ACEWEEK, and why Something Wicked This Way Comes is a Perfect Love Story
by Ella Shropshire
HAPPY ACEWEEK! And also, happy Something Wicked This Way Comes week, because coincidentally, they’re starting on the same day this year. In honor of this monumental coincidence, here’s this thing I wrote!
When I first read Something Wicked This Way Comes, I was enchanted. Though I’ve re-read it many times, that enchantment never fades. Once again, I’m entranced, under its spell, every time, it gets stronger, and I want to cry when Will watches Jim and worries he’ll be left behind, when time and time again, Jim and Will prove how much they love each other. And as I fell into its spell this year, I realized something. Something Wicked is a perfect love story.
Ray Bradbury’s 1962 novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, tells the tale of two young boys, best friends Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway, who go up against a dark carnival and its sinister ringleader, who arrive in town at 3 AM on October 25th. The circus, Cooger and Dark’s Combined Shadow Shows and cross-continental Pandemonium Theater Company, plays into people's biggest fears, draws them in with their dearest wishes, and once they’ve got someone, twists them, contorts them, into some sorry member of their carnival. Not exactly the set up for a love story, I know. It seems clear enough that the conflict is between the young lads and the terrible, spooky circus, leaving little room for any romances or ‘perfect love stories’. In that assumption (if you even made it), you’ve blundered twice!
The exposition makes it very clear that, when all is well, the relationship is as balanced as a very involved friendship between two rambunctious 1950’s suburban 13-year-olds is able to be balanced. Jim will curb his nature and listen to Will, Will will put aside his well behaved tendencies to keep up with Jim. Jim needs Will, Will needs Jim. When the carnival arrives, though, it becomes clear that Jim, while still relying on Will, no longer heeds him, and Will, despairing this, will continue to follow Jim wherever he goes. Where once the boys ran side by side, always together, Will finds himself alone, running after Jim, trying to save him from the circus’s reaching arms. Jim is ensnared by the circus, and the prospect of time running forward, and of becoming an adult. Will sees this, and though he feels helpless to stop it, is never once willing to give up on Jim.
As the divide between them grows, another character is thrown into the mix. The striking villain, Mr. Dark, the carnival’s ringmaster and Illustrated Man. He seems incredibly similar to Jim, and from the very beginning singles him out. When the boys meet him, Will realizes that Mr. Dark does not look at him at all, and notices that he and Jim seem to mirror each other. In Mr. Dark, Jim sees the adulthood he longs to have and the darkness that part of him, a part that was once balanced out by Will, longs to embrace. While the conflict still follows the boys as they try to rid the town of this evil, it also becomes a desperate fight for Jim’s soul.
The whole book introduces this sense that the two are vastly different, that one of them will eventually be taken away by time. And throughout the whole book, they stand together against that inevitable day by dismissing it completely. They match each other's paces, they emulate each other, they do it all simply because they're friends and they love each other and they want to stay together. When everything should be fundamentally changed, they fight off that darkness by once more looking time in the face, and saying “I don’t care, because we’re friends here and now, and that's what matters.” It's beautiful, it's haunting, it brings me to tears every time their friendship is pondered in these well worn pages. And it's love, love as I know it, love as I've felt it. It’s platonic love, painted as beautifully as it should be painted, all across the story. I shall leave you with this quote;
Ray Bradbury’s 1962 novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, tells the tale of two young boys, best friends Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway, who go up against a dark carnival and its sinister ringleader, who arrive in town at 3 AM on October 25th. The circus, Cooger and Dark’s Combined Shadow Shows and cross-continental Pandemonium Theater Company, plays into people's biggest fears, draws them in with their dearest wishes, and once they’ve got someone, twists them, contorts them, into some sorry member of their carnival. Not exactly the set up for a love story, I know. It seems clear enough that the conflict is between the young lads and the terrible, spooky circus, leaving little room for any romances or ‘perfect love stories’. In that assumption (if you even made it), you’ve blundered twice!
