house to ring the bell. The plan is to make sure that the boy in the house is really Mr. Cooger and then call Miss Foley afterwards to warn her. Will is terrified, but Jim isn't scared at all.

Jim rings the bell and Miss Foley answers and lets them in. Miss Foley laughs at their fears; the earlier events at the carnival have not had a lasting effect on her. She wants to introduce them to her nephew, Robert, who had been missing earlier at the carnival. Before she does, Will says that he has something terrible to tell her, and Jim elbows him hard to shut him up. To cover up his blunder, Will recalls the sign on the barbershop: "Closed on account of illness," and says that Mr. Crosetti is dead, though whether this is true or not is unclear.

Robert appears, and the boys satisfy themselves that it is the disguised Mr. Cooger. They refuse Miss Foley's offer of dinner, but Robert suggests that they join him and Miss Foley for dessert afterwards at the carnival. Will is alarmed, afraid for Miss Foley's safety. Jim agrees to meet, but Will intercedes and says they both need to stay home that night. Robert then asks them to meet him tomorrow by the sideshow. Jim agrees. On their way out, Will recalls the tune that the carousel played as it spun backwards: Chopin's "Funeral March."

The boys return home at 7:00, and their parents send them to bed without dinner for being late. Unable to warn Miss Foley, they obey. At 10:00 Charles comes to Will's door and warns him to be careful before heading out to the library. Will wants to shout to his dad that the night is not safe, but he does not. Will tosses marbles at Jim's window, but, uncharacteristically, Jim does not respond.

Analysis

Jim appears to be changing, bit by bit, exhibiting chinks in the armor of his fearless, unfazed character. His encounter with the carnival has introduced both fear and wonder into his life. This is illustrated, among other things, by his obsession with "mysteries": Jim once thought that he knew everything, but his obsession with mysteries tacitly acknowledges the unknown. Unfortunately, he responds this encounter with the unknown by acting carelessly and rashly, driven to get to the bottom of the mysteries of the carnival and dragging Will with him.

What's more, Jim doesn't seem concerned at all for Miss Foley. His only concern is for knowledge. "Jim, you don't give a darn about Miss Foley," Will shouts at one point in the chapter. Will knows Jim well enough to know that nothing will stop him from finding what he wants. Indeed, Will is struck by the same feeling that used to have for an old dog he used to own. This dog would be fine for many months, until all of a sudden it would run away and not come back for days. When it finally did return, it would limp, scraggly and smelling of swamps and dumps. The dog would stay for another few months, and then the cycle would repeat itself.

These chapters also make it clear that the carnival is inextricably associated with age. The Mirror Maze showed that it could make people appear younger, but this episode with the carousel indicates that Dark and Cooger have the power to actually turn back the aging process. Of course, this chapter also begs the question of what happens when the carousel runs forward. The "Funeral March" is a symbolic choice of music for the carousel. As the carousel spins backwards and the music plays in reverse, it is as if Mr. Cooger was marching away from the grave, instead of towards it.

In Chapter 20, Charles continues to display his dejection and depression over his old age. He feels that he cannot connect with his son in any way. There is nothing to say and nothing they can do together. As he leaves Will's door, he even says, "sometimes I almost wish we'd never..." before either trailing off or walking out of earshot. These are strong words, and it is unlikely that he would ever truly wish he had never had a son. There is distance between them, but it seems clear that he loves his son. It is more likely that these wishes are more the result of the fact that looking at his son only makes him feel older, and he is wallowing in what can rightly be termed a pretty serious midlife crisis or depression. This distance is also felt by Will. As his father approaches the door of his bedroom, Will knows that he will not actually enter. He will "walk around, talk around, back off from a thing, yes. But come sit, listen? When had he, when would he ever?"

Summary

In the alley behind Will's house is an old wooden boardwalk that his grandfather carried back there a long time ago. Over time, Jim and Will had "tuned" the planks of the boardwalk, so that at night the boys could comminicate with crude tunes. At 10:30, Will has heard no music from Jim and he worries. He thinks he hears a soft tune from the boardwalk, the Funeral march in reverse, but when he looks out the window, there is nobody there. He does, however, see Jim sneaking out his window. Will follows, and eventually finds himself at Miss Foley's house.

Jim stands in front of Miss Foley's house, and Will hides behind a bush. Jim shouts up to Robert's (or Mr. Cooger's) window. Will can't wait any longer; he runs up to Jim and seizes his arm. "Willy, if you don't let go, I'll remember ... when I'm older," he says. Will realizes that Jim wants to ride the merry-go-round forward so that he will grow older. The two boys fight in the lawn.

