Cliffs Notes on Bradbury's Works

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BRADBURY'S WORKS Notes including • • •

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Life and Background of the Author Introduction the Bradbury's Works Critical Commentaries Fahrenheit 451 Something Wicked This Way Comes A Medicine for Melancholy The October Country Essay Topics and Review Questions Selected Bibliography

by Audrey Smoak Manning, M.A. Winthrop College, S.C.

LINCOLN, NEBRASKA 68501

1-800-228-4078 www.CLIFFS.com ISBN 0-8220-7257-2 © Copyright 1977 by Cliffs Notes, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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LIFE AND BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR Ray Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in the town of Waukegan, Illinois. He is known as one of America's finest science-fantasy writers, as well as having earned acclaim in the fields of poetry and drama. As a youth, Bradbury's life revolved around magic, magicians, circuses, and other such fantasies. Whenever traveling circuses came to his home town, Bradbury and his brother were always on hand. When Bradbury was eleven, he would vanish for entire days when Blackstone, the magician, came to town. Mr. Electrico, another magician of sorts, particularly impressed Bradbury with his death-defying electric chair act. This magician once gave young Bradbury a philosophical talk that made him decide to become a magician too, the best in the whole world. Bradbury's love of fantasy was given encouragement by his family. Their favorite time of the year was Halloween, and this day was celebrated with much more enthusiasm than even Christmas itself. When Bradbury was eight, his Aunt Neva helped him devise the grandest Halloween party imaginable. The Bradbury home was transformed into a haunted house with smiling pumpkins, ghostlike sheets hanging in the cellar, and raw chicken meat that was to represent the "parts" of a dead witch. In years to come, this was to be the material from which his stories would be made. In addition to young Bradbury's magician heroes, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Tarzan ranked high on his list of favorites. The books telling of the Emerald City of Oz and his Aunt Neva's reading to him the terror tales of Poe were also early, yet serious, influences on his life and, later, on his art. Bradbury began his writing career at the age of eleven, using butcher paper that had to be unrolled as his story progressed. The following year, he and his family moved to Arizona. That same year, Bradbury received a toy typewriter with which he wrote his first novel. In 1934, when Bradbury was fourteen, his family moved to Los Angeles, and here his career in writing began to solidify. In 1937, he became a member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, whose help enabled him to publish four issues of his own magazine, Futuria Fantasia. His first professional work appeared in a California magazine, Script, in 1940. The following year, he was paid $17.00 for his story "Pendulum," which appeared in Super Science. From then on, his fantasy works were published in numerous magazines throughout the country. Bradbury says that he learned to write from his own experiences. It is no surprise, then, that many of his early stories are based on experiences from his childhood in Illinois. "The Jar" (1944) is based on his first viewing of a pickled embryo in a sideshow of one of the carnivals visiting his town. "The Homecoming" (1946) was inspired by his relatives' marvelous Halloween parties, and "Uncle Einar" (1947), the man with green wings, is characterized after one of his own uncles. In 1946, after Bradbury's Dark Carnival, a collection of weird and macabre stories, was published, he turned to another mode of writing--philosophical science fiction. One such work, The Martian Chronicles (1958), grew out of his own personal philosophy and his dreams for the future. Two other of his philosophical works, Dandelion Wine (1959) and Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), also further exemplify his belief that writing should come from a writer's own experiences. Both novels are set in fictitious Green Town, which is, in reality, Bradbury's own home town of Waukegan. For example, the ravine that is described in both books is, in fact, Yeoman Creek, and the library, which is an integral part of Something Wicked This Way Comes, used to be located on Waukegan's Sheridan Road.

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www.cliffs.com In addition to his twelve books and his hundreds of short stories, such writings as "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms," "It Came from Outer Space," "The Picasso Summer," Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes have been adapted into major motion picture productions. Bradbury kept his promise to Mr. Electrico. He became a magician, using his words as his wand to transport his readers into chillingly believable situations which his characters experience. Bradbury himself attests to this fact in an article appearing in the 1952 Ray Bradbury Review. Here he says that he simply transferred his "methods of magic from the stage to a sheet of Eaton's Bond, eight-and-a-half by eleven--for there is something of the magician in every writer, flourishing his effects and making his miracles."

INTRODUCTION TO BRADBURY'S WORKS When other writers of fantasy and science fiction ask Ray Bradbury where he gets the material for his stories, he explains that his writings all originate with an idea. After the idea has been established, he then creates characters to personify this idea. The key to understanding the close relationships between his characters and the major "ideas" or themes that appear throughout his stories is Bradbury's imagery. Because he consistently uses the same terms, builds on established concepts, and returns to familiar themes, images, incidents, and characters, one can easily be lulled into feeling that Bradbury presents a comprehensive vision of the universe. However, Bradbury is not as interested in the universe as he is interested in man himself, individual man, and how he can and should function in reality. Consequently, Bradbury focuses on the microcosmic world of humanity. With a detached, yet discerning eye, he dissects man, exposing his frailties, his fears, and his weaknesses. Recurring images throughout his works are the tools with which he accomplishes this task. These images, in turn, then serve to depict certain specific themes that, likewise, relate to this microcosmic world. Recurrent themes in Bradbury's works show man as hungering to know who he is and how he can achieve his full potential fearing growing old and dying, and being earnest in his quest for a way in which he can effectively deal with the problem of evil. As a result of the themes with which Bradbury deals, his works often take on a strongly evangelical tone, for he insists that the only hope for the world lies in man himself. "I realize very late in life now that I could have made a fine priest or minister," confesses Bradbury, and his moral awareness suggests the truth of the claim because after Bradbury has exposed man for what he is, he gives to man some moral encouragement by showing him what he can be. Here, he presents humanity with a vision of the best possible of all worlds, a Utopia, and in Bradbury's opinion, an easily attainable one. His philosophic idealism insists that once man has discovered and attained this Utopia within himself, his universe will, likewise, improve. However, before man can achieve Bradbury's Utopia, he must, first, conquer or at least learn to cope adequately with the evil that confronts him at every turn, his feelings of loneliness and nonfulfillment, his inability to know himself fully, his fear of growing old, and his fear of death. This knowledge gives man his rites of passage into Bradbury's Utopia. Predominant themes of death, of dissatisfaction with self, of the reality of evil and how to contend with it, and, finally, the attainment of self-knowledge appear in each of Bradbury's writings. These themes are demonstrated through a number of recurrent images that function in the same way each time they appear: his ravine imagery, his mirror imagery, his carnival images, his sun and fire imagery, his use of the smile, and his water imagery. Both the physical and psychological aspects of death and dying are examined through Bradbury's use of

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www.cliffs.com ravine imagery. Bradbury believes that if man can face and understand his ultimate death, then he can appreciate himself and his own life to a fuller degree. He thinks it is necessary to "meet and know and chew and swallow death as a writer and as a reader," to exorcise it from the subconscious so that man will not have to think about it all the time, and, thus, he can continue with his real business--living. Frequent mirror imagery in Bradbury's stories illustrates the theme of man's seemingly consistent dissatisfaction with self. In some instances, Bradbury employs mirror imagery as an emblem of reality, depicting man's total and consuming disgust with what his mirrors tell him about himself. However, an investigation of this mirror imagery is not complete without an analysis of the antithesis of reality--that is, fantasy. Here, Bradbury's mirrors allow man to envision himself in all the splendor that he wishes to see himself and be seen by others. Inherent in this analysis of mirror imagery is Bradbury's suggestion that man is who he is, and any attempt at altering himself can lead only to disaster. Bradbury's carnival imagery is the main source for a discussion of the presence of evil as a real force in the world. A study of Bradbury's carnival imagery reveals his belief that the potential for evil exists in a dormant form in every man. Unless man keeps that which is good within him in fit condition by actively exercising it, he will lose his ability to combat evil, thus allowing that which is evil to grow and become powerful. The battle between good and evil is evidenced in several images contained in Bradbury's works. One image discussed in this study is the sun, with its primary function as a source of life and as the wholeness of man. This imagistic study shows that, for Bradbury, light is good and dark is evil. A number of his stories go a step further, using sun imagery as a symbol for God and the promise of immortality. In addition, Bradbury's fire imagery focuses on the theme of the victory of good over evil. Appropriately, his fire imagery and his sun imagery function hand-in-hand since fire, symbolically, can be considered as the sun's earthly representative. This study will examine fire imagery, first, as a purifier or destroyer of evil. It will then be discussed as a symbol of transformation and regeneration. Finally, it will be seen as it depicts the desire to annihilate time and end all things. The works dealing most specifically with fire imagery contain Bradbury's most important social commentaries concerning the condition of the world as he sees it. Here occur his most intense pleas in favor of the arts and humanities as opposed to sterile technology. Another image that Bradbury employs to show additional possibilities for overcoming evil in the world is the smile. Smiles and laughter, according to Bradbury, derive their power from their progenitor--love-and Bradbury is satisfied that love is the strongest and most humanizing force which man possesses. Man's knowledge of death as a part of life, his learning to make the best of who and what he is, his acceptance of evil as well as good in the world, and his battle to arrest that evil are the discoveries which give man a broader insight into himself. This self-knowledge is also presented in Bradbury's stories through the use of water imagery. Water imagery is used by Bradbury in the traditional sense, employed first to suggest the life source itself and the transition of the life cycle from one phase to another. Water imagery which depicts the theme of rebirth, regeneration, and purification is also in evidence in Bradbury's writings. Here, he describes his concept of the "celebrate life" theme, enjoying being alive in spite of life's difficulties rather than finding life a drudgery because of them. Bradbury has high hopes for the future of man and for man's acquisition of the most fulfilling life possible, a Utopia come to earth. He counsels his readers by showing them the Utopian world that will result from heeding his advice, and he describes the horrors that could ensue if certain contemporary

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www.cliffs.com tendencies are not stopped. In his writings, he takes his readers to Mars or to villages and towns where bizarre occurrences are described; he leaves his readers at home to watch evil carnivals come down the streets of their own neighborhood in search of them, but always he is suggesting that Earth could be the best of all possible worlds and that man, when he has come to grips with himself, can then make his world a Utopia, a world in which he can be as free and happy as he has ever dreamed of being.

CRITICAL COMMENTARIES Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit 451 (1952) is possibly the greatest work of social criticism Bradbury has written. It deals with the problems of the banning of books and the suppression of the mind, problems already at work in today's society. In talking about this suppression in a speaking engagement at the Inglewood, California, Public Library, Bradbury remarked that he became quite distressed when Senator Joseph McCarthy began to make lists of certain books that should be suppressed from public accessibility. Bradbury was clearly dissatisfied with anyone or any group telling him, "Here's a reading list; go read those books--and only those books." Bradbury told his fans at the Inglewood library that he wants "a totally free library with all the books on the shelves--all the Arab books, all the white books, all the black books, all the Jewish books, all the Catholic books, all the Protestant books. All lined up for me so that I can come in and gain information anywhere I need it." He asserted that humanity can never hope to make intelligent decisions unless it is permitted literary freedom. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury amplifies this present-day problem to more than twice its size, extending it to a very near future. In so doing, he shows us what our present-day actions could bring about, and he warns us that we are destined for severe censorship and, possibly, even dictatorship if we do not make major adjustments. The novel concerns a man who is a "burner" of thoughts. He is an ignorant and prejudiced man. However, when he finally realizes that he is burning all the ideas of the world, he becomes heroic, committing himself to a life of saving books rather than destroying them. Fire imagery is consistently at work throughout the novel, continually stressing the fact that fire can destroy evil, but that it can also be a destroyer of good--if we are not careful.

PART I: The Hearth and the Salamander The novel is set in a time when houses have finally been completely fireproofed. All over the world there is no longer a need for firemen to do their former work. Firemen have been given a new task; now they are caretakers of society's peace of mind. They have become official judges and censors, and Guy Montag is one such censor. His job as a fireman is to seek out and destroy any home in which books are found. Books are evil. They must be destroyed. Fire Department Captain Beatty is quite outspoken in his philosophy about books. He emphatically denies that books contain anything believable. He is convinced that they are merely stories about nonexistent people, figments of the imagination. Beatty tells Montag that everyone is angered by at least some area of literature. There are people of color who are offended by the story of Little Black Sambo, and there are white people who object to Uncle Tom's Cabin. Beatty explains that the only way to keep everyone happy is to burn those books. Cigarette users do not approve of literature which describes tobacco's role in lung cancer, so those books must be burned too. Beatty insists that all literature must be burned: "Fire is bright and fire is clean." Once all literature is burned, no one will have to think or make decisions anymore. There can be more pictures, more cartoons, and more sports. Then everyone can be happy all the time.

