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Good And Evil In Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes

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The chilling allegory, Something Wicked This Way Comes, written by Ray Bradbury, teaches readers about friendship, time, fear and good vs. evil through the tale of two thirteen year old boys, Jim Nightshade and Will Holloway, and their coming-of-age story. This novel was published in 1962 and later set a new approach to writing horror stories. Bradbury uses Jim Nightshade to depict the evils of desires and Will Holloway to show how the devotion of a true friend can save people. In this novel, each character has a specific role that teaches the reader a lesson on morals.
Jim and Will wake up to the sound of a train in the middle of the night and follow it to where they see the carnival being set up. They then went home and returned the next morning where they ran into their old teacher, Ms. Foley as she was about to enter the Mirror Maze. After she exited the maze, the boys noticed that she seemed disturbed as she was looking for her nephew, Robert.
Jim …show more content…

Through Will, Bradbury expresses that there is evil in everyone, but what matters is whether you act on it. "There are times when we're all autumn people." (38.43) Everyone has the potential to be evil, but the purest people choose not to act on their tainted desires. "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) Being a good person cannot prevent you from making bad decisions. Will is virtuous throughout the whole novel, and even though he is tempted by impure desires, he stays virtuous. Being a good person isn’t easy and there will always be times that there will be temptation; what matters is whether you let the temptations control you. Through Will in particular, Bradbury makes it possible for any reader to personally connect with this piece because everyone has faced an “evil”

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