Soon, the door opens and Robert/Mr. Cooger stands on the porch. He appears to be just a boy, ready to join the fray in good fun. But he runs up the stairs and comes back down with handfuls of jewelry, which he throws beside them on the lawn. "Help, police!" he shouts, knocking over trash cans and running down the street. Miss Foley opens her window to see Jim and Will surrounded by handfuls of her jewelry. Jim runs off, and Will runs after him "to save him", though he knows that this is Mr. Cooger's plan.

Jim chases the Robert/Mr. Cooger to the carousel, and Will chases Jim. But Jim, rather than trying to stop the nephew, jumps on the carousel for a ride. By the time Will reaches the merry-go-round, it is coming to life, the music is starting and it is slowly beginning to turn. Will tackles Jim to stop him from aging while the carousel moves forward. Will runs for the controls and tries to stop it, but Jim pushes the controls back; as they struggle, the carousel begins to spin forward out-of-control. Robert/Mr. Cooger grows older and older, trying to get off. Finally, the switch box explodes and the carousel eases to a stop. Mr. Cooger is now a shriveled mummy, maybe 130 years old, but somehow still alive. Will touches him and he is cold. The two boys run from the carnival.

The boys argue about what to do and finally call the police, telling them what happened in panicked shouts. The police and paramedics pick them up and they head for the carnival. When they get to the carousel, the mummy is gone. A tent flap opens and the boys and policemen walk inside. It is filled with carnival freaks, including the Lava Sipper, the Crusher, the Wart, the Dwarf, Monsieur Guillotine, and the Skeleton. Many are sitting around a table playing cards. The dwarf looks familiar and Will realizes that it is the lightning rod salesman, shrunken to the size of a small dog, made crazy and stupid. Mr. Dark is sitting in a chair with his shirt off. Mr. Cooger is also there, mummified and unmoving. He is strapped to an electric chair, and he appears to be dead.

Mr. Dark welcomes the newcomers and pretends that they are rehearsing the "Mr. Electrico" act. He sends 100,000 volts through Mr. Cooger's body. His mouth opens and sparks jump between his lips. The freaks inhale and exhale in unison with Mr. Cooger, as if helping him breathe. Mr. Dark announces: "Gentlemen, boys, here indeed is the man who lives with lightning!"

The mummified Mr. Cooger manages to excuse his feigned death as rehearsal for the act and the police are satisfied. Mr. Dark offers the boys twelve free passes for the carnival. He asks their names, and the boys give them fake ones. As they leave, Mr. Electrico curses them: "A short sad life for both of you." The boys grab the tickets and run outside to the police car.

Meanwhile, Miss Foley sits at home, depressed by thoughts of aging. She wants to ride the carousel. Furthermore, she realizes that Jim and Will were trying to interfere with "nephew's" plans for her and decides that the boys must be prevented from stopping her. She picks up the phone and calls Mr. Halloway at the library.

Analysis

In Chapter 21, Jim goes out alone, without Will, for what appears to be the first time ever, and Will, following Jim, also goes out alone for the first time. This could signal a change in their relationship, a shift from mutual dependence to independence, and perhaps a shift towards adulthood and coming of age. Cracks continue to appear in Will and Jim's friendship in Chapter 22. We are made aware of what it is, exactly, that Jim is looking for: he wants to grow older. He wants to ride the merry-go-round forward until he is in his 20s. This is probably what he saw when he entered the mirror maze: an older vision of himself. He seeks this goal alone because he knows Will would disapprove.

Assuming that Jim truly saw an older version of himself, there is an interesting comparison to be made between Jim and Miss Foley's separate experiences in the maze. Miss Foley saw a younger version of herself, but physically, she appeared to grow older. Jim saw an older version of himself. While in the maze, did he physically appear to grow younger? In either case, the maze - and the carnival as a whole - incites fear and dissatisfaction with one's present state by showing in the Mirror Maze an idealized version of oneself. Jim wants to attain adulthood; Miss Foley wants a return to innocence.

Chapter 25 continues to expand on this dissatisfaction. The beginning of this chapter is full of the mirror imagery that has been so prevalent in the book. We find that Miss Foley is indeed upset with her age, just as Charles is upset with his, which she sees expressed in the mirrors in her house. Miss Foley's disappointment with her age is softer than Charles'. She tries to ignore it by not looking at the mirrors, but the thoughts still preoccupy her. The "bright shadows" imagery equates a clear reflection with something darker, something unpleasant.

Moreover, Miss Foley's Mirror Maze experience seems to have translated literally to her experience of the mirrors in her own house. She imagines "an army of women marching away to become girls and girls marching to become infinitely small children." The drowning imagery is also identical to Miss Foley's vision of the same girl drowning in the Mirror Maze. Thus she, like Jim, is obsessed with the image she saw in the Maze. She cannot see herself as she did before -- the Maze has "gone inside," as it were, and haunts her very being.