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The fire truck that the men use is named the Orange Salamander. When not in use, the Salamander sleeps with "kerosene in its belly and fire-throwers crossed upon its flanks." Fire imagery is evident even in the name the firemen have given their truck, for salamanders are lizardlike animals that in antiquity were believed to be able to live in fire. For Beatty and men like him, the burning of books is good. Without books, everyone conforms--as a consequence, everyone is happy. With books, conflict and unhappiness occurs. Presently, however, Montag sees actual books being burned. He sees them blackened and ruined. He looks at other firemen like himself, men whose faces are "burnt by a thousand real and ten thousand imaginary fires, whose work flushes their cheeks and fevers their eyes." Then he views himself in the firehouse mirror. He notices that his face, like theirs, is frozen into a fiery smile, and he thinks that all firemen everywhere must look like men masquerading as minstrel men, grinning behind their burnt cork masks. Later, when Montag tries sleeping, he realizes that his smile is still gripping his face muscles even in the dark. His smile is an unnatural, forced smile, and soon he will understand that this small bit of truth is an immense truth for himself. Also, he will realize that he is different from the other firemen--primarily because of his attitude toward his work. It is here that Bradbury's smile image makes its first appearance in the novel. Throughout all his works, Bradbury employs a smile to symbolize happiness and joy. Montag's smile is consistent with its symbolic intent because Montag, at this time, seems to enjoy his job as a fireman. However, the discomfort of the smile and, later, the realization of its unnaturalness foreshadow Montag's eventual dissatisfaction not only with his job but with his life. The young girl Clarisse McClellan is partially responsible for Montag's change in attitude. His first encounter with her comes as Montag is on his way home from work. Clarisse is abrupt and says that she is seventeen and "crazy." She speaks to him of the beauties of life, the man in the moon, the early morning dew, and her liking to smell things and look at things. She arouses Montag's curiosity and begins to help him discover that real happiness has been missing from his life for quite some time. As she describes the way life should be lived, she is characteristically described through the use of the color white, further indicative of her function as an emissary of goodwill. Using the color white, Bradbury uses the often symbolic interpretation that depicts goodness as being white, and evil as being dark. He will employ this color juxtaposition from time to time throughout all his writings. Here, Clarisse is described in terms of her whiteness (her goodness) as opposed to the firemen, whose charcoal-colored faces characterize their villainy. In opposition to the fire imagery, Bradbury also utilizes water imagery to suggest the true manner in which life should be lived. Water here characterizes the happiness that is available to Montag. Clarisse awakens in him a love and a desire to enjoy the very simple, very innocent things in life. She speaks to him about her delight in just letting the rain fall upon her face and into her mouth. Later, Montag, too, turns his head upward to catch a mouthful of the natural, cool liquid. This rain can be compared to a baptism that signifies rebirth and regeneration, for from this time on, Montag is never able to find happiness in his former lifestyle. Water imagery also depicts the artificial existence of people living in a future electronic age. Each night when Montag's wife goes to bed, she places small, seashell-like radios into her ears, and the music whisks her away from reality. Also, as Montag lies in bed, the room seems empty because the waves of sound "came in and bore her [Mildred] off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning." Mildred has not let one night pass in the last several years in which she has failed to swim "that sea, [has] not gladly gone down in it for the third time." However the music that Mildred mistakes as lifegiving actually robs her of the knowledge and meaning of life. She has abandoned reality through the use of this tiny, mechanical wonder.

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The three-walled television is another means that Mildred employs to escape reality. She neglects Montag yet lavishes her attention upon her television "relatives." The encompassing walled television family who never says anything or does anything significant, the lack of communication between Montag and his wife, the high-speed abandon with which she drives their car, and even the overdose of sleeping pills she takes become indicators for Montag that their life is both meaningless and purposeless. Montag even considers purchasing a seashell radio for himself so that he might talk to his wife late at night. This idea never becomes a reality, however, because Montag acknowledges that he no longer has anything to say to her. When Mildred tells Montag that the McClellans have moved away because Clarisse died in an automobile accident, his dissatisfaction with his wife and his job intensifies. As he becomes more aware of his unhappiness, he feels even more forced to smile the fraudulent tight-mouthed smile that he has been wearing. Also, he realizes that his smile is beginning to fade. Another step toward a decision to dedicate his life to a worthy purpose comes as a result of a fire call to the home of an elderly woman. Her cache of books has been discovered; now they must be burned. The woman stubbornly refuses to leave her home, choosing instead to be burned with her books. First, however, she makes a strange yet significant statement: "Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." Nicholas Ridley, the Bishop of London in the sixteenth century, was an early martyr for the Protestant faith. He was convicted of heresy and sentenced to be burned at the stake with a fellow heretic, Hugh Latimer. Latimer's words to Ridley are those alluded to by the woman in this novel. Ironically, the woman's words are prophetic, for through her own death by fire, Montag's discontent drives him to an investigation of what books really are, what they contain, and what fulfillment they offer. Montag is unable to understand the change taking place within himself. He questions why this particular fire call has been such a difficult one to make, and he wonders why his hands have seemed like separate entities, hiding several of the lady's books under his coat. He makes an attempt to talk with his wife about the disadvantages of his fireman's job, and he speaks to her about the intrinsic values that one can obtain from books. Mildred, however, is incapable of understanding what Montag means. All she knows is that books are unlawful and that anyone who breaks the law must be punished. Her fear for her own safety forces her to declare that she is innocent of any wrongdoing, and she says that Montag must leave her alone. When Montag first entertains the idea of quitting his job for a while because Mildred offers him no sympathetic understanding, he pretends to be ill and goes to bed. Captain Beatty, however, has not been unaware of the change within Montag; he has recognized Montag's discontent, and he makes a sick call to his home. Beatty gives Montag a pep talk, explaining that every fireman sooner or later goes through a period of intellectual curiosity and steals a book. He concludes his lecture by assuring Montag that the book-burning profession is an honorable one. It puts an end to controversy and allows people to "stay happy all the time." Fire is good. It eliminates conflict from society. It makes all people equal, each person in the image of all others. After Beatty leaves, Montag confesses to Mildred that although he cannot explain why, he has stolen not one but a small library of books for himself during the past year. He then begins to reveal his library, which he has hidden in the air-conditioning system. When Mildred sees Montag's books, she panics. Montag tries to convince her that their lives are already in such a state of disrepair that an investigation of the books could possibly be beneficial. Mildred is unconvinced. What neither one of them know is that the Mechanical Hound is ready and alert for them already on Montag's trail, seemingly knowing Montag's

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www.cliffs.com mind better than Montag himself does. The major emphasis, then, of Part One is placed on the degenerated future in which books and independent thinking are for bidden. Yet here Bradbury is not displaying anger toward his fellow humans although this might seem to be the case. Bradbury sees the weaknesses in humanity, but he has great hope and faith in the essential dignity of the common person. Consequently, he also has hope for the future. Bradbury suggests an alternate method--a method other than fire for overpowering the evils of the world. His answer will be the smile. Very simply, he believes that smiles and laughter originate from love, and, for him, love is our most powerful tool for good. The title of this section, "The Hearth and the Salamander" brings to mind again the myth that salamanders can live in fire. Possibly Montag himself is being described through the mention of the salamander. His job has dictated that he live in an environment of fire and destruction, but Montag now realizes that the salamander is able to remove itself from fire.

PART II: The Sieve and the Sand Mildred and Montag spend cold and rainy November days reading Montag's books, and, as Montag reads, he begins to understand what Clarisse meant when she said that she knew the way life is to be experienced. And, meanwhile, during these days, the Montags frequently hear "a slow, probing sniff" at their front door. The Mechanical Hound is busily collecting evidence that Beatty will later use against Montag. In addition, the Montags are aware of the sounds of bombers crossing the sky over their house. The country is filled with unrest, which is, on a larger scale, a parallel to the growing unrest and anger smoldering within Montag. Abandonment of reality has become uppermost in Mildred's mind. When Montag speaks to her about the value and merit in books, she begins to shriek, "sitting there like a wax doll melting in its own heat." Here, fire imagery again implies destruction. This time, though, Mildred herself carries the seeds of her own destruction within her. She could choose books, and life, but she has selected instead to close her mind to the truths contained in books, placing her loyalties with the White Clown and the rest of her television "family." Consequently, she is described as a doll that melts in heat that it and it alone has generated. Such, however, is not the case with Montag. He now wants to understand more fully what the books are telling him; more important, if he is to do this, he realizes that he needs a teacher. Thus Montag recalls an encounter with an elderly man in the park last year. The man had said that he was an English teacher named Faber, who had lost his job due to a lack of students. Faber's speech had seemed a great deal like poetry, and he had said to Montag, "I don't talk things sir; I talk the meaning of things. I sit here and know I'm alive." Montag remembers that he has Faber's number in his files of possible book hoarders, and he determines that if anyone can help him, Faber can. Consequently, Montag takes the subway to Faber's home, openly carrying a Bible with him. Knowing that he must soon give up this precious book to Beatty, he attempts to read and memorize the scriptures, but a loud and brassy advertisement for Denham's Dental Detergent destroys his concentration. Montag is trying to rebel, but he is continually frustrated because he has been "programmed" for so long by society. He has never deviated from the norm. Bradbury describes Montag as running all the way to Faber's home, knowing that his only hope lies there. The scene reminds one of a man running for his life-which, in fact, it is, although Montag does not fully realize it yet.

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www.cliffs.com Of significance here is Faber himself, who bears a close resemblance to Carl Jung's archetypal figure of the "old man." According to Jung in his essay "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy Tales," the old man figure represents knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom, cleverness, and intuition on the one hand, and, on the other, moral qualities such as goodwill and readiness to help, which makes his "spiritual" character sufficiently plain. Bradbury's Faber displays these characteristics, and, even more supportive of his "spiritual" character, he, like Clarisse, is characterized by the color white. Faber is a devotee of the ideas contained in books. He is also concerned with the common good of humanity. Montag senses this immediately and readily admits his feelings of unhappiness and emptiness to Faber. He confesses that the things of value that are missing in his life are books and the truths they teach. For this reason, he asks Faber to teach him to understand what he reads. At first, Faber views this new teaching assignment as a useless, as well as a dangerous, task. This attitude does not, however, deter Faber from launching into this challenging and exciting assignment. Besides teaching Montag, Faber enlightens us on his philosophy about books, as well as about society in general. Perhaps Bradbury's personal fears concerning the direction our own society is taking can be heard in Faber's words. He explains that books show stark reality, not just the good, but also the bad. "They show the pores in the face of life," and society finds this discomforting. Also society has begun to program thought so that man no longer is allowed leisure time to think for himself. The all-encompassing television walls simply will not allow it. They tell man what to think, and one can't argue with a television set. Faber believes that truths in books can never be of value in society again unless books are first returned to man; then, man is given time enough to ponder what he reads, and, finally, man is allowed the freedom to act upon what he learns. Faber is convinced that this can never happen. Despite Faber's pessimism, Montag presents him with an insidious plan, entailing the hiding of books in the homes of firemen so that even they will become suspect. Ultimately, through supposed treason, the firehouses themselves will be burned. When Montag finally convinces Faber to form a coalition of two, Bradbury describes it as "Montag-plusFaber, fire plus water." Fire and water images blend, for the product resulting from the union of these two separate and opposite items is a third--wine. Wine looks like water but it burns like fire. Montag and Faber--together they work because all is far from well in the world. As a result of Montag's concern about how he will act when he and Beatty meet next, Faber shows Montag how to use a two way seashell-like radio invention of his. Through the use of this instrument, Faber promises to be supportive to Montag if Beatty attempts to pressure him. Faber says that he will be in effect a Queen Bee remaining safely in the hive; Montag will be a drone. Faber also explains his plan to use the radio as a major implement in causing the destruction of all the firehouses across the land. Then, as Faber says, the salamander will have devoured its tail. The salamanders, the firemen whose very life is fire, will ultimately destroy themselves. Further plans for improving society include the destruction of the wall-to-wall television families and the possible reprinting of books. All the while, the threat of war increases. Ten million men have been mobilized, and the people expect victory. The war is a parallel to Montag's attitude concerning his own personal battle. His inner turmoil intensifies. Armed with a friend like Faber, a seashell radio, and a beginning knowledge of the true value of books, he is now ready to wage war against his malevolent society. Montag now wants to talk. He wants to think. He is becoming a new man. In a blind rage, he disconnects the wall television and begins to read an excerpt from Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" to Mildred and her friends:

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www.cliffs.com The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. The Cheshire cat-like smiles that Mildred and her friends wear are an indication of the illusion of happiness that they are under. Yet Bradbury describes these smiles as "burning" through the walls of the house. Ironically, smiles should signify joy; they do not in this case. They are destructive and evil. Further, Mildred and her friends are characterized by fire imagery: They light cigarettes and blow the smoke from their mouths. They all have "sun-fired" hair and "blazing" fingernails. They, like the fleet of firemen, are headed toward their own destruction. Faber attempts, through the two-way radio, to calm Montag's anger. He urges Montag to make-believe that he is joking, and he commands him to throw his book of poems into the incinerator. Mildred also attempts to help her husband. She tries to excuse his behavior by saying that Montag has a method in his madness. She tells her friends that her husband only wants to show them the degree of confusion the world is in. However, the efforts of Faber and Mildred are useless. Captain Beatty's suspicion of Montag steadily increases, and he watches Montag with an "alcohol-flame stare." He tries to coax Montag into admitting his crime of stealing books, but Faber is supportive to Montag through the use of the seashell radio. Montag's growing fear of Beatty climaxes when a fire call is sounded and Montag realizes that his own home is the target for the firemen. Part Two, then, centers upon Montag's first personal experience with ideas found in books. Its title comes from a problem he had with sand when he was a child. A cousin of his had teasingly promised young Montag a dime if he could fill a sieve with sand, but the boy soon learned the impossibility of this task. Now he realizes that a book's words, when he tries to store them in his memory, are like the grains of sand he earlier tried to contain in his sieve. They keep draining and disappearing. Part Two, seemingly, ends on a note of defeat.

