How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
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?