This leads to the interesting image of the Maze as an external expression of internal problems. Both Jim and Miss Foley, in experiencing the Maze, have made concrete and irresistable the mysterious anxieties and fears that lie within us all. Jim's obsession with mysteries, for example, seems to be an extension of his obsession with the Maze -- he wishes to work his way through the anxiety of aging, of not knowing, as though it is a simple, external problem: a mystery. This is not, however, the case, and his and Miss Foley's attempts to address their internal problems with simple solutions -- like "the carousel," or like a solveable "mystery" -- will not release them, but will only embroil them in further horrors.

Summary

Jim and Will give the policemen false identities. Will discards his free tickets, but Jim keeps his, and the two friends argue about what to do next. Will wants to involve the chief of police, but Jim counters that they have no proof and suggests apologizing to Mr. Cooger. Jim reveals, further, that he wants to ride the carousel forward until he is 20. They argue about this and other things, before overhearing Miss Foley at the police station, announcing that Will and Jim stole her jewelry. Will convinces Jim that they should turn themselves in right away to foil Miss Foley's plan, which was to keep them in hiding. They meet Charles at the station, pick up and return Miss Foley's jewels, and return home.

Back home, the boys reveal to Charles the hidden ladders they use to sneak out. He recalls that he used to do such things when he was a boy. Further, Charles tells Will that he knows he didn't steal anything, so why did he confess? Will tells his dad that Miss Foley wanted them to hide, so he turned himself in to foil her. He promises to tell his father the whole story of the carnival "in a few days."

Jim goes to bed and Will and his father remain outside, though it is 1:00 a.m. They have a long conversation about being good and being happy, and about life and death. Charles reveals that everything makes him sad except for death. "Death makes everything else sad," he says, "but death itself only scares." The two spontaneously warn each other not to go to the carnival. Then Will invites his father to climb back into his house on the hidden ladder. Charles slips once but manages to climb up.

Will sleeps for an hour and wakes up to find that Jim has taken the lightning rod from his roof just to tempt fate. All of a sudden, a balloon appears abovehead, searching for them. In the wicker carriage is the Dust Witch, who is blind, but her fingers "feel the bumps of the world", and she moves her hands about in the wind. The balloon drops down and something brushes along the top of Jim's house. After the balloon has left, the boys scramble up to Jim's roof and find a painted silver track, shimmering in the moonlight and marking Jim's house for the whole town to see. Will runs down, grabs a hose, carries it up to the roof and begins to wash off the paint.

The two boys finish cleaning the roof and go back to their rooms. Will spots his archery set and attempts to lure the Dust Witch back toward him. He runs to an abandoned house and climbs up to the roof. The balloon follows, coming closer and closer with each pass. Will turns his back to the balloon, tempting it to come within range of his bow and arrow. It works. But when he tries to let his arrow fly, the bow snaps in half. In desperation, he grabs onto the basket with one hand and with his free hand hurls the arrow at the balloon, where it cuts a wide smile. He lets go and falls back to the roof, skidding along the shingles and then falling into a tree. The balloon deflates and drifts back to the carnival.

Analysis

The concept of age is really beginning to come between the two friends. Will stops just short of accusing Jim of being a bad friend, saying that once Jim grows old on the carousel he will no longer be friends with Will. Will also suggests that Jim would be perfectly happy to sell him out if it meant that he could ride the carousel. By the end of the argument, Jim seems nearly to agree with Will's dictum: "Everything in its time." This phrase rebuts Jim's obsession with taking time into his own hands, and also reflects on the foolishness of Miss Foley's and Charles's obsession with youth. Indeed, this mantra of acceptance will prove to be a major theme in this novel, as characters learn to accept the joys and limitations of their ages.

Despite Jim's desires to be older, it is Will who shows the most maturity at this point in the story. His handling of the Miss Foley situation - turning himself in - is strategically sound and very mature and courageous to boot. Jim, on the other hand, wants nothing but to be older, yet this desire leads him, paradoxically, to act more immature by the hour. This reminds us of the effect of the Mirror Maze, which brings about the opposite age in a person as that seen in the mirror. It is Will who is really growing up, bit by bit, "everything in its time."

Chapter 29 provides further evidence for Will's ongoing maturation. For most of the novel, Will has been at the mercy of Jim's impulsive whims and desires. Jim goes somewhere or does something; Will reluctantly follows. Here, however, Will is taking charge. Jim is stunned by the developments, but Will thinks and acts quickly, finding the hose to wash off the paint. Chapter 30 continues in this vein. We see Will taking initiative and showing intelligence and courage, in contrast to previous occasions in which Jim has been the leader. It is also interesting to note that Will leaves the house without alerting Jim, just as Jim had previously left his house without Will, when he had gone to Miss Foley's earlier in the night.