PART III: Burning Bright Montag's anxiety intensifies when he learns that Mildred herself turned in the fire alarm for the Montag home. He has never before been so threatened, and his anxiety increases as Beatty philosophizes on the merits of fire. He says that fire is beneficial. When problems become too large, all one has to do is burn them. He then tells Montag that he is one such problem, and he, almost casually, threatens Montag with death by fire. Further, he says, Montag is the one--the only one--who should destroy his own home. Meanwhile, Faber urges Montag to escape, but Montag is hesitant because the Mechanical Hound is on the prowl. It is not surprising that, momentarily, Montag lapses into his former way of thinking. Such a course promises safety. With the flame-thrower in his hand and, in his mind, the seeming futility of ever correcting the ills of society, he decides that fire, after all, is probably the best solution for everything. It is with an outburst of anger, fired by disappointment, that Montag destroys his home. Chairs, tables, dishes, walls--all melt from the fire in the flame-thrower. Once again, as earlier, Montag seems to relish in the destructive power of the flames. The fire is mesmerizing: It is good. Faber, however, through the audio-capsule radio, encourages Montag to remain true to his new ideals. With Faber's support, Montag

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www.cliffs.com concludes that all these years, "we never burned right." With this statement, he corrects the error by turning the liquid fire of the Orange Salamander full-force upon Beatty, who falls to the pavement like a "charred wax doll" and lies silent. Once again, Bradbury uses the image of a wax doll. Beatty has been charred and destroyed by the fire that had given purpose and direction to his life. Beatty had always instructed Montag to burn his problems. Ironically, this time Beatty's advice resulted in Beatty's own destruction. Before Montag can escape, the firemen's Mechanical Hound wounds him in the leg with its procaine needle. Montag now becomes a fugitive from the firemen and an enemy to the rest of society who have been "programmed." He becomes a hunted man, stalked night and day by the police, as well as by the helicopters. He has no friend to turn to but Faber. It is only Faber who can promise some hope of survival for Montag. As he travels towards Faber's home, Montag holds several books close to his chest. He has a plan. He hears a radio announcer informing the public that war has been declared. This new development in the war effort again serves as a parallel to the situation in which Montag finds himself. His philosophy of life becomes almost warlike: "Burn them before they burn you." In the streets, the beetles in pursuit of Montag travel at such high speeds that they seem to be trajectories fired from invisible rifles. Fire imagery is also used to describe these beetles and Montag's reaction to them. Their headlights seem to burn his cheeks at first. Later, as one car draws nearer, it seems to become a torch which almost hurls itself on top of Montag. When the car only barely misses him, he decides this must not have been the police. They would not have missed him. Undiscovered, he travels on. Montag makes one stop prior to his arrival at Faber's home. This stop is at the home of a fellow fireman, and it is here that Montag plants his books. He reasons that this fireman has been responsible for burning many other people's homes. Now it is his turn to have his home consumed by fire. In so doing, he activates the plan which he and Faber have previously formulated. As Montag runs, his wounded leg feels like a "chunk of burnt pinelog" that he is forced to carry "as a penance for some obscure sin." Once more, Bradbury's fire imagery appears. The penance which Montag must pay here is the result of the sin of destruction which he has committed during all his many years as a fireman. Together, Montag and Faber make their plans for escape. Faber tells Montag to try for the river. If he can cross it, he should then make his way down the railroad tracks far enough to meet up with one of the many groups of hoboes. There he will be safe. For himself, Faber plans to catch the early morning bus to St. Louis to get in touch with a printer. He, too, risks his life to insure the immortality of books. While the two men make their plans, the television set announces that a warrant is out for Montag's arrest. News of a new Mechanical Hound who has been brought in to aid in Montag's capture causes Faber to take further precautions for Montag's life. Alcohol, moth spray, and lawn sprinklers are all used to confuse the Mechanical Hound's sense of smell and cause him to lose Montag's trail. Montag makes a run for the river, knowing that the Mechanical Hound is still attempting to trail him from behind while helicopters search for him overhead. Montag finally hobbles to the safety of the river undetected, but the police refuse to be denied their victory over him. They cannot admit failure. Consequently, the populace are deceived into thinking that Montag is dead because their wall televisors actually depict the murder of a man--an innocent man. While this is happening, Montag floats in the river toward the far shore and safety. Here Bradbury

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www.cliffs.com employs water imagery to symbolize a source of regeneration and renewal. When Montag first reaches the water, his throat and eyes are dry like dust. He wades in, splashing the cool water upon himself and giving new life to his weary body. Once in the water, he senses that he is moving away from a frightening past into a new and, as of yet, undetermined future. Yet if Montag is to experience a new life, he will do so only because the water itself has covered his trail from the Mechanical Hound. His time spent in the water also serves as a kind of epiphany for Montag's spirit. He sees the river as "the great black creature without eyes or light, without shape, with only a size that goes a thousand miles." He then notices the sun and begins to muse on its function. The sun burns every day and burns time and years and people. As long as firemen continue to burn books and people, the sun will be burning time, and, in effect, everything will be burning. Montag realizes that the sun will not stop burning but that man can stop burning. Somewhere, sometime, the saving and keeping have to begin. As a result of this revelation in the river, Montag determines that this saving must originate with him. Granger, the head of a commune of book-burners of a different sort, contacts Montag shortly after Montag escapes. He explains to Montag that each member of his commune chooses a book and memorizes it. When the entire book has been memorized, it is then burned. From that time on, it is transmitted verbally from one generation to another. When Montag confesses that he had once memorized some of the Book of Ecclesiastes, Granger tells him that a man named Harris knows those verses from memory, but that if anything ever happens to him, Montag will become that book. Granger says that burning firemen's houses might have worked had the plan been carried out on a national scale, but since this is not the case, he feels that his way of giving everlasting life to books is best. Ironically, Montag and Granger do their planning and talking around a fire. This time, however, the fire is one that warms rather than destroys. With Granger, Montag gains warmth from the fire and realizes a sense of faith in the future. When the campfire is no longer necessary, every man lends a hand to help put out the fire. This action is further proof of the things Granger has been telling Montag: Group effort is necessary if a positive goal is ever to be reached. Even while Granger speaks to Montag of the brevity of life and the intensity with which it should be lived, jet planes fly over the city, releasing their bombs as they go. Montag's thoughts turn to Mildred, and he imagines how the last moments of life must have been for her. He pictures her looking at her wall televisor set. In an instant, the televisor screen goes blank, and Mildred is left seeing only a mirror image of herself. Montag imagines that just before her death, Mildred finally sees and knows for herself just how superficial and empty her life has been. Yet time has run out for Mildred, like sand in a sieve, because the city and its people are consumed in a holocaust of flames. A new day begins and a fire providing warmth and heat for cooking has been made. Granger looks into the fire and realizes its life-giving quality as he utters the word "phoenix." When he speaks with Montag about the mythology surrounding this ancient bird, it becomes evident that fire imagery associated with this bird is strategic to the social message contained in Fahrenheit 451. The phoenix was a mythical bird of ancient Egypt and was sacred to the sun. The bird, it is said, periodically built a pyre and burned itself up. However, from its own ashes a new phoenix always emerged. Bradbury alludes to this bird repeatedly in this novel. Montag wears a phoenix emblem on his chest; Beatty wore the sign of the phoenix on his hat and drove a Phoenix car; when Montag left the firehouse and joined Granger, Granger remembered the phoenix myth. When Beatty was burned to death, his death by fire prepares a rebirth that is traditionally symbolized by the phoenix sign. Montag's destruction of Beatty ultimately resulted in his association with Granger. This action becomes, for Montag, a rebirth into a new and vital life. Montag's new life is filled with hope and the promise of a new era of humanism, depicted in the words Montag recalls from the Bible: "To everything there is a season.

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www.cliffs.com A time to break down, and a time to build up." Bradbury implies that if man ever expects to rid the world of unrest, destruction, intellectual stagnation, and even warfare itself, man must use his mind. Fahrenheit 451 is explicit in its warnings and moral lessons aimed at the present. Bradbury believes that our society is destined for chaos and barbarism unless it changes its present course of repression and limitation of man's innate rights The degenerated future depicted in Fahrenheit 451 represents unhealthy tendencies that are emerging in society. As demonstrated in this novel, Bradbury fears that the future might be a time when, at first, fantasy literature will be suppressed; then finally, all literature. His novel asserts foremost that art and the imagination and freedom must not die if society is to survive. The title which Bradbury gives Part Three alludes to William Blake's poem "The Tiger." The poem is often interpreted as a discussion concerning the origin of evil in the world. The first few lines of the poem are: Tiger! Tiger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In Blake's poem, the tiger is often considered a symbol for a world in which evil is at work. Appropriately, Part Three's title, "Burning Bright," serves, first, as a commentary about the former situation of Montag's society when the evil of suppression was, indeed, burning brightly. Its title also, however, summarizes the situation at the conclusion of the novel, for even while Montag's society and all its ills are still burning brightly from the war's destruction, Granger's fire is also brightly burning, signifying a future of hope and optimism.

Something Wicked This Way Comes Introduction Bradbury readily admits that he has always loved carnivals, magicians, mind readers, and skeletons. Once, as a lad, he was so enthralled by a red and yellow circus banner that he fell down a window pit, shattered one of the glass panes, and crashed into a cellar barbershop. Undaunted, though, he returned to re-observe the circus banner which, for him, in spite of his catastrophe, had lost none of its excitement. Something Wicked This Way Comes evolved as a direct result of this fondness for carnivals. Here, all of his imaginative powers are unleashed to produce an eerie, even nightmarish, novel in which the powers of evil are made manifest through the arrival of the Cooger and Dark Carnival in Green Town, Illinois. This novel is Bradbury's most extensive treatment of the reality of evil. It analyzes the varied ways that evil can be a temptation to man, and it is the most heavily allegorical novel which he has written thus far. Bradbury referred to this novel as his favorite book, his most "delicious" book. He confessed that he wrote it hoping that everyone who read it would do so with a flashlight under the covers, late at night. The central characters of the novel are two boys, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, and Will's father, Charles Halloway. Mr. Halloway is the person through which Bradbury expresses his philosophy concerning good and evil. The theme that emerges in this novel, as well as in several of Bradbury's other works, is that light is good and dark is evil. Bradbury's carnival is the epitome of this darkness. It is the "something wicked" that "this way comes."

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Prologue Even before the introduction of the carnival into Something Wicked This Way Comes, Bradbury prepares us for its arrival. First in the preparation is his juxtaposition between bad and good: "It was October, a rare month for boys. Not that all months aren't rare. But there be bad and good, as the pirates say." This early juxtaposition is important to note since it will later have strict relevance on Bradbury's use of carnival imagery. The prologue also introduces Jim and Will, and indicates that the experiences which are to follow will cause them both to grow up overnight.

Part I: Arrivals CHAPTER 1 Chapter 1 begins with the approach of Tom Fury, a lightning-rod salesman. He is somewhat less than ordinary, characterized as wearing "storm-dark clothes" and a "cloud-colored hat pulled down over his eyes." He brings with him Bradbury's foreboding statement that "somewhere, a storm like a great beast with terrible teeth" is on its way. This storm, as well as any references made to it, must be carefully considered by the reader, for the impending storm is later realized to be the carnival itself. Tom Fury attempts to sell Jim and Will a strangely designed lightning rod, one etched with strange languages, pictures, and designs. This rod, the salesman declares, will protect the boys from the coming storm. He has, however, one boy specifically whom he wishes to have the lightning rod--Jim Nightshade. Only reluctantly, though, does Jim attach the rod to the roof of his home. Jim's Halloween birthday is of significance in Tom Fury's choice of a victim, and Bradbury will elaborate on this idea later in the novel. With the arrival of the salesman, the sky suddenly becomes very "old," and the air "blows grey." The rest of the action in this novel occurs against a background of dusk or darkness. This setting of darkness is most important. It serves as a metaphor of the spiritual malaise for which the characters must seek a remedy, and it establishes the emotional atmosphere that will surround the carnival itself once it arrives. CHAPTER 2 Will and Jim visit the library, where Will's father works as a janitor. After a brief adventure looking at books about dinosaurs and mysterious islands, Will Halloway experiences an epiphany of sorts as he and his father momentarily stand face to face. Here, the first of many of Bradbury's mirror images appears, for Will realizes that as he looks at his aging father, he is really looking at himself in years to come. Will is startled to discover that he is seeing himself "in a smashed mirror!" CHAPTER 3 Charles Halloway's secret longing to be young again is revealed in this chapter. He closes the library and makes his nightly stop at the corner saloon for his one-and-only drink. This drink is for the boy-man in Halloway who, although suppressed, is still quite desirous of making a reappearance. This chapter also presents a brief contrast between Will and Jim. Will Halloway is only two minutes older than his best friend, Jim, but not nearly as sensitive and perceptive of the woes of the world. His function in the novel is almost the equivalent of a personal bodyguard for Jim. His father characterizes him as being a good boy. He is "not above peeing off a bridge, or stealing an occasional dime store pencil sharpener." It's just that Will is somehow instinctively and obviously good. Will is the kind of person who will be hurt many, many times in his life, and who will always wonder why. Jim, on the other hand, is a much more daring, realistic, and impetuous young lad.