I must make clear what I mean by ‘love’. (this is where the aceweek part comes in.) There is a likelihood that you and I see love very differently. I am aromantic, I do not feel romantic attraction. That does not mean I do not feel love—I do, very strongly—but instead of being directed in a romantic sense, to a romantic partner, it is directed to my friends, my family, the world, and a million other things. I did not know why I loved Something Wicked so much when I first read it, but now I do. Something Wicked is one of the only books I've encountered that is entirely a platonic love story. Romantic love is not evident here, and Mr. Halloway and Will have their strong father-son bond, but at the core of Something Wicked is the friendship between Will and Jim. The conflict is not only between them and the circus, but between the circus, its temptations, and their friendship, and between the two of them, between their love for each other and the great cotton-candy-scented wedge the circus jams between them.
Will and Jim are very purposefully opposites. Will Halloway is born on the 30th, a minute to midnight; Jim Nightshade is born a minute after midnight, on October 31st. Will is light, Jim is dark. Jim wants to grow up, to be a man; Will wants to freeze time, to keep everyone together. Jim wants action, Will is more thoughtful. Jim is entranced by the carnival, Will is repulsed. The two are one of the most in-your-face examples of narrative foils I’ve ever seen. And yet, they are best friends. Half of the book is dedicated to their differences, their opposite souls, and the way they pretend like those differences don’t exist, and for that half, I love this book more than any other. Each one gives up little things to keep the other around. I don’t intend to spoil anything, but it is their love for each other, the strong platonic bond that saves them (among other things). The trouble truly begins the night their relationship starts to falter, and it ends when it’s finally repaired.
The exposition makes it very clear that, when all is well, the relationship is as balanced as a very involved friendship between two rambunctious 1950’s suburban 13-year-olds is able to be balanced. Jim will curb his nature and listen to Will, Will will put aside his well behaved tendencies to keep up with Jim. Jim needs Will, Will needs Jim. When the carnival arrives, though, it becomes clear that Jim, while still relying on Will, no longer heeds him, and Will, despairing this, will continue to follow Jim wherever he goes. Where once the boys ran side by side, always together, Will finds himself alone, running after Jim, trying to save him from the circus’s reaching arms. Jim is ensnared by the circus, and the prospect of time running forward, and of becoming an adult. Will sees this, and though he feels helpless to stop it, is never once willing to give up on Jim.
As the divide between them grows, another character is thrown into the mix. The striking villain, Mr. Dark, the carnival’s ringmaster and Illustrated Man. He seems incredibly similar to Jim, and from the very beginning singles him out. When the boys meet him, Will realizes that Mr. Dark does not look at him at all, and notices that he and Jim seem to mirror each other. In Mr. Dark, Jim sees the adulthood he longs to have and the darkness that part of him, a part that was once balanced out by Will, longs to embrace. While the conflict still follows the boys as they try to rid the town of this evil, it also becomes a desperate fight for Jim’s soul.
The whole book introduces this sense that the two are vastly different, that one of them will eventually be taken away by time. And throughout the whole book, they stand together against that inevitable day by dismissing it completely. They match each other's paces, they emulate each other, they do it all simply because they're friends and they love each other and they want to stay together. When everything should be fundamentally changed, they fight off that darkness by once more looking time in the face, and saying “I don’t care, because we’re friends here and now, and that's what matters.” It's beautiful, it's haunting, it brings me to tears every time their friendship is pondered in these well worn pages. And it's love, love as I know it, love as I've felt it. It’s platonic love, painted as beautifully as it should be painted, all across the story. I shall leave you with this quote;
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 shape we can make of the other.
In the spirit of the spooky season, you really should check out Something Wicked This Way Comes. It's a book, it's a movie that Disney’s ashamed of, it's a play and a graphic novel. It's a Halloweeny masterpiece and, at least for me, a real tear-jerker.
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