Will's discussion with his father in Chapter 28 is the strongest evidence of all that he is maturing into a caring, intelligent, and responsible adult. This is first illustrated by the fact that this conversation happens at all. Since the beginning of the novel, the relationship between Will and his father has been awkward and cold. Neither have had anything to say to the other, and both were very aware of this fact. Now, Will has opened up and demonstrates a great deal of caring and love for his father. "Am I a good person?" he asks. "Are you a good person?" "Why aren't you happy?" It is Will who begins this late-night discussion. These are remarkably difficult questions to ask for a thirteen year old boy, and they open the door to a closer and more meaningful relationship between the older man and the young boy on the verge of growing up.

This discussion between Will and Charles is a breakthrough moment in the relationship between father and son, and Charles is beginning to look more closely at his life and beginning to accept his place in the world. His age and lost youth do still make him unhappy, but this is the first time in the book that he has spoken of this unhappiness with anyone else, a big step on its own. And by the end of the discussion, he seems more upbeat and less depressed than he has been in the past. This is demonstrated by his decision to climb the rungs on the wall below Will's window. The old Charles would have declined this opportunity, citing the limitations of his aging body. This time, however, he takes a risk. It almost ends in disaster as he loses his grip on the bars, but he overcomes this and makes his way to the top. This is symbolic of the larger personal growth that he is currently experiencing. It also suggests that the road to youthfulness can be found within, through a refusal to accept the depressing burden of one's age, not in some carnival chicanery.

Summary

At dawn a storm thunders over the town. Across town, Miss Foley hears the carousel music and walks out of her house. Meanwhile, the boys wake up and prepare to head to the police station to sort out their troubles from last night. Jim tells Will that he dreamed of a parade or funeral, with a forty-foot coffin. Inside the coffin was a deflated balloon. Will tries to tell Jim about his adventure with the Dust Witch, but Jim interrupts him every time. As Jim talks, Will hears crying from an empty lot. It is the voice of a small girl, and familiar. Jim wants to walk away, but Will seeks out the sound.

The girl calls out to the two boys: "Jim! Will! Oh God, it's you!" Jim is horrified and wants nothing to do with her, but Will is more sympathetic. He realizes that the young girl is Miss Foley, which becomes even clearer when they hear the carousel calliope music working again, proving that the ride has been repaired.

Meanwhile, the carnival organizes a parade to search for Jim and Will. They hide as the parade passes them by and then return to the lot where Miss Foley was crying. She is gone, and the boys run to hide elsewhere in town. Will stops briefly to call Charles and explain. Then they hide in a storm drain along the parade route, figuring that the carnival wouldn't expect them to be so close. A child, however, drops his gum in the drain and spots them, drawing the attention of the parade. The freaks search the drain and the boys are finally spotted by the Dwarf, who seems to take mental pictures of them.

Meanwhile, at Ned's Night Stop, Charles sits and drinks coffee. Mr. Dark sits next to him and announces to Ned that he is looking for two boys. Hearing this, Charles leaves and walks to the library, pausing to buy a cigar. Will and Jim spot him but Will tells Jim not to call to him. Charles lights the cigar and drops the cigar band into the drain where they are hiding. His eyes follow it and he sees the two boys. Just then, Mr. Dark walks out of the bar toward Charles. Will tells his father to look away from the grille and towards the courthouse clock.

Mr. Dark asks Charles questions about two boys that he says have just won a carnival prize. He opens his hands and one boy is tattooed on each palm. He wants to know if Charles knows their names. Charles lies and Mr. Dark clenches his fists; both boys feel terrible pain in their heads. He announces that he knows the boys' first names but not their last and continues to squeeze until blood drips from his palms into the drain.

Rounding the corner, the Dust Witch approaches, waving her fingers through the air, sensing truth and lies and the colors of souls. As she approaches Charles and the Illustrated Man, she exclaims, "why there's Mr. Dark and... and old man... an old man." He's not that old! Will cries to himself. She stops above the storm drain and appears to sense something below. Thinking quickly, Charles talks about his cigar and blows smoke at the Dust Witch, which distracts her. Mr. Dark asks for Charles's name, and he responds honestly, adding that he works at the library. Then he follows the Dust Witch out.

From below, Will thinks his father looks very tall, taller than before. Charles tells the boys that he knows something strange is going on and tells them to keep hiding. He will tell their mothers that they have jobs at the carnival. He tells the boys to meet him at the library at 7:00 and then walks away.

Analysis

By Chapter 32, Will is clearly the dominant figure in his friendship with Jim. It is now Jim who is reluctant and afraid, while Will is taking charge of the pair's actions. The experiences of the past day and night have left Jim rattled and subdued. Will, by contrast, has risen to the occaision and is making intelligent decisions and taking action when necessary.

More signs of Will's growing up appear in Chapter 33. Right or wrong, having drawn the ire of the carnival and its members. He thus makes the mature and brave decision to hide, knowing that to return home would endanger their families. This contrasts starkly to the many reckless decisions Jim has made, disregarding their dconsequences for others. It also contrast with Will's earlier passivity, when he was almost held hostage by Jim's wild impulses.