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www.cliffs.com CHAPTER 4 The first mention of anything associated with the carnival comes from old Mr. Crosetti, the barber, who smells the odor of cotton candy as he closes up his shop for the night. The aroma causes him to cry, recalling a time when, as a lad, he used to enjoy the sticky sweetness of cotton candy himself. We sense that Mr. Crosetti, for years, has not stopped to do such things in life as thinking and smelling and enjoying. This knowledge coming so late in life, indeed, makes him weep. Bradbury uses the barber here to embody one of the major problems of humanity, according to Bradbury; that is, our inability not only to accept life as it exists, but also to find pleasure in it. Mr. Crosetti's realization that he has allowed a great deal of the good things in life go by unnoticed will prove to be a point of vulnerability, a weakness in him when the carnival finally sets up its tents. CHAPTER 5 The right psychological moment for the arrival of the carnival is nearing, for a wind is blowing that smells ever so slightly of licorice and cotton candy, and a man moves from empty shop windows to telegraph poles, putting up carnival advertisements. As the man works, he whistles a very familiar tune: I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet Their words repeat Of peace on earth, good will to men! Later, he continues: Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep! The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With Peace on earth, good will to men!" A Christmas carol! A strange tune for a man to whistle as he puts up carnival posters. Yet, in spite of its strangeness, the song has a function in the novel. It is actually the embodiment of the plot structure of the entire book. Also, within the song is a second appearance of the juxtaposition of good and bad. However, this time some direction has been added to the juxtaposition because the song promises that "the Wrong shall fail." The whistler appears to be as strange as the tune he whistles. His hand is covered with "fine black silken hair. It looked like--" Bradbury does not complete his sentence, yet this very incompletion heightens the mounting sense of mystery and fear which is to dominate the entire book. Halloway sees the man's hand, hears the song, and shivers. Out of curiosity, he looks within one of the town's empty stores and sees two sawhorses holding up a block of ice six feet long. The ice shines dimly with its own luminosity, and its color is a light green-blue. A sign announces that the ice block contains "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World," but Halloway sees no woman lodged within the ice. Instead, all he sees is a vast chunk of empty ice. When he gazes more intently, though, Halloway thinks that he sees a vacuum within the ice--a hollow--an emptiness waiting to be filled. "Was it not shaped somewhat like a . . . woman?" "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World" is the first of Bradbury's carnival images, and its mysterious quality sets the course for the others that are to follow. Halloway's attitude toward this woman is

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www.cliffs.com necessary to note here since later it should be compared to the lightning-rod salesman's attitude under similar circumstances. CHAPTERS 6-14 After an adventure of peeping into a window of a house, which the boys have appropriately named "the Theater," they discover a handbill advertising the carnival's arrival. Some early, yet definite, inconsistencies surrounding the carnival's arrival immediately become apparent. First, consider the element of time. This particular carnival opens on October twenty-fourth, but all carnivals traditionally end their season immediately after Labor Day. Also, Will and Jim hear calliope music at night even though all carnivals usually reach their destination at early dawn. Then, it is at exactly three o'clock in the morning that Bradbury selects for the arrival of his carnival, and Halloway comments on this hour, describing it as being the time when the body is at "low tide" and "the soul is out." "You're the nearest to dead you'll ever be save dying," he says. "Three A.M. is living death," Halloway concludes, realizing that this carnival is different from all the others; it has arrived at "an hour of despair." Through Halloway, Bradbury begins to point out more specifically the direction which his carnival images are taking: The carnival does, indeed, come at the most vulnerable time in the lives of many of the people who live in Green Town. After sneaking out at night to watch the men unload and set up the carnival equipment, Will and Jim notice certain other peculiarities of this carnival. The carnival train is unlike any other that the boys have ever seen. It is a "funeral train" with "all black plumed cars . . . and licorice-colored cages." Also, the parallel between the storm and the carnival appears again when Bradbury describes the carnival train as having rushed like a "black stampede of storm waves on the shore out beyond." Even the train's whistle is an awesome thing to hear: "Wails of a lifetime" are collected in its sound, "a thousand fire sirens weeping . . . protests of a billion people dead or dying, not wanting to be dead, their groans, their sighs, burst over the earth!" With Bradbury's use of terms associated with grief, trouble, and tragedy, there can be no doubt that this is a different kind of carnival train. When the train's "funeral bell" stops, all action ceases, and the carnival train "crouches" in an eerie stillness as if ready to spring at a moment's notice. Bradbury describes the carnival tent as having "skeleton" poles that are waiting for its canvas "skin." Implications that the warp and woof of this carnival are somehow human are strong here. The gradual unfolding of this weird carnival occurs in deep shadows, illuminated by only the light of the moon. This scene is described in terms of silhouettes, and the black-white contrast reinforces the carnival's eeriness. In addition to the description of the carnival's arrival, these chapters present more insight into the personality of Charles Halloway. Halloway prizes his job at the library because he has availability to all of the books that gave him pleasure not only in youth but also in maturity. In the library, he finds joy. However, once Halloway goes home, his age becomes a great deterrent to the kind of things he wants to do. For example, he is dissatisfied with his age. He thinks that he is an old man because he was forty years old when Will was born. He believes that fathers should play baseball and run with their sons, but Halloway's age limits this kind of activity. People even mistake his wife for his daughter. Halloway can't seem to quell the desire to be the boy he once was, the boy who ran "like the leaves down the sidewalk autumn nights." Halloway's yearning to be young is his tragic flaw, and the carnival will work upon it, almost causing Halloway's undoing. Finally, this section gives the reader another view of "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World," this time through the eyes of the lightning-rod salesman. Unlike Halloway, he opens the shop door and steps in to face the ice. Bradbury describes this ice as being like an arctic coffin. These words accurately picture that ice which does or does not contain the world's most beautiful woman. Ironically, however, the words

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www.cliffs.com also characterize the lightning-rod salesman and the death in life that is later to be his fate. He sees the woman whom Halloway cannot see, and his desire to possess her increases. His willful attempt to melt the ice and own what is not his to enjoy cannot go unpunished. Consequently, he later reappears in the story as one of the freaks at the carnival. Once again, the juxtaposition of good and evil appears. Two different characters react to the same object in two separate ways. One goes free; the other is punished. CHAPTERS 15 & 16 When the two boys make their second visit to the carnival, Jim and Will are dismayed to discover that the morning sun shining upon its tents gives this carnival the appearance of every other carnival that they have ever seen. Yet Jim is not thoroughly confused. He refuses to deny that something strange is associated with this carnival. The boys see Miss Foley, their seventh-grade schoolteacher, and her nephew, Robert, at the carnival. Miss Foley decides to go through the Mirror Maze, but Will, without understanding why, begs her not to go there. This Mirror Maze is one of the major temptations that the carnival offers its customers since it capitalizes on an almost universal weakness, man's dissatisfaction with himself. Bradbury describes the experience inside this particular Mirror Maze through the use of water imagery. When someone enters the maze, he experiences an "ocean" of mirrors silently rushing in upon him. These mirror oceans can be quite dangerous. Will characterizes this danger by saying that someone can never tell just what might be swimming in the water, and there is even the possibility that a person might find himself in a watery, bottomless sea. In spite of the boys' insistence against it, Miss Foley steps into the Mirror Maze. Immediately, the mirrors reflect to her a little girl who is lost, drowned in there. Miss Foley recognizes the girl and runs to her rescue. The schoolteacher bumps into mirrors and falls; the little girl bumps and falls, too. Each action and movement that Miss Foley makes is accurately copied by this child. The boys rescue Miss Foley from the Mirror Maze but not before she realizes that the mirrors have taken her back in time and reflected her as she was when she was a child. Bradbury further shows the strong temptation yielded by the Mirrow Maze as Jim, too, is lured half-way into the Maze later that day. The particular vulnerability causing both Miss Foley and Jim to fall under the Maze's powers will be further analyzed at a later time in the study of this novel. CHAPTER 17 Jim and Will lose no time in exploring all the other attractions offered by the carnival. At one point, Jim trips over a dark leather bag that someone has left in the midst of the midway. The boys recognize at once that the bag belongs to the lightening-rod salesman. Jim looks inside the bag and finds metal shafts clustered with Chinese dragons, chimeras, and many other signs and symbols that throughout history have made people believe that they are safe from evil. The boys now realize that instead of selling safety devices to people, the lightning-rod salesman has actually been robbing people of them. The implication which Bradbury makes here is that people often think that they are more susceptible to temptation when deprived of those things which give them a feeling of safety. Increasingly obvious is the fact that temptation is the major item for sale at this carnival.

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www.cliffs.com CHAPTERS 18 & 19 An OUT OF ORDER sign on the carnival's carousel does not stop the boys from investigating the merrygo-round. Their boyish curiosity concerning the carousel results in a confrontation between them and Cooger and Dark, the owners of the carnival. Mr. Dark is also the Illustrated Man, and Jim and Will are momentarily thrilled by the seemingly living figures on the Illustrated Man's body. They now become even more wary of this unusual carnival, and they withhold their true names from Cooger and Dark. Impetuous, Jim refuses Mr. Dark's command to return for a ride on the merry-go-round when it has been repaired. From the vantage point of a tree, both boys gain a superb view of the carnival's activities. Here, they learn how the carousel really works. Although he does not recognize the song, Will immediately realizes that the carousel's music is being played backward; In fact, the carousel itself runs backward. The boys watch as Mr. Cooger goes for a backward ride on the carousel, and they are astonished to see Cooger, somehow, grow younger with every backward revolution of this machine. Cooger's age is reduced from forty years old to twelve years old in a matter of moments. The music itself should be a clear warning against a ride on this carousel. Its calliope emits a putrefied steam of music that almost seems to grieve for itself. For the rides backward in time, the calliope plays Chopin's "Funeral March." This song is played backward because the carousel's rider is, here, marching away from his funeral rather than toward it. Also, the calliope plays church music that has somehow been changed. Three different hymns are the basis for its tune, but they have been hopelessly mixed up and lost. Perhaps in Bradbury's particular description of the carousel's music, he is implying that even as the tunes of the hymns are confused and lost, so also are the people who ride this carousel. The riders are lost to themselves and are, therefore, quite vulnerable to the evil that the carnival has to offer. CHAPTER 20 At home, both Jim and Will struggle not only with the revelation they have witnessed, but, most of all, they now have to convince Miss Foley of its reality. Will feels a special frustration in wanting to tell his father about his adventure, but, like his father, Will realizes the vast differences in their ages. He assumes his father would never be able to understand his thoughts and fears, so there is no communication between them. Later, Will is also frustrated when he tries to toss marbles at Jim's window; even Jim is inaccessible. CHAPTERS 21-23 Will is sure that he will receive "a sign" from Jim, this time hoping to hear his call from the pine-plank boardwalk behind their two houses. Over the years, the boys have tuned the planks so that special tunes can be danced out on these boards, and these tunes are a signal of the specific adventure of the night. Tonight, although he hears nothing, Will's strong desire to hear Jim's call causes him to imagine that he hears Jim sounding out the calliope's tune. He soon realizes, however, that tonight, Jim never intended to call him. Jim wants to return to Miss Foley's house alone. Here, Bradbury again differentiates between Jim and Will. The two-minute head start that Jim's birth date has given him on life, as well as his deep perceptiveness to life, make him an independent spirit who, at this moment, has no desire to be accompanied by his bodyguard-like friend, Will. When the two boys meet in Miss Foley's front yard, Jim makes this fact quite clear. Will's protective spirit causes the boys to argue loudly enough to attract the attention of Robert, the friendly nephew. Robert watches the scuffle for a moment. He then enters the house, reappears, and tosses some of Miss Foley's jewelry onto the yard

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www.cliffs.com next to the boys. Will realizes that if they are accused of burglary no one will ever believe any of their tales about the evils of carnivals carousels or mirrors. Further intimidated by Miss Foley's startled cry of "Police!" they chase the nephew to the Carnival. When they next see him, he is already riding the merry-go-round, which is going forward. If they are to save their reputations, they must catch the nephew before he grows older and physically larger due to the merry-go-round's powers. Jim, characterized by Bradbury as al ready being old in the ways of the world, wants to be older in body too. Consequently, this merry-go-round is also alluring to him. The nephew recognizes this attraction and beckons for Jim to climb on with him. Jim almost yields to the nephew's offer, but Will jerks him back, and, in another tussle, the boys fall against the carousel's control box. The carousel, now out of control, begins to spin forward at lightning speed. Mr. Cooger, here posing as the nephew, has often ridden on this carousel, alternating between youth with its complexion as smooth as a peach, and age. Cooger has, however, taken one ride too many. The runaway carousel sends Cooger on so many revolutions forward in time that he ages to an impossible one hundred thirty years old. CHAPTER 24 Terrified that they are responsible for Cooger's accident, Will and Jim call the police. Yet, when the policemen arrive, Cooger's body has mysteriously disappeared. A search of the Carnival reveals to the boys many of the other "freaks" in the Carnival's side show. The performers who inhabit this particular Carnival seem, at first, to be the kind that anyone might expect to find in a carnival, but closer scrutiny indicates that Bradbury has modified the names of his Carnival performers in an effort to call specific attention to the uniqueness. His Thin Man is advertised as Mr. Skeleton, and the Tattooed Man becomes the Illustrated Man. Through making his performers different from other so-called "freaks," Bradbury suggests that they each are part of the Carnival's wickedness. When Jim, Will, and the policemen finally discover the mummified body of Mr. Cooger, Mr. Dark announces that he has created a new act in which Cooger is transformed into Mr. Electrico. Mr. Dark says that he hopes an abundance of electric current will bring Cooger back to life. However, the electrical current is not the true source of life in this case; instead, the evil performers themselves are responsible. They breathe for Mr. Electrico, helping him come alive. They inhale and exhale until Mr. Electrico's lips begin to tremble. They are successful. This episode with Mr. Electrico is indicative of Bradbury's firm belief that evil cannot stand on its own merit alone. Evil can exist only in a situation where there is other wickedness to support it. The policemen think that they have seen a magnificent new act, but Will and Jim are beginning to realize the implications of this act and that the Carnival itself holds fatal mysteries. Part I, then, entitled "Arrivals," first deals with the arrival of the Carnival, the "something wicked" which "this way comes." Bradbury's Carnival is the embodiment of an evil which eventually comes into the lives of all people. The sun imagery, or rather Bradbury's lack of it in this novel, further characterizes the wickedness of this Carnival, for in all of Bradbury's stories, light is good and dark is evil. The title of Bradbury's novel is perhaps his final statement of the intent of his carnival images. Spoken by the three witches, "something wicked this way comes" is a line from Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Shakespeare's "something wicked" refers to Macbeth, who carries the seeds of his own downfall within him. This fact seems to indicate that the evil which Bradbury's carnival images depict is effective in proportion to the ability, or lack of it, that visitors to this Carnival have to withstand this evil. The policemen, for example, are entranced as they watch Mr. Electrico's act. They find the Carnival a jolly adventure. Likewise, the merry-go-round runs only against the rules of cosmic time when the "Out of

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www.cliffs.com Order" sign is posted. Again, Bradbury suggests that nothing at this Carnival is evil unless used for evil purposes. The title for Part I can also refer to the weaknesses of the people who arrive at the Carnival. Already, certain weaknesses or vulnerable spots have been noted within Miss Foley and Jim. They, as well as other of the novel's characters, will have encounters with this Carnival since they, like Macbeth, bring the seeds of their own possible destruction with them.

