Something Wicked This Way Comes

“Up front was the desk where the nice old lady, Miss Watriss, purple-stamped your books, but down off away were Tibet and Antarctica, the Congo […] Way down the third book corridor, an oldish man whispered his broom along in the dark, mounding the fallen spices [...]”

Bradbury illustrates the significance of libraries and books, which have the power to create their own worlds. He juxtaposes the mundane with the spectacular—the elderly librarian is only feet away from Antarctica and Tibet. The reader also meets Charles, the “oldish man” whose tendency to blend in with the library is key to his characterization.

“So there they go, Jim running slower to stay with Will, Will running faster to stay with Jim, Jim breaking two windows in a haunted house because Will’s along, Will breaking one window instead of none, because Jim’s watching. God, how we get our fingers in each other’s clay. That’s friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of the other.”

Charles imagines Jim and Will as they run home and describes each boy’s role in their relationship. Jim is more destructive and Will is more cautious, but they each push the other to be better. Jim holds back around Will, and Will tries to keep up with Jim. Charles uses a metaphor and describes friendship as pottery, with each friend “playing the potter.” In doing so, he claims that we are molded by the people we surround ourselves with.

“[Will] wanted to be near and not near [his parents], 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.”

These lines reflect the changing relationship that adolescents have with parents as they come of age—they want to be near them, and they do not. Will’s concern for his parents’ safety also foreshadows the ominous arrival of the carnival, and he begins to worry about his own capacity for evil.