By Chapter 35, Charles, too, has drawn the ire of the carnival. But despite this, he appears and behaves with more confidence than in previous chapters. Before, his expressions and attitudes were almost always draped in resignation, melancholy, and nostalgia. He felt old and yearned for his younger days, when he would run and play and sneak out in the middle of the night, just like Will is doing now. His conversation with his son outside their house seems to have had a lasting effect on him. At first, when the boys first spot Charles above the grille, Will is not sure if his father has indeed changed:

Dad looked even smaller up there than he had last night, seen from the side of the house. It would be like calling to one more boy passing. They didn't need one more boy, they needed a general, no, a major general! He tried to see Dad's face at the cigar counter window, and discover whether it really looked older, firmer, stronger, than it did last night.... But all he saw was Dad's fingers twitching nervously, his mouth working....

However, in his conversation with Mr. Dark, Charles finds a well of strength and directly confronts, challenges, and misleads the carnival boss. Indeed, he becomes exactly the kind of general that Will is looking for, and he takes charge at the end of Chapter 35 by telling the boys to meet him at the library later. He is not content to sit and wait. He wants to take action. These changes are evidenced by his apparent transformation in the eyes of his son: "Oh my gosh, why didn't I see it before? Dad's tall. Dad's very tall indeed."

Another point to note is that Will equates older age with firmness and strength. Charles has consistently viewed his age as a sign of weakness, but these views are beginning to change. Though age does have negative attributes, it also brings positive effects on the mind and body. With age can come strength of character, as Will intuitively sees. And with age can come knowledge. These links are not automatic. Riding the carousel forward guarantees neither strength nor knowledge. In fact, it represents growing old without either of these qualities. Both qualities need to be learned through experience.

Summary

The Dwarf develops the picture he took and runs to tell Mr. Dark, who rushes to the storm drain where the two boys were hiding. He lifts the cover, but there is nothing there except old newspapers, gum, and old cigars.

Meanwhile, Charles sits upstairs in the library, having spent hours in researching the carnival. Not only that, Charles has also delved into poetic expressions of the angst and evil that he finds expressed in the carnival, summed up in the Shakespeare line from Macbeth: "Something Wicked This Way Comes." The boys knock at his door forty-five minutes late, having spent the day hiding in various places: garages, trees, and churches. They sit down next to the books that Charles had been reading and tell them the whole story of their experiences with the carnival, leaving nothing out. After they are finished, Charles looks at the boys and says, "I believe."

Charles shows the boys advertisements from 1846, 1860, 1888, and 1910 reading "J.C. Cooger and G.M. Present the Pandemonium Theater Co. Combined Side Shows and Unnatural Museums International!" The initials on the name are the same as the posters now up all over town. Charles, Jim, and Will stay up discussing the carnival, and Charles ruminates that "the carnival preys on "individuals with no one, they think, or no one actual, to answer their 'Help!'" Charles concludes, however, that there is still hope, as he could sense fear in Mr. Dark when they talked at the tobacconist. Mr. Dark would not have been afraid if he was invincible, so there must be a way to beat him.

Charles continues, saying that the way to hold together against forces like those of the carnival is through love and "common cause." He sums up: "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. Acting without knowing takes you right off the cliff."

Charles then imagines that the carnival represents the history of those who feed off of other people's unhappiness and fear, surviving indefinitely with the magical aid of the carousel. He decides that the carnival doesn't represent death, but rather our shared fear of death -- our fear of the images of death, whether actual pictures or the signs of aging. Essentially, the carnival plays on these fears, presenting the carousel as a way of escaping the anxieties of age, ignorance, death. Charles thus imagines that the carnival members were those who gave in to the promise of an easy solution, and who became indebted to the carnival as a result, serving indefinitely as "freaks."

They begin to discuss how the carnival can be stopped, but just as they begin, Charles hears the door to the library open and close. He tells the boys to hide as he stays behind and waits.

Analysis

Charles is reading books on the devil and the supernatural and wonders if the carnival freaks are pure evil and the boys are pure good. The answer - at least according to him - seems to be no. This even applies to the Illustrated Man (to whom Charles refers as the "Illustrated Marvel"). But Charles senses something ominous - and possibly evil - just ahead. Something wicked this way comes, and it is sure to bring even greater horrors and mysteries.

The discussion about the "autumn people" gets to the heart of the good vs. evil theme that was first introduced near the beginning of the book. In Chapter 37, Charles reflected on the boys and circus freaks and decided that neither was really pure good or pure evil. In Chapter 38, this concept is elaborated upon. Most people are neither all autumn nor all summer. "Most of us are half-and-half. The august noon in us works to stave off the November chills. We survive by what little Fourth of July wits we've stashed away. But there are times when we're all autumn people".