PART II: PURSUITS CHAPTER 25 The unusual vulnerability of Miss Foley is exposed when Bradbury tells us that she has noticed that her house, once crowded with warm and youthful images of herself, contains new, puzzling mirror images of an old woman. She decides that it is best to ignore the cold sheets of mirrors, like ice, in the hall, in the bath, and over the bureaus because she cannot face the reality that she is growing old. The Carnival mirror maze and the carousel are particularly alluring to her, offering her a promise of youth that she desires so intensely. At this point, she views Will and Jim as deterrents to a second visit to the Carnival and a ride backward on its carousel. In an attempt to prevent the boys from foiling her plan, she makes an appointment with Mr. Halloway to report the boys' theft to him and to the police. CHAPTER 26 Will and Jim, afraid that the police will never believe them if they tell what they know of the Carnival and its works, lie about their names and addresses. Consequently, the police drop them off at strange, dark houses near the police station. The boys view the station's lights as making it "sun-colored," even at midnight. Of note here is Bradbury's sun imagery, further substantiating his idea that dark is evil and that light is good. The boys' fear of the impossibility of convincing the police of the truth of their adventure with the nephew and the Carnival is characterized in Jim's watching the police station's lights as if at any moment he expects the station and the goodness and truth it represents to be cast into total darkness forever. Later, seeing Miss Foley and Mr. Halloway with the police in the station destroys the boys' last hopes of anyone's ever believing them. Knowing they have no alternative, they turn themselves in. At this same time, we sense Jim's dissatisfaction with himself. He is a thirteen-year-old boy who yearns to be twenty. The carousel could have made his dream a reality, but, as Jim bitterly puts it, Will wrecked the carousel's motor and ruined the possibility of his dream coming true. CHAPTER 27 Mr. Halloway and the boys walk back towards home. Gaining entrance to his home and his room without disturbing his mother poses no problem for Jim. He simply uses the secret iron-runged ladder that he and Will installed under his bedroom window several years ago. Seeing this secret ladder intensifies even more Mr. Halloway's unhappiness with himself. Sadly and painfully he realizes anew that he is too old to run like Jim and Will any more. In an unguarded moment, Will almost tells his father everything that has been happening, but, once again, shadows on his father's face, the whiteness of his skin, coupled with the hope that the Carnival might be gone tomorrow, make him change his mind. Also, his knowledge of the wickedness inherent in this

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www.cliffs.com Carnival gives him the insight that everyone who knows the Carnival's secrets could be hurt. Will hopes, by his silence, to protect his father from any possible injury because of the Carnival. CHAPTER 28 In a late night, intimate talk with his father, Will questions his own goodness and its possible effectiveness when surrounded by wickedness. He then turns from thoughts of himself to concern about his father. Since his father has said that he too is a good person, Will questions why his father is not, therefore, a happy person. Here, Mr. Halloway launches into a deep, philosophical discussion about the unrelated natures of goodness and happiness. He tells Will that sometimes those who smile and laugh do so to cover up their wickedness. Halloway admonishes his son to distinguish between the dark smile and the light one. Being good is not easy, confesses Halloway, because wickedness never stops tempting man; man, he says, always has a choice: "You got the choice this second, now the next, and the next after that, be good, be bad, that's what the clock ticks, that's what it says in the ticks." But Halloway assures his son that no choice is necessarily final. A person does not have to remain wicked and sinful, for life in this world consists of a series of choices. One can always choose the alternative. At this point, Halloway becomes the persona through which Bradbury himself speaks, and it becomes evident that one of the major concerns of this novel is the choices with which humanity is faced each day. ''Something wicked'' may indeed come our way, but whether we succumb to this evil or not is of our own choosing. Halloway confesses regret over one particular choice he made. He waited until too late in life to marry. Now, the fear of old age and death make him tell his son that he would be happy if only he knew he could live forever. Will recognizes his father's unhappiness over having wasted the best years of his life, and he sees the Carnival as a powerful temptation because there his father's wish can be granted. He makes his father promise not to go near the Carnival. Bradbury further characterizes the difference between youth and age as Mr. Halloway first refuses to follow his son up the secret ladder and then changes his mind. Mr. Halloway and Will climb higher until they both, in the safety of Will's bedroom, clasp each other in an embrace of love. Mr. Halloway's laying bare his heart to his son will take on added significance later as Mr. Halloway breaks his promise to Will and pays a visit to the Carnival. CHAPTER 29 Will notices that Jim has removed the lightning rod from the roof of his home. While he ponders Jim's vulnerability to the "storm clouds" of the Carnival, he senses the presence of a balloon afloat in the air. Jim, next door, senses its arrival too, and both boys simultaneously fling open their windows for a closer view. To their surprise, they discover that there is a balloon and that it is propelled by the Carnival's Dust Witch. Although made of wax herself, she is supposedly able to shape the destiny of others. She is described as being deaf, dumb, and blind, yet she can "feel the bumps of the world." She is excellent at discovering the vulnerable spots in humanity. Bradbury's Dust Witch is highly reminiscent of the three monkeys that hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil. Ironically, she looks for evil wherever she can find it rather than avoiding it, as the monkeys do. The boys watch the Dust Witch sail away in her balloon into the night's darkness but not before they realize that she has been searching for them and has left a strange, evil smelling mark on Jim's house. They wash the mark off the roof, knowing full well that if they are to be safe from this evil, they must

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www.cliffs.com stop the Carnival's Dust Witch. CHAPTERS 30 & 31 Will has a plan that will not only prevent the Witch from reporting on them but will, perhaps, destroy her. Reasoning that she cannot know his thoughts but that she can sense his emotions, he jumps up and down with joy at having tricked her by washing away the silvery mark from Jim's house. He hopes this happy emotionalism will sound a note of discontent within the Dust Witch and cause her to make a return visit. His wish is fulfilled, for she directs her balloon again towards the boys' homes. Will wants his house to be free of danger so he makes a quick run to the old, vacant Redman house two blocks down the street. Maneuvering her green, slimy balloon, the Dust Witch follows him and hovers over him like a great, fat spider. Will's common sense tells him he can do away with the Witch if he can puncture her balloon, so he carefully aims his Boy Scout bow and arrow. He pulls back his bow, takes aim, and is amazed when it breaks in two pieces. Quickly though, before she can escape, he instinctively hurls the arrowhead at the balloon. When it cuts a wide, rippling smile across the surface of the balloon, the Witch retreats upward, wailing and screeching as she goes. From the first encounter with Will, the Carnival finds him to be strong opposition to their wickedness. The Dust Witch, capable of feeling men's souls, senses this but cannot resist an attempt at conquest. The spider image used to describe her is a sinister reinforcement of the predatory quality of the Witch and the Carnival. This can be seen when Bradbury characterizes the Dust Witch as sailing overhead in search of "good" people to destroy. Her aim is slowly to filter out this "goodness" from everyone in the town so that evil can claim its place. The smile that Will carves in her balloon is the first of several smile images in this book. Underlying the smile image as it is used here, as well as in his other works, is Bradbury's hope and faith in the essential dignity of the common person. He believes that person can overpower evil and can do so best by using smiles and laughter. For Bradbury, smiles and laughter derive their energy from love, and he thinks that love is the strongest humanizing force that we possess. In the complex world of good and evil that Bradbury creates in Something Wicked This Way Comes, one should note that his characters sometimes use reason to reach a quickly accessible goal (as in Will's using a bow and arrow to kill the Witch), but reason is never considered a workable means of reaching an ultimate goal. Will is concerned with this very thing when he first begins to understand just what the Carnival represents. He knows that no one will believe him to be rational if he relates the truth about the carousel and the mirror maze. He has no one to turn to, no one to believe in what he has to say. Since reason will not work here, Will will now turn more and more to his father, who supplies a great abundance of faith. CHAPTER 32 Will and Jim take a walk in the cold rain and discover a little girl crying because she is lost. They are filled with horror when they recognize that the little girl is Miss Foley. She has yielded to the lure of the Carnival. Her longing for her lost youth has overpowered her reasoning ability and a ride on the Carnival's carousel changed her from a mature woman into a child. Miss Foley has been given her youth, but now she is friendless and has no one to turn to. Most of all, she is still unhappy. The Carnival has taken its toll. Will insists that Jim go with him to get help for the childlike Miss Foley, but Jim reminds him that they

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www.cliffs.com are not even able to get help for themselves. When the boys hear band music and realize that the Carnival is forming a parade in order to seek out and seize Miss Foley, they make an unsuccessful attempt at getting to her first. CHAPTERS 33 & 34 Will and Jim go into hiding, knowing now that the parading Carnival freaks are looking for them, too. They find momentary safety beneath the sidewalk grill of the cigar store while many fun-loving townsfolk line the streets to view the parade. On his way to Ned's Night Spot, Mr. Halloway stops and stands so close to the grill that Will can almost touch him. Will and Jim experience a frightful moment when a young boy discovers their hiding place while retrieving a piece of bubble gum. CHAPTER 35 The Dwarf, attracted to the sidewalk grate by the cries of the young boy, discovers Jim and Will and takes mental pictures of them with his bulb-like eyes. Meanwhile, the Illustrated Man questions the owner of Ned's Night Spot concerning two boys whom he is seeking. Mr. Halloway comes close to the boys' hiding place a second time when he leaves Ned's and, on an unexplainable whim, visits the cigar store to purchase a cigar he does not even want. Jim catches sight of Mr. Halloway and wants to call to him for help, but Will senses that his father is not strong enough as a person to help them here, and he squelches Jim's cry. When Mr. Halloway looks down and discovers the boys beneath the grate, he understands his wild impulse to purchase a cigar. The boys experience another moment of panic when the Illustrated Man stands on the grate directly over the boys while he speaks to Mr. Halloway. The Illustrated Man explains that the local Carnival has chosen to honor two local boys as celebrities by giving them free tickets to all the rides. When he shows Halloway the pictures of the winners, the pictures turn out to be lifelike images of Jim and Will, one tattooed on each of the Illustrated Man's hands. Mr. Halloway attempts nonchalance, giving false identities to the tattooed pictures, but the Illustrated Man is not deceived. Although he does not know the last names of the boys for whom he searches, he has a strange control over them. With each movement of his hands, each bit of pressure applied to their pictures, the boys feel intense pain. When Jim and Will overhear the Illustrated Man's conversation, Will surmises that little Miss Foley, lost, alone, and frightened, must have given the Carnival their names in return for a possible forward ride on the carousel. While still in his hiding place beneath the sidewall, Will learns of the fate of the Dust Witch: She is not dead, and as she seeks the boys, she gives happy townsfolk much delight by telling them through verse that although she is blind, she can tell colors of eyes and can sense lies, goals, and souls. Her announcement that she sees the Illustrated Man speaking to an old man is particularly painful to Mr. Halloway. The Witch, in spiderlike motions, has felt his soul and has begun to monopolize on his weakness--his displeasure with his age. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Mr. Halloway demonstrates no outward fear of the Witch. Instead, he makes jokes about his twenty-five-cent cigar, even daring to blow cigar smoke into her face. At each jovial rejoinder, the Witch reacts as if she has been wounded. A second puff of smoke blown into her face makes her retreat, the Illustrated Man following behind. But the Illustrated Man does not disappear before Mr. Halloway introduces himself, says he works in the library, and invites the Illustrated Man to visit him there some time. His reply, "you can be sure, Mr. Halloway, I will," foreshadows a more ominous encounter which is to occur in the future.

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The boys are told to stay hidden until dark and then come to the library. Before they arrive, Mr. Halloway wants to do some investigating about this strange Carnival to see if he can devise a plan that will destroy it. This chapter focuses on the juxtaposition of good and evil. Halloway and the two boys are threatened by the evil powers of the Carnival due to weaknesses within themselves, whereas the other townsmen find the coming of this Carnival a joyous and merry adventure. Closely related to this idea of good and evil existing simultaneously is the belief that happiness and laughter can loose the powerful grip that evil holds on humanity. Will was victorious over the Dust Witch as a result of smiles and laughter. Mr. Halloway, too, gains the upper hand on the Dust Witch through his pranks with cigar smoke. Yet the Carnival seems to be holding tightly to Mr. Halloway. Although he is thought of more highly by the boys now, the Dust Witch has fathomed Halloway's weakness and intends to do all she can to turn that weakness into his own tragic undoing. CHAPTERS 36 & 37 The Dwarf develops in his head the mental pictures he took of Will and Jim and tells the Illustrated Man where the boys are hiding. He is too late, though; the boys have escaped. Meanwhile, Mr. Halloway spends the longest day he can remember, first observing the Carnival's activities and, later, doing extensive research in the town library. By studying the great books of magic and sorcery here, he perceives evil as it has made itself manifest throughout the history of the world. He, like the three witches in Macbeth, now knows that he is in the very real presence of evil, and he is afraid. CHAPTER 38 Under the dark night's cover, the boys stealthily make their way to the library for a meeting with Mr. Halloway. Will has doubts about the library's safety, and he considers the possibility that his father might already have succumbed to the Carnival's powers. Once inside the library, Jim and Will lose no time in telling Mr. Halloway about the Carnival's wicked machinations. To their relief, Mr. Halloway believes their story. He tells the boys that the Carnival is run by the "autumn people," who function in darkness and are the physical embodiment of evil. In contrast to them are the "summer people," and Will immediately thinks this term should characterize the three of them. Halloway is quick to set him straight, explaining that every person is part summer and part autumn. Each individual must wage his own war against evil if he expects "to stave off the November chills." CHAPTERS 39 & 40 Halloway confesses his fear of Mr. Dark and the Carnival, yet he believes that, somehow, Mr. Dark fears him, too. He speculates that even as far back as primitive times, people realized that life is short and that eternity is long. From this realization, the qualities of goodness and of love developed. Yet Halloway knows that goodness is not always the dominant force within us. Furthermore, he suspects that the Carnival, knowing this too, waits and watches for a time when people are particularly vulnerable to sin. Then it captures them when they least expect it. For this reason, Mr. Halloway talks to the boys about evil. "We can't be good unless we know what bad is," he says. Halloway then gives the boys a lecture on the origin and nature of evil. He explains that evil first began millions of years ago when one man fed himself on other men's unhappiness and pain. The number of evil

