Literary Devices in Something Wicked This Way Comes
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Clock imagery in Something Wicked This Way Comes is both literal and figurative. In a literal sense, the town clock is a major figure in the text. It is constantly striking the different hours of t...
Setting
Green Town, Illinois seems like such a peaceful small town, the kind of place where no one locks their doors and boys play innocent little pranks. Jim and Will run around with pockets full of kite-...
Narrator Point of View
We move around a fair bit in this novel. Sometimes the action is on the boys, sometimes Charles Halloway, and even occasionally on minor characters like Miss Foley and Tom Fury. For the overwhelmin...
Genre
Our favorite creepy moment comes right at the end of Chapter 42. Let's see if we can reconstruct it for you. Mr. Dark, our evil villain extraordinaire, is stalking the dark aisles of the local town...
Tone
Bradbury takes on the world from a kid's point of view in this novel. Many of the supernatural horrors that Will experiences, for instance, can easily be chalked up to the play of shadows at night,...
Writing Style
Bradbury offers us richly layered prose that displays a slight obsession with metaphor. Jim is a kite, Will is earthbound. Will is a white rabbit. Will and Jim are tomcats. The library is not just...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
Man is in love, and loves what vanishes.– W.B. YeatsThey sleep not, except they have done mischief;And their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall. For they eat the bread of wic...
What's Up With the Ending?
"Last one to the railroad semaphore at Green Crossing is an old lady!" (54.139)With that triumphant shout, Jim and Will are off running into the night, and Will's father hesitates only for a moment...
Plot Analysis
A lightning-rod salesman warns that a storm is coming into town; handbills advertise that a carnival is on its way.Every one and their mother seems to be insisting that something is a-brewing and...
Trivia
Ray Bradbury was inspired to become a writer after a childhood encounter with a travelling carnival magician named Mr. Electrico. You can read all about it here.Horror writer Stephen King credits B...
Steaminess Rating
None
Allusions
William Shakespeare, Macbeth (title, 37.28)W. B. Yeats, "Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen" (epigraph)The Bible, Proverbs 4:16-17 (epigraph)Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (epigraph) Chopin's Funeral March...