Charles is trying to express through his monologues exactly how the carnival makes him feel. Did Mr. Dark really participate in the Black Plague or the murder of Julius Caesar? Maybe, maybe not. The point here is that this is how the carnival makes Charles feel. Charles feels that the carnival represents something dark that has been with humankind since its first days. It's an age-old force that strikes when the collective mood of a population is at low ebb, which strives to make things even worse, leaving chaos in its wake.

Charles's musings on the carnival have drawn its nature into more focus. We see now why he thought earlier that the "freaks" are not themselves evil. Rather, they are trapped in indentured servitude, seduced by the carnival's promises of youth (or older age). The carnival itself is "like people, only more so." It is a product of people's sins and desires.

Another idea that Charles reflects upon -- that Death does not really exist -- is important to the theme of acceptance, which will become the dominant theme of the book. Throughout the novel, Charles has been obsessed with what he feels to be his old age. Why? Because deep down, he sees his age as a sign of approaching death. However, the notion that death does not exist changes the whole equation. If death is indeed Nothing, then there is no need to fear death, and no need to obsess over old age. As Charles's musings turn from Death to the carousel, this shift becomes even more apparent. In the beginning, he was obsessed with wanting to be younger. Now, however, even though the boys have told him that there is a carousel that will make him younger, he does not want to ride it. He knows that it will not make him happy. He may appear younger, but he will not actually be any younger. His thoughts will remain the same, and he will have abandoned his friends and family. While he may still be upset at the physical limitations of his age, he is beginning to come to terms with himself.

Summary

Mr. Dark enters the library and asks, "Where are the boys?" Charles does not tell him, keeping to the charade that he does not know who the boys are. "I could kill you," says Mr. Dark. Charles responds by telling him that he knows the secrets of the carnival, that it has been on the road for hundreds of years. He has shelved all of his books but one: the Bible. Mr. Dark scornfully throws the Bible in the trash before offering Charles a deal: reveal the boys and ride the carousel thirty years backwards. The thought tempts Charles but he does not succumb. Mr. Dark leaves him, looking for the boys, and Charles attempts to give chase but the room begins to spin and he feels a pain in his heart.

Mr. Dark goes searching for the boys in the library, taunting them with the promise of the carousel and the thought that Will's mother rode it. The talk of his mother sets Will sobbing, which allows Mr. Dark to find the boys. He drags them off the shelves and onto the floor of the library. Will's father steps out of the dark and takes a swing at Mr. Dark, who crushes the old man's hand. Charles passes out. Outside, they spot their mothers walking home from church. The boys try to scream but Mr. Dark covers their mouths.

The Dust Witch meets them and speaks both boys' names. She waves her fingers through the air and chants incantations, temporarily sealing the boys' mouths, ears, and eyes. Mr. Dark commands to kill Charles next. She enters the library to find him, a heap on the floor. The Witch attempts to slow and stop his heart with her magic tickling of the air, but Charles, on the verge of death, begins to laugh at the absurd sight of her. The Dust Witch recoils and eventually leaves, driven away by his manic laughter.

Mr. Dark marches the boys, who are enchanted to obey him, through town. Mr. Dark torments them, telling Jim that he could replace Mr. Cooger as his partner if he wanted to ride the carousel, and threatening to turn Will into a baby who could think like a thirteen-year-old but never express his thoughts. They pass Mr. Kolb, a policeman, but again the boys are powerless to call for help. They continue walking towards the carnival meadow.

Analysis

While Charles has thought objectively about the carousel and decided that riding it would do more harm than good, the notion of a younger Charles still holds a lot of power over the man. He has not completely accepted the limitations of his age, nor has he truly realized that while old age is lacking many of the benefits of youth, it also has its own set of unique pleasures.

Likewise, Jim seems to have come a long way since the beginning of the story. Lately, he has been far more cautious and far less impulsive, and in recent chapters he has even seemed to have cooled his obsession with becoming older. Chapter 42 makes it clear, however, that the prospect still tempts him, just as the prospect of youth still tempts Charles.

Chapter 44, however, marks a turning point in Charles's views on age and death. A little while back, Charles spoke to Will and Jim about the nature of Death, calling it "Nothing". But while intellectually he may have known this to be true, he still did not fully accept the idea with his heart and soul. This can be seen in the fact that the carousel - and the opportunity to be young again - still holds sway over Charles when Mr. Dark tempts him the in the library. This encounter with the Dust Witch changes all this.

The Dust Witch brings Charles to the edge of death, and what is his reaction? He laughs. "Nothing mattered," he thinks, and this single thought frees him to laugh at the very thing that is killing him. In essence, Charles laughs in the face of Death itself, and this laughter is his salvation. When Charles laughs at death, the Dust Witch loses all power over him. The Witch - and perhaps the rest of the carnival as well - needs fear in order for her power to have any effect.