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www.cliffs.com men grew as the world grew because there was always more pain to thrive on. Then wagons and trains took these evil men across the land. Mr. Halloway believes that the evil which they now confront has come their way in the form of the Carnival freaks, who live off the meanness men harbor, the guilt men hide, the secret joys men experience over another's pain, and the dissatisfaction which men feel with themselves. Their problem now is to put this Carnival to rout. Before they have time to formulate a workable solution, however, the boys realize that an intruder is in the library. Once again, they hide. CHAPTER 41 Mr. Dark, also known as the Illustrated Man, enters the library, looking for Will and Jim. When Mr. Halloway refuses to provide him with any information, the Illustrated Man threatens his life at the hands of the Dust Witch. The Illustrated Man questions him about his age and entices him with the promise that he can be young again if he really desires it. Halloway's vehement "No!" only further exposes his innermost wish to shave off some years from his age. The Illustrated Man has recognized Halloway's dissatisfaction with himself. He now leaves Halloway while he himself prowls the library's corridors in search of Will and Jim. CHAPTERS 42 & 43 Will and Jim crouch on half-empty book shelves in an attempt to hide from Mr. Dark. He first tries to lure them from their safe hiding place by telling them that Mrs. Halloway has yielded to the Carnival's temptation and has taken a forward ride on its carousel. The Illustrated Man says that the Carnival has transformed her into a slobbering two-hundred year old woman. Directed by the boys' sobbing, he then climbs through the shelves of books until he comes face to face with Will and Jim. Mr. Halloway goes to their aid, but the Illustrated Man crushes the old man's hand and drops him to his knee in pain. Next, the Illustrated Man calls upon the Dust Witch to sew up the mouths, eyes, and ears of the boys, making them incapable of exercising their own wills and forcing them, instead, to obey only him. At this point, the powers of evil are steadily gaining momentum as they work their evil designs on several good, yet vulnerable, inhabitants of Green Town. CHAPTER 44 The Dust Witch and Mr. Halloway are seen here in a major confrontation, the Witch playing constantly on the weakness in the old man--his desire to be younger. She gestures grotesquely at his heart, slowing it to a beat like that of a very tired old man, while glorifying youth. With life soon to end for him, Mr. Halloway quickly recalls his past existence. In retrospect, despite the vanities, the foibles, and the egotism of his life, life still seems good, and Mr. Halloway smiles. To his surprise, the Dust Witch draws away. Realizing his power over the Dust Witch, Mr. Halloway's smile turns to laughter and his laughter to a roar. The Witch is "chased, bruised, beaten by his laugh," and she flees, her "claws razoring the wild air." She vanishes, Mr. Halloway behind, wearing a large smile upon his face. Although the Carnival will make another attempt to win Mr. Halloway to its side, for a time he is triumphant. With this victory, Bradbury's smile imagery appears again, acknowledging the belief that a positive affirmation of life is one way to stave off, if not totally conquer, the powers of evil at work in the world.

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Part II, "Pursuits," has thus exposed the various techniques that the Carnival employs to play upon the novel's protagonists. Both Miss Foley and Mr. Halloway demonstrate marked dissatisfaction with their age, and Mr. Dark's Carnival pursues and exploits this weakness. Miss Foley, as we have seen, was an easy prey for the Carnival's powers. Mr. Halloway, sought after by Mr. Dark and the Dust Witch, is not so readily defeated by the Carnival. And, after an attempt to discredit the veracity of Jim and Will, the Carnival freaks march through the streets of Green Town trying to find the boys and make them a part of their show. Here Will and Jim also try their best to resist the Carnival's powers, but their successes will be short lived because of Jim's unhappiness with his age and his intense longing to be older. Part III, "Departures," is highly optimistic in its tone. First, it depicts the not quite so simple release of Mr. Halloway and the boys from the Carnival's clutches. More importantly, however, this section culminates in the departure of the Carnival from Green Town, Illinois. Now it becomes evident that Green Town is representative of all towns everywhere. Just as Jim and the Halloways are able to rout the evil of the Carnival, Bradbury implies that, likewise, each member of every town must consistently live in such a way that wickedness and error can find no fuel on which to live. When this happens, evil will again have been forced to make its departure.

PART III: Departures CHAPTER 45 Will and Jim march along in the Carnival parade like robots, obeying the commands of the Illustrated Man, and while he marches the boys toward the Carnival tents, he constantly tempts Jim with free rides forward on the Carnival's carousel. He sweetens the temptation by offering Jim co-partnership in the Carnival. Will, knowing how deeply Jim wants to be older, tries to prevent his friend from hearing and accepting the offers. Not wanting his plan foiled by Will's interference, the Illustrated Man threatens to send Will backward in cosmic time on the carousel, reducing him to a baby for the Dwarf to carry in the clown act. The carousel takes on increasing significance as the one vehicle which Bradbury employs to characterize man's unhappiness with himself. In each instance, the character who rides this carousel with the intent of changing the reality of who or what he is is rewarded with misery and pain. Bradbury's message is clear: We must accept the totality of life if we are to live life fully. Any attempt at changing reality is delusion and sin. For Miss Foley, for example, this acceptance of life must also include acceptance of the reality of her old age. This refusal on her part brings her only pain and further unhappiness. CHAPTER 46 The Illustrated Man marches Will and Jim across a meadow to the Carnival and adds them to his collection of figures in the wax museum located at the end of the Mirror Maze. Meanwhile, Mr. Halloway is hastening toward the Carnival, too. The "World Famous Bullet Trick" will soon be performed before the late night carnival crowd. The Dust Witch is the bullet-catcher, and Mr. Dark calls for a volunteer from the audience to fire the gun. When Mr. Halloway volunteers, the Dust Witch grows fearful. So far, she has been unsuccessful in ridding herself and the Carnival of this man.

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www.cliffs.com CHAPTERS 47 & 48 Using the hand that was not maimed by Mr. Dark, Mr. Halloway catches the rifle that Mr. Dark tosses to him. He then calls out that he needs a boy to help him hold the gun. He says his son Will is somewhere in the Carnival and that he will volunteer. Mr. Halloway calls to his son but gets no reply. The crowd takes up the call, too, until Will, in a trance-like state, appears at the entrance to the Mirror Maze and takes his place at the side of his father. As instructed by Mr. Dark, Mr. Halloway marks the bullet he intends to fire at the Dust Witch. Using what he terms "secret discoveries of the heart and soul," he carves a crescent-shaped smile into the bullet's shaft. Then he loads his rifle. Mr. Halloway utilizes Will's shoulder as a brace, and he prepares to fire his gun. The Dust Witch's face blanches from fear when she is shown the large, toothy smile that Will's father commands him to make. Silently, with his lips, Mr. Halloway informs the Witch that he has carved his own smile on the bullet in his gun. With this revelation still fresh in the heart and mind of the Witch, Mr. Halloway fires his rifle. The Dust Witch screams and falls from the platform and into the dust, where she dies. Once again, his smile has given Mr. Halloway victory. Now that the Dust Witch has been destroyed, the Halloways must rescue Jim from the wax museum. The Mirror Maze proves to be the only means of access to Jim, and, despite his son's pleas to the contrary, Mr. Halloway makes his way into its depths, into the "gauntlet of horror" that he knows awaits him. Once inside the Maze, the mirrors do Mr. Halloway no favors. Instead of showing him a fantasy of youth, allowing him to view himself as the youthful husband and father he has always wanted to be, they further play upon his weakness by reflecting image after image of him as an aging man. These images in glass cut into his vanity and bring him to his knees. Mr. Halloway sees himself "one week, one month, two years, twenty, seventy years from now!" Will, too, sees the mirrors, and when all the lights go out, both son and father are stilled by the fearful silence. CHAPTER 49 Continuing through the maze in spite of the darkness, Mr. Halloway stops to strike a match, only to witness hundreds of antique images of himself as they seem to stampede toward him again and again. This time, Mr. Halloway sees himself "grayer, more yellow" as the mirrors threaten to "whiff him to skeletal dusts and litter his moth ashes to the floor." Just at the point at which Mr. Halloway almost succumbs to the images of himself as an old man, Will cries out a deeply sincere affirmation of his love for his father, assuring him that age never has and never will change the love he feels for his father. The knowledge that he is loved gives Halloway courage. In a moment's time, the victories he has won over evil this day rush through his mind and he begins to laugh. His terrifying though educational experience with the mirrors convinces Mr. Halloway that however dissatisfied he might have been with himself, acceptance of the reality of his age is best. His laughter intensifies his sheer joy at just being alive. CHAPTER 50 Laughter proves to be a powerful weapon against the inherent wickedness of the Carnival. At the sound of Mr. Halloway's laughter, the freaks outside freeze from fear and the Mirror Maze crashes to the ground "in domino fashion." Thousands of mirrors, each carrying an image of an ancient Charles Halloway, are shaken to ruins by the sound. This laughter acknowledges Halloway's acceptance of all aspects of life--the actuality of old age as well as youth, the existence of the presence of evil as well as that of good in the world.

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www.cliffs.com Mr. Halloway stumbles through the piles of broken glass in search of Jim. He and Will reach the wax museum only to learn that Jim has somehow escaped. Will fears they will never find Jim now that the Carnival's lights are out. He reasons that the only place left to look for Jim is at the carousel, and he fears that Jim is already taking a ride forward in time. The light of the moon provides the light by which the father and son make their way to the carousel. Here again is the motif that light is good and that dark is evil. When the Carnival lights were shut off, it seemed hopeless that Jim would ever be found, but with the light of the moon, the Halloways acquire new hope, and they grasp hands in a united effort to find Jim before the Carnival freaks work their wickedness upon him. CHAPTER 51 As the Halloways hurry down the Carnival's midway, the freaks stand permissively by and let them pass. Certainly this is a strange occurrence. Mr. Halloway explains it by saying they stand motionless because they are afraid. They have witnessed what happened to the Dust Witch and do not want the scene repeated. Will, however, is not so optimistic. He fears that the freaks are only awaiting Mr. Dark's signal to begin a more intense and furious fight against them. Will hears the calliope's music, and he and his father arrive just in time to see Jim yield himself to the power and promise of the Carnival's carousel. Will runs to Jim's side, pleading with him to climb down while he still can. He grabs at Jim's hand but misses, and Jim adds another year to his life before Will can reach him a second time. When the carousel circles around again, Will lunges at Jim, trying to jerk him free. Again Will's plan goes awry, for instead of freeing Jim, Will is pulled onto the carousel, too. Before Will can leap away from the carousel, they have traveled half a circle, half a year. He finally succeeds in jerking Jim free, but when he falls to the ground, Jim lies silently, as if dead. CHAPTER 52 In a final attempt to conquer the Halloways before they can completely close down the Carnival's operations, the Illustrated Man employs diversionary tactics to separate father and son; he hopes that each of them will be more vulnerable if they are apart from one another. Jed, a young boy who is really the Illustrated Man in disguise, runs to Mr. Halloway for help, claiming that he is being chased by a wicked tattooed man. Mr. Halloway goes to Jed's aid while Will stays behind to administer artificial respiration to Jim. Before long, Mr. Halloway realizes he has been tricked. Now, however, he knows how to deal with the autumn people. Since "good to evil seems evil," Halloway simply holds the boy close to him in an embrace of love. Again, Bradbury's philosophy concerning good and evil is revealed, for the more goodness and love Mr. Halloway lavishes upon the illustrated boy, the more quickly the life force seeps from him. Finally, the lights in his eyes go out forever. Evil cannot survive in a vacuum of good. CHAPTERS 53 & 54 Curiosity causes the freaks slowly to emerge from their tents of darkness and observe the Halloways as they work to return Jim to life. Then, as if each one hears a signal, the freaks stampede in every direction. Almost simultaneously, the Carnival's tents begin to fall. Their falling is described as being a kind of death all of its own. The Main Freak Tent has a "fatal respiration," and it begins to "convulse" and "part bones" as it "sheds its skin." By this time, Will is convinced that Jim is dead and begins to weep. Mr. Halloway sharply reprimands him, reminding Will that if he wants to save Jim, crying is not the way to do it. He tells Will that the evil forces love tears. He and Will must appear happy if Jim is to survive. They must whoop and holler and

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www.cliffs.com dance and sing, but most of all, they must laugh. Together, father and son dance, shuffle, stomp, and twirl, all the while sending forth loud guffaws of laughter. Through this display of the joy and the love of being alive, Jim regains his consciousness. Then he, too, joins in the laughter. Mr. Halloway reminds the boys that the victory is theirs today but that the autumn people will make their presence known again, and not necessarily in the form of a carnival. He further warns the boys always to be on the watch for the autumn people because the battle is never finally won. They might already be on the road. The admonition that the autumn people already may be planning a new attack has an ominous ring to it, but the boys soon realize what Mr. Halloway means. Before they can even leave the Carnival grounds, they are tempted again, and this temptation comes as they pass the carousel for the final time. Both Jim and Will entertain the thought of making just one last ride forward on one of the carousel's bright and shining horses. Mr. Halloway dreams of riding ten revolutions backward into his younger and seemingly happier days. Each somehow knows the others' thoughts. Mr. Halloway believes that man carries within him the potential for evil as well as good, and he knows that man can be moral, and that he can walk in the light if he so desires. Consequently, Halloway decides to destroy forever the control box of the carousel and the temptations that it offered. This night, at least, he and the boys have chosen to make manifest their goodness. They turn toward town with happiness in their hearts. Bradbury's carnival imagery in Something Wicked This Way Comes first characterizes not only the joyous reality of the good that exists within every member of the human race, but also the potential for evil that simultaneously lies there. This, his most didactic novel, then takes this philosophical discussion ever further. Here Bradbury emphasizes that we must not hide from the knowledge of the reality of both good and evil because evil will never be dealt with effectively until we are willing to admit that it exists in the world as a part of the very fabric of life. Only after we have faced this truth does Bradbury believe that we can make wise choices that will enable us to shun evil and seek only that which is good, true, and beautiful.