Summary

The boys arrive at the carnival grounds with Mr. Dark, the Dwarf, and the Skeleton. A half mile back, the Dust Witch follows, strangely wounded. And a half mile behind her, Charles follows both parties. Mr. Dark leads the boys through the Mirror Maze to a Waxworks at its end. The boys cannot move, and the late-night carnival attendees mistake them for wax.

Back outside, Mr. Dark, his shirt off and his tattoos writhing, shouts to the crowd that there is one last free event for the evening: "The Most Amazingly Dangerous, ofttimes Fatal - World Famous Bullet Trick!" Just then, the Dust Witch climbs on stage, and Mr. Dark introduces her as "the death defier, the bullet-catcher who will stake her life." She quietly tells Mr. Dark that Charles is still alive. He is stunned. "Stop the act," she tells him, but he proceeds, calling for volunteers. No one in the crowd responds. He begins to say that the trick will be cancelled, when Charles raises his hand to volunteer.

The crowd parts before Charles. Looking into the Mirror Maze he thinks he can see the two faint shadows of Jim and Will, reflected on the glass, but he puts this out of mind. A smile on his face, he walks through the crowd and onto the stage. Mr. Dark sees Charles's mangled left hand and says that he couldn't possibly hold a rifle with that, but Charles responds that he will do it one hand. As if to test him, Mr. Dark throws the rifle at Charles, who deftly catches it in his good hand. The crowd laughs and cheers. The Dust Witch shrinks back.

"I need a boy volunteer," shouts Charles. "My son's out there. He'll volunteer, won't you Will?" Mr. Dark and the Dust Witch grow still more fearful as the crowd joins Charles in calling for his son, smiling and laughing all the while. Will appears at the entrance of the Mirror Maze, still unseeing and unaware, but able to walk towards his father. Charles jokes and laughs with the crowd before asking Mr. Dark for the bullet. "Mark it with your initials," says Mr. Dark, but Charles marks it with something else: a crescent moon.

He gives the bullet back to Mr. Dark, who appears to put ram it into the gun, but Charles knows that Mr. Dark will switch the real bullet with one made of wax, which will dissolve in the high heat of the fired gun. Meanwhile, Mr. Dark will have passed the real (and marked) bullet to the Dust Witch, who will have it hidden in her mouth. Knowing this, Charles opens the rifle, removes the (unmarked) wax bullet and marks it again with the crescent. Mr. Dark squeezes his fist, crushing Will's image on his palm. Will falters, but Charles rouses the crowd's laughter in return. This laughter comforts Will and negates Mr. Dark's powers. Just before firing, Charles informs the Dust Witch with his thoughts that the "crescent moon" he drew was really a representation of his smile. She understands. He fires the rifle and she slumps to the floor, dead.

Will shrieks himself awake and Mr. Dark sends everyone home. Meanwhile Will and Charles run into the Maze to rescue Jim. Charles sees his reflections in the Maze, one million "sick-mouthed, frost-haired, white-tine-bearded men." He is momentarily overwhelmed with despair, but Will strikes a match and cries, "I love you," at which Charles confronts the images and lets out a tremendous laugh. The mirrors shatter.

Charles and Will walk to the wax figures but Jim is not among them. In the distance, they hear the calliope music of the carousel. "There," thinks Will. "If Jim's anywhere, it's there," and the two walk out of the tent.

Analysis

Charles has inadvertently stumbled upon the carnival's weaknesses: a lack of fear and unhappiness. He expresses this through laughter and smiles, which terrify the Dust Witch and limit Mr. Dark's power over Will. In Chapter 48, we see the true power of fearlessness over the dark carnival. It not only weakens its powers: it has the power to destroy it completely.

We also see that while Charles appears to have made his peace with Death in his encounter with the Dust Witch in the library, this transformation may not be as complete as previously thought. On a certain gut level, while lying close to death under the fingers of the Dust Witch, Charles looked Death in the face and laughed. In the Maze, however, we see that he has still not completely made his peace with all that death entails: namely, his own age, which will only increase as time passes.

In Chapter 49, the prospect of old age is presented to Charles in terrible visions of himself in ten, twenty, forty, a hundred years' time, and he falls underneath their weight. To use the language Charles himself presented in his library monologue, these "somethings" -- that is, concrete images of the approach of death -- prove harder to laugh at than the "nothing" that is death itself. However, with Will's assurance that he will always be loved, Charles finds the strength even to laugh at the "somethings," fully shattering the carnival's power.

Thus Charles displays his final acceptance of all that life has to offer: the good and the bad, the old and the young. Bradbury suggests that old age is a certainty, and worrying about it can only do harm. The only response is to accept the fact and move on. By doing so, you free yourself live life to its fullest and to enjoy they things that matter most, such as the love of your children.