A Medicine for Melancholy A Medicine for Melancholy, published in 1959, should perhaps be considered more a work of fantasy than of science fiction since the majority of the short stories contained in the volume are moody, evocative sketches with little or no attempt made to justify their sometimes bizarre content. "In a Season of Calm Weather" The story takes place when Picasso was creating his greatest masterpieces. George Smith, an American, is captivated by the beauty of Picasso's art, and while he and his wife are vacationing in France, George becomes ecstatic when he learns that Picasso is visiting friends in a small fishing town only a few miles away. During a leisurely stroll along the beach, Smith sees a man drawing pictures in the sand. The pictures are obviously Picasso's work, and, thus, Smith meets the artist face to face. Realizing that the only way to preserve this particular masterpiece is by committing it to memory, Smith walks back and forth along the sand drawings, memorizing every detail. When the sun has gone down and Smith can see no longer, he returns to the mundane routine of his everyday life, yet the thought of the incoming tide dominates his

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www.cliffs.com every thought. The title for this story is a line from Wordsworth's well-known ode, "Intimations of Immortality," in which he uses water imagery to describe the concept of immortality. In Bradbury's story, water is also associated with immortality. Although Picasso's sand drawings are destroyed by the incoming tide, his art work lives on in the heart and mind of George Smith. "The Dragon" Two men who believe they still live in the medieval age of castles and armor are convinced that the local night train is a fire-belching dragon. It has wrecked so much havoc across the land that these men are determined to destroy it. Fire is the image Bradbury uses here to characterize this so-called dragon's deadly powers. The dragon's eyes are afire, and, as the "monster" burns across the dark lands, "fire is all about, around, and under it." Meanwhile, the engineer is concerned that he will need more coal if the train is to make Stokely on time. He finds that fire is necessary if he is to reach his next station. The two pseudo-knights, however, view that same fire as being destructive. Through this fire imagery, Bradbury depicts what could happen to a civilization which misuses its technology. "A Medicine for Melancholy" Bradbury's often-used smile imagery, here associated with the healing power of love, dominates this story. Camillia, a young girl living in eighteenth-century London, is gradually dying. The doctors have no diagnosis for her illness; they, as well as her parents, feel helplessly desperate. Camillia is frightened, too, wondering if she will live until her twentieth birthday. Her brother, Jamie, advises that they take her, bed and all, outside so that all passersby might suggest a cure. Perhaps one of the cures will be successful. Many people make diagnoses and offer advice, but the real cure comes from a young Dustman who visits her towards evening. His face is still masked with soot, yet the striking thing about his appearance is his wide, white smile. The Dustman looks into Camillia's eyes and realizes that love is what she lacks in her life. He informs her that if her illness is to be remedied, she must remain outside throughout the entire night. When he looks down at her, his smile flashes "like warm sunlight in the growing dusk." Even the Dustman's exit is described in terms of smile imagery, for when Camillia sees him for the last time, before he rounds the corner, she seems only to see one big smile blinking off and on in the dark. Later, after the last lights of London go out and everyone is asleep, the Dustman returns, his white, ivory smile still glowing. When the sun rises on the new day, Camillia is cured. After a long absence, roses are in her cheeks again. She and her family dance together in celebration of the sovereign remedy that has been revealed to her. Love that begins with a smile is the medicine she has needed for her melancholia. Here again, through smile imagery, Bradbury insists that love, smiles, and laughter are powerful combatants against the ills of the world. "The End of the Beginning" Written more closely in the vein of true science fiction, "The End of the Beginning" is generally an optimistic treatise about the future of humanity on the eve of the space age. Bob, the hero, is a young man scheduled to make the first flight into outer space. His mother is fearful of

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www.cliffs.com losing him and questions her son's flight, the mission, and the consequences. Her husband, however, has finally been able to see value in the nation's space program. On the launch day of the first manned space rocket, he becomes philosophic. The song "A Wheel in a Wheel" reminds him of the space station and its hollow spokes where Bob will live. Bob's father has come to understand that as long as the world survives, people must continue to seek new horizons, new worlds, and new suns. Once we are living on these new worlds, we will then pass on the gift of life. Thus humanity will be endless and infinite, just as space is endless and infinite. Bob's mother does not understand the purpose of this flight. To her, this trip into space marks the end of the years when gravity was the ruler of humanity. Husband and wife hold on to each other as they watch the launching of their son's space ship. Then they return to their everyday routines. While Bob is working on the massive "wheel in a wheel" in outer space, his father, in his own way, works his wheel in a wheel here on earth; he cuts his grass with the whirling wheels of the lawn mower. "The End of the Beginning" is one of Bradbury's social commentaries on the value of space exploration. He sees no real purpose for our correcting the ills of society and the malaise within us if we are going to die on the day that the Earth dies. If we are to survive, we must do so on other planets. Therefore, space travel is a necessity. It is as necessary for our future as the lawn mower is for our present. "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" Here we have another of the stories in which Bradbury's smile imagery is the focal point; "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" describes a transformation that occurs in the life of the main character, Martinez. He and his Mexican-American cohorts lack money, excitement, and, most of all, female companionship. They watch a handsome young Mexican wearing a fine linen suit stroll by with two beautiful women, and they yearn to take his place. Gomez, a friend of Martinez, decides that they will have a better chance of meeting some beautiful young women if they are dressed more attractively. In fact, he has already chosen the outfit even though it is far too expensive for any one of the men to purchase. Money, however, is not a hindrance for long. Martinez's friends pool their money, each buying part interest in an extraordinary "ice cream" suit. When Martinez and his friends go to the tailor's shop to purchase their suit, their excitement is so high that the most noticeable characteristic about them is their smiles, "sticking way out in front of their skeletons." Everyone meets with success when wearing the suit, but the greatest change takes place in Martinez himself. The night that he wears the wonderful suit, Martinez gains his heart's desire--a young lady who enjoys his company. Strangely enough, though, he discovers that the beautiful white suit is not the item which attracts her to him. Instead, it is his smile. When she first sees him, "a great whiteness passes below her window in the dark. So white!" This smile of Martinez is the happiest smile she has ever seen. She tells Martinez that what he wears is not important to her. She has fallen in love with a smile and the man who wears such a smile. The smile imagery in this story again demonstrates Bradbury's high optimism concerning humanity. Even a simple smile has a greater impact than the so-called powers of materialism.

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www.cliffs.com "Fever Dream" The protagonist of the story is Charles, a young lad who is sick with a cold. Just as the land is beginning to burn from the autumn season, Charles begins to burn from a high fever. Not long after the burning fever begins, Charles feels a nameless terror overtake him. First his hand begins to change. Soon Charles declares that his hand no longer belongs to him, and he begs the doctor to "change it back." But the doctor's procedures are useless, and before long, this terror possesses Charles' entire body. His limbs grow warm, then so hot that the room is filled with the warmth of this feverish change. His lungs catch fire "like burning bellows of pink alcohol," and his room lights up "as with the flickering of a hearth." Charles' lips burn and his eyelids, like leaves, catch fire. Even his nostrils exhale blue flame. The fire of this fever completely purges Charles of his good qualities. Now he has the evil power to burn other living creatures to death. He begins with a group of fire ants scurrying across the pavement. He touches them with his foot and knows that they lie cold and lifeless. Next, he shakes hands with the doctor and his mother and father. Finally, he pets his yellow canary once, shuts the cage door, stands back, and waits. Bradbury's use of fire imagery usually depicts the theme of good triumphing over evil. "Fever Dream," however, is presented as an ironic reversal of this theme. Bradbury does depict a regeneration taking place in the young boy, yet this regenerative process changes good into evil. Perhaps this story best characterizes Bradbury's belief in the tremendous force that evil can and will exert on the world if humanity does not eradicate it. "The Marriage Mender" After two years of marriage to Antonio, Maria begins to complain about their bed. Their bed is unique, having gargoyles, lions, and goats carved into the headboard, alongside an imitation brass harp. Antonio loves this bed. Nightly he strums the harp strings, playing the tune "Santa Lucia." For him, the bed is a family heirloom, but, more importantly, the bed springs "know" his every move. Maria claims the bed is filled with lumps and humps. Moreover, she blames the bed for their not having had any children thus far. If their marriage is to be saved, Maria must have a new bed, one that is flat and smooth and white. In a surprise ending, Antonio goes home to tell his wife that he has bought her a new bed and she gives him news that they are soon to have a child. A new bed will no longer be necessary. Now she finds favor with this bed. It serves from this point on as a mender of their marriage problems, and she proves it herself when she, rather than Antonio, plucks the headboard lute, playing "Santa Lucia." Although carnival imagery is not extensively used in this story, Bradbury's love for the carnival is apparent. His description of the bed as a calliope, and Antonio and the bed as a tumbling act, establish in part the foundation for the many carnival stories that Bradbury was later to write. "The Town Where Nobody Got Off" On what seems a whim, a passenger on the Chicago-Los Angeles train gets off in a strange town. There he meets an old man who admits that he has been waiting a long time on the station platform for a stranger to get off the train. When the two men talk, each discovers that he is the fulfillment of the other's secret fantasy. The traveler suddenly realizes that he has secretly wished to get off a train in a town where no one knows him, commit a murder, then get on the train again with no one ever being the wiser. Likewise, the old man has waited for years for a stranger to step from the train. The desire to commit an undetected murder is all-consuming. When each learns that he is to be the other's victim, the fear of death is too great. The men turn from each other and walk away.

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The story exposes the hidden thoughts and fantasies that all people entertain at some time in their life, the dark thoughts of hatred and the secret desire to commit murder. Such thoughts are characteristically set against the darkness of night. Bradbury's supreme optimism in humanity is evidenced when, in the story, the traveler and the old man do no harm to one another even though the situation is perfect. Here we can see Bradbury's belief that man is able to suppress his dark thoughts because of his innate morality. Man cannot, however, wholly rid himself of these dark and destructive thoughts. This is depicted through the person of the old man who continues to wait at the station for a victim for a perfect murder even though a perfect opportunity has just passed him by. "A Scent of Sarsaparilla" For William Finch, an elderly man, the days of the past glow much brighter than those of the present or future. Finch's only solace is in his attic. Here are the memories of the past, the good days, the times that even in retrospect can make him smile. A red candy-striped coat, ice-cream pants, bicycle clips--these and other memorabilia give him the warmth that he needs. The attic becomes another world for Finch, distinctly separate from the world below. In the attic, the dust is like incense burning, like time itself burning, and all Finch has to do is "peer into the flames." In these fires of the past, he finds happiness and renewal for his spirit. Moreover, these fires of the past enable him to transcend reality. "I'm going to Hannahan's Pier for a bowl of clam chowder," Finch says to his wife, adding that he is requesting the brass band to play "Moonlight Bay." He pleads with her to return with him to the past, but his wife thinks he is just a foolish old man. Later, however, when Finch does not come down from the attic, Cora climbs to the attic in search of him. He has indeed disappeared into his past. All that remains is a slight scent of sarsaparilla. Fire imagery indicating transformation and regeneration within people is dominant in this story. Here, fire imagery symbolizes our need for remembrances of times past. These memories are healthy for us, and, for William Finch, they provide regeneration for his weary spirit. Bradbury is a firm believer in nostalgia. He does not advocate remembering the past for reasons of sentiment; however, he feels that we need the past as a foundation for our future endeavors. Bradbury feels that we cannot possibly speak of and plan for the future unless we have a strong understanding of the past. "Icarus Montgolfier Wright" This story takes place the night before the first manned rocket is fired to the surface of the moon. The rocket's pilot, Jedediah Prentiss, dreams of what this trip will be like and what it will mean to the world. In his dream, Jedediah hears voices calling him Icarus Montgolfier Wright. He dreams he is Icarus, the first "pilot" to test man's earthly limitations. He also assumes the identify of Montgolfier, the first man to fly in a balloon, and Orville Wright, the first man to pilot a plane successfully. As he dreams, Jedediah relives the thrill and the adventure of flight that each man experienced long ago. He realizes that, indeed, he is Icarus Montgolfier Wright because his hopes, his determination, and his reasons for making his first space flight are the same ones that belonged to the other men. He knows that his flight into space may mean ultimate death for himself, but if he is successful, his flight will mean that he and all people might hear the "unmeasured breathing of God." In addition to the idea presented here of the universality of the pioneering spirit, this story depicts a major tenet of Bradbury's own philosophy concerning space travel. Jedediah's statement that his flight may bring people closer to God is essentially Bradbury's own belief, for Bradbury is convinced that the more frequently that man travels in space, the more religious he will become because of the many mysteries that he will encounter there.