Summary

Charles and Will approach the carousel and see the carnival freaks hidden in the shadows aroudn it. Some of them are carrying "Mr. Electrico" in his electric chair toward the carousel. Will also realizes that Jim will be drawn toward the forward-spinning carousel. Suddenly, the denizens who had been carrying Mr. Electrico drop him and his body explodes into a cloud of dust.

Jim approaches the carousel, half-entranced, and jumps onto it. Will rushes forward and attempts to pull his friend off. Jim circles the carousel once on his own before waking up and realizing where he is and what he is doing. Torn between staying on and jumping off, he freezes. Charles runs to the control box to try and shut the carousel down. Meanwhile, Will grabs Jim's outstretched hand, trying to pull him off, but ends up dragged onto the carousel himself. They make a half-rotation together before Will seizes Jim and hurls both of them off the ride. The carousel comes to a stop, and Jim lies on the ground, not moving.

Just then Mr. Dark arrives, disguised as a boy of nine years old, and tries to lead Charles away. Charles sees through the ruse and realizes the way to kill Mr. Dark. He hugs the young Mr. Dark close, like a son, and thinks, "Evil has only the power we give it. I give you nothing. Starve." At that, Mr. Dark falls dead and the tattoos that cover almost every inch of his body begin to disappear, including tattoos of the various freaks.

With this, the freaks appear almost to have had weights removed from their necks and chains removed from their wrists. They watch as their own tattoos disappear. They sigh as the last tattoos vanish and then stampede in all directions, yanking tent ropes and loosening pegs. The tents sway and then fall. The Skeleton, the only freak left, picks up the crumpled body of the boy Mr. Dark and carries him away.

Jim is cold to the touch and he has no heartbeat, and Will begins to despair before his father strikes him and reminds him to laugh in the face of death. He pulls out a harmonica and Will and he begin to sing "Swanee River." Eventually convinced, Will and Charles laugh at the absurdity of death and Jim wakes up, watching them.

Charles warns the boys that though the carnival appears to have been defeated, it will appear again soon in some other guise, again tempting them to be dissatisfied, filling people with images of death and feeding on fear. All three briefly contemplate keeping the carousel for themselves but realize that to do so would invite a perpetual dependance on it. As Charles says:

You'd always come back.... And, after a while, you'd offer rides to friends, and more friends, until finally... you wind up owner of the carousel, keeper of the freaks... proprietor for some small part of eternity of the traveling dark carnival shows....

Thus Charles finds a wrench and smashes the carousel's gears and controls. Then the three run back into town together, gleefully, realizing that death is not important -- it's what happens before death that matters.

Analysis

As the boys ride the carousel and grow older, we might recall the Prologue, which told us that the two boys would "grow up overnight." This turns out to be literally as well as figuratively true. Will has indeed grown throughout the course of the novel, becoming more assertive and confident and also strengthening his relationship with his father. Jim, for his part, had begun to put his obsession with growing older behind him, until this setback. Perhaps now he can fully accept his youth. Indeed, accepting one's youth and taking age as it comes is the key to maturity, whatever one's years.

Many of the primary themes of the novel are repeated, reiterated, and clarified in the final two chapters of the novel. "Evil has only the power we give it," is a phrase that nicely summarizes one central theme. Earlier, Charles had theorized that the carnival fed off the sins and desires of everyday people. This was the case with Charles, who had fed the carnival with his desire to be young. The carnival almost destroyed him until he was able to accept the inevitability of aging, thus depriving the carnival of its source of "food."

We see that laughter, happiness, and acceptance actually bring Jim back from the dead. Previously, laughter in the dace of death saved Charles from the Dust Witch in the library, killed the same witch with a magic bullet, and shattered the mirrors in the fun house. Laughter in the face of death has now demonstrated its utility for a fourth and final time in the novel.

Finally, Bradbury suggests that the carnival is only one of many similar entities in this world, all of which feed off of human fear and desire. In fact, Charles thinks that they will have only about a day to wait before something similar returns. The carnival, then, represents all of life's pitfalls, the things that can weigh you down and make you depressed and yearn for something different. Charles and the boys have each won one battle against this force, but there are many more to come. Charles implies that each day will be a battle, and one victory will not last for long. By tomorrow, Charles may again be upset at the limitations of his age and his eventual death. By tomorrow, Jim may again feel the desire to be older than he is. These desires do not go away; taming them requires a constant process of acceptance, through which one accepts one's age, limitations, and eventual demise, and lives life free of sadness and regret.

• Biography of Ray Bradbury
• About Something Wicked This Way Comes
• Character List
• Major Themes
• Glossary of Terms
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Prologue - Chapter 5
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 6 - 10
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 11 - 15
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 16 - 20
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 21 - 25
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 26 - 30
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 31 - 35
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 36 - 40
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 41 - 45
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 46 - 50
• Summary and Analysis of Chapters 51 - 54
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