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www.cliffs.com "The Headpiece" Andrew Lemon places a new headpiece on his head and shouts with delight as he sees a full head of hair covering the coin-round hole which mars his forehead. Mirror imagery clearly depicts the extent to which Andrew carries his fantasy: He gazes in the mirror and sees an absolute stranger. He wishes the stranger in the mirror a Happy New Year, for the mirror has suggested that he is a new man now. He is clearly enjoying his world of fantasy. Andrew is in love with Miss Fremwell, the lady in the next apartment. He visits her only after dark because he does not want her to see the hole in his brow. In preparing for this evening's visit, however, he lacks the courage to wear his new toupee. The world of make-believe is still quite new. Later, on the dark porch, he proposes marriage to her. When she is hesitant, he blames her rejection of him upon the hole in his forehead. He assumes that when the hole is covered, she will accept his proposal. After he has his toupee in place, he is ready to make a second proposal of marriage. When Miss Fremwell opens her apartment door to him, Andrew imagines his reflection in her bureau mirror, and he reinforces the fantasy of thinking of himself as a "new man." Miss Fremwell, however, needs no mirrors to aid her in fantasy. She faces reality. She does not love Andrew Lemon so she responds, "Andrew, I can still see the hole." Mirror imagery is emphasized here, allowing Andrew to envision himself in all the splendor in which he wants others to see him. His abode in a world of darkness and fantasy may give him escape from the reality of his appearance, but it will never satisfy the inner desires of his heart. Inherent in this story is Bradbury's belief that man must learn to accept himself for who he is. Accepting one's weaknesses makes an individual strong and happy. "Dark They Were, and Golden-eyed" Harry Bittering and his family are among the first thousand Earthmen to move to Mars for the purpose of colonizing it. Yet Bittering feels out of place in his new home. His uneasiness is so profound that he wants his family to return with him to Earth. He has decided that Mars is meant to be inhabited only by Martians. When a war on Earth destroys all of Earth's space ships and prevents Bittering's return, he determines that he must build a ship for himself if he is ever to return to Earth. In addition, he has noticed subtle changes occurring on Mars: roses turn green, his cow grows a third horn, and lawn seeds sprout purple instead of green. Bittering wants to leave Mars before strange things also happen to him. However, his space ship is never used, for the Bitterings as well as the other Earthmen also begin to change. Their color, their bone structure, their complexion, and even their language change. In short, they become Martians. Five years later, the war on Earth ends, and a new ship travels through space, its mission being to save the Earthmen stranded on Mars. Much to the surprise of the rescue team, no Earthmen are to be found--only Martians, who have a great affinity for the English language. Bradbury transports his readers to a fictionalized world of Mars in this story. He employs sun, fire, and water imagery to describe the changes that occur on Mars. Fire imagery describes the changes that take place in the houses. The air "burns" them, warping the boards out of shape and making them no longer Earthmen's houses. The sun burns the Earthmen's skin almost black, and Bittering himself feels his flesh melt in the hot and liquid air. Water completes the process of change as Bittering lies in the Martian canal water, convinced that this water is eating his flesh away until only his skeleton will be left. He senses that eventually the water will continue its work, evoking a change upon him as it metamorphoses his skeleton. Finally, all the material trappings that are so important to Earthmen are sluffed off, transforming the Earthmen into Martians. The regeneration is complete. This story is similar in setting and subject matter to many of Bradbury's stories contained in The Martian Chronicles.

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www.cliffs.com "The Smile" "The Smile" is set in the future after warfare has destroyed nearly all traces of civilization. Cities have been reduced to junk piles and cornfields glow with radioactivity at night. The survivors of this warfare wear soiled gunnysack clothing. Their homes are caves and other semi-dwellings that can give them even a measure of protection from the icy weather. Their spirits are as cold as the winter weather because they are filled with hatred for the past; the past has caused their present to be miserable and deplorable. In this society where beauty is nonexistent and where only hatred and destruction remain, the young boy Tom stands in a queue, waiting his turn to view "the smile," the Mona Lisa. As each man passes by the portrait, he "appreciates" it by spitting upon it. However, when Tom's turn comes to spit upon the painting, his mouth is dry. All that he can say is "She's beautiful!" The crowd surges forward on Tom, ripping and destroying the portrait. Tom, in blind imitation, also grabs at the canvas and is successful in tearing off a small portion. When he arrives at his silo home later that night, he gently opens the crumpled fragment of canvas that he has held so tightly. There in his hand is her smile. He thinks that it is lovely and holds it close to him as he falls asleep. In a world in which hatred and destruction have taken the place of beauty and peace, there is still hope that these evils can be overcome. "The Smile" characterizes this hope as being yet alive in the youth of the world. Tom does know how to "appreciate" because he finds peace, security, and love in the smile he holds tightly to his chest. Here is Bradbury's belief that where smiles are appreciated, there is love; with love, there is always hope for humanity. "The First Night of Lent" On the first night of Lent, a screenwriter makes a startling discovery about his village driver, Nick. While the writer works each evening with his producer, Nick waits for him at Heber Finn's pub. When Nick arrives to take the writer home, his driving habits are always beyond reproach. He never drives faster than thirty-one miles an hour, and he is "the most careful driver in all God's world." When the two men discuss the coming Easter season, Nick vows that he will give up cigarettes for Lent. On this first night of Lent, however, when the writer takes his ride home with Nick, he cannot believe his eyes. A transformation has taken place. Nick is no longer mild and easy tempered. Even his voice is harsh and grating. Yet the most astonishing thing about him is his wild and reckless way of driving, often forcing the old car to a speed of one hundred kilometers. At first, the writer supposes that Nick is acting this way because his will power was not strong enough for him to give up smoking for Lent. The real surprise comes, however, when Nick says that he has given up whiskey instead. The writer realizes that on this first night of Lent and for the first time in over one hundred nights, he is riding with a sober driver. The writer gives Nick a large tip, making him promise to be drunk again the next time that he drives him home. Bradbury's story contains an unexpected ending, one of his favorite techniques since he has often stated that he enjoys writing stories that contain a little twist on reality. Ironically, rather than when Nick is drunk, it is when he is sober that he seems somewhat demonically possessed. When sober, he seems to have been created by the Adversary in the depths of hell itself, and when Nick drives his car without the aid of whiskey, he drives at such rapid speeds that he seems to be in a hurry to return to hell and warm his hands at the blaze there. Consequently, the writer only feels secure when he is riding with Nick after he has had a number of drinks at Heber Finn's pub. "The Time of Going Away" Throughout his seventy-five years, William has always been considered a rather eccentric man. He has been involved in all sorts of antics--traveling to Siberia to corner the market in canned hairy mammoth

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www.cliffs.com and even making an excursion in search of the Lost Tribe of the Osseos. Bradbury's story presents William just before he is about to take off on another adventure. He is dressed in a black suit and tie as if he is in mourning. He explains to his wife that he had a premonition that he is going to die. William says that it is his "Time of Going Away." His wife, however, is neither an adventurer nor a dreamer. She tells William that it is time to stay home and do the yard work and house repairs. She has no patience with a man who fantasizes about what he reads in National Geographic. Still convinced that his premonition is true, William leaves home, a last journey before dying. His wife does not believe that her husband's death is imminent so she busies herself with preparing the evening meal. Soon William's fantasy ends. He has been as close to death as he will be for a while yet. He returns home and his wife offers a grace not only for the evening meal but also for her husband's safe return. Throughout the realm and scope of Bradbury's writings, the idea of death often appears. "The Time of Going Away" treats this idea in a somewhat light manner. Bradbury believes that everyone entertains thoughts of death sometime in his life. At the same time, he is convinced that we have more important things to do than think and worry about death all the time. For this reason, he thinks that it is beneficial to write about death. If we can vicariously experience death in a way similar to William's, we have time to attend to the business of living. "All Summer in a Day" This story is set on the planet Venus, where the sun shines for only two hours once every seven years. It opens on the day that the sun is due to make its appearance once again. Margot and the other children in her school on Venus are nine years old. Margot came from Earth to Venus five years ago. Therefore she accurately recalls the sun and the way it looked and felt as it shone on her when she was back in Ohio. However, this is not the case with the other children. They were far too young to remember what the sun was like when last it shone upon them. They can only imagine the warmness of that sun upon their arms and legs. Margot tells the others that the sun is round like a penny and hot like a fire in the stove. The other children accuse her of lying, and they show their resentment of her seeming superiority by locking her in a closet. When the Venus rains finally stop and the sun comes out, it sends a flaming bronze color throughout the jungle growth. The children soak up the life-giving sunshine until the rains start to fall again. The children now know that Margot was telling the truth about the sun. Then and only then do they remember that Margot is still locked in the closet. Prior to the sun's appearance, the children are described as being so pale that they are almost colorless. The rain has washed the yellow from their hair, the blue from their eyes, and the red from their lips. The good qualities in their personalities have also seemingly been washed away because the children are quick-tempered and spiteful. That they are cruel by locking Margot in a closet never occurs to them. The sun, however, depicts a restoration for the children. It gives color to their washed-out appearance, and it also enables them to possess new encouragement, strength, and wholeness in their lives. Finally the children remember Margot, but for her, it is too late--she must wait seven years to see the sun again. "The Gift" On Christmas Eve in the year 2052, a family finds it necessary to make a rocket flight to Mars. The parents are very worried because this will be their son's first flight into space. They want to give him a wonderful Christmas in space, complete with a Christmas tree and gifts. However, regulations concerning weight limit in the rocket make this last plan an impossibility. The young boy is not disappointed on Christmas morning, though, for his Christmas gift is a look through the ship's only porthole: He will be able to see the billions of stars that burn like candles. "The Gift" is another of the stories exhibiting the great value that Bradbury perceives in the space

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www.cliffs.com program. Being in space and seeing the universe from this perspective become a religious experience for the boy in this story. Here, the wonder of the first star of long years ago, the Christmas star, is replaced by the boy's delight at seeing billions of fire-like stars in the midnight of space. Bradbury believes that the only salvation of humanity ultimately depends upon our conquest of space. The more that we travel in space, the more religious Bradbury feels we will become. So it is, then, that the young boy's Christmas experience in space is a religious experience indeed. "The Great Collision of Monday Last" A stranger with torn clothes and a bloody face staggers into Heber Finn's pub to report a collision on the road. Collisions, however, are familiar occurrences here for the customers at the pub all know exactly what to do when they hear word of a wreck. That is, everyone knows except an American named McGuire. He heard no car on the road and, furthermore, heard no sound of collision. He sits mystified. McGuire soon learns that the accident involved bicycles, not cars, and that it took place at the crossroads, in the fog, between two bicycles devoid of lights. He also learns that over three hundred Irish bicyclists have similar collisions each year. When he questions the doctor about whether or not automobile collisions ever occur, the doctor tells him to go to Dublin if his interests concern auto crashes. He gives McGuire further information: "When there is a heavy fog, speed, and douse your lights when cars loom up." With these instructions, McGuire looks at the highway boiling with fog and, with high anticipation, he starts his car. Another of Bradbury's nationalistically oriented stories, "The Great Collision of Monday Last" treats several of humanity's blacker desires. Here, he depicts the thrill which a person feels when he flirts with danger and the unknown, and when, more specifically, he readies himself for the possibility of destroying a life. McGuire may be an American, but the thrill associated with danger and destruction serves to break down all nationalistic barriers because it is common to all people. In this respect, McGuire and the men at Heber Finn's pub are brothers. "The Little Mice" This story centers around a Mexican couple whose behavior is considered odd by their landlord. The Mexicans stay very much to themselves and never make conversation with other people. Even when they are alone, they seem never to make a sound. Equally as strange, their landlord has never smelled food cooking, never heard a meal being prepared, and never heard even a light switch being turned on. On several occasions he has spied on them, yet he has never seen them doing anything but sitting quietly beneath a dim, blue bulb which provides their only source of light. Even when a fire threatens their home, the Mexican couple refuses to leave. Only when the landlord enters their home to force them to flee for their lives does he learn their secret: Hundreds of wine bottles line their shelves and fill their closets and bureaus. First published in Escapade Magazine as "The Mice," this story is another example of Bradbury's desire to write a narrative that uses a subtle twist on reality. Here the thrust of his efforts lies in the element of suspense as the reader is encouraged to use his imagination. Mice imagery is used to describe the Mexican couple, and these are consistent throughout the story. When the Mexicans meet people in alley ways, they run; when the Mexican man raps on his backdoor screen, the sound is like a "fat mouse scrambling." Other times the Mexican "nibbles" at his door, and the couple is described as being as "quiet as a mouse." The blue light which illuminates their home further intensifies the mood of unreality, for the light is not a typical light, nor are the Mexicans who spend much of their lives beneath it. The wine that they spend so much time drinking further distorts reality for them. Yet the landlord reaffirms the norm and acknowledges Bradbury's philosophy that fantasy or unreality is beneficial only when it has a positive reinforcement on people. The landlord finds the realities of life, such as a well-lighted home and home

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www.cliffs.com cooking, much more satisfying. "The Shore Line at Sunset" Tom and his friend Chico share a house on the beach off the Coast Highway. Tom is a lonely man, wanting more than anything else to find the perfect girl to marry. Several times in the past he thought that he had found such a girl. Yet every time he brings a girl home, she always decides not to stay. All of Tom's great expectations have ended in failure. He is considering moving away, and it is during this low point in Tom's life that a young boy from the beach brings him news of a "funny" woman who has been washed up on the shore. Tom and Chico go to view this sight and are amazed to see a beautiful mermaid at the water's edge. Chico immediately recognizes the monetary value in the mermaid. Tom, however, is content to accept this beautiful gift that the water has given him. All he cares about is that he is happier than he has been since he was a child. Tom gazes upon this beautiful creature while the waves roll higher on the shore. Finally, they wash the mermaid back into the sea, yet Tom is still happy. He believes that without the sea, his beautiful mermaid will die. He then realizes a truth about himself, too. He now knows that he can never go away. Instead, he finds meaning in his life through swimming in the sea, the element which has given life to his "lady fair." Water imagery, a favorite of Bradbury's, again is the major symbol in this story. First, the mermaid, the gift that the sea gives to Tom, is described: Her eyelids are a faint water color, her mouth is a pale sea rose, and her body seems alive only when the sea waves wash over her. It is the sea which gives the mermaid life. Likewise, the sea gives new life to Tom's depressed spirits. It not only becomes the promise of joy for him, but it also provides regeneration for him. Bradbury seems to be saying that we need a deep purpose for living before we can discover lasting joy. "The Strawberry Window" Robert Prentiss and his family have moved from Earth to Mars as part of a program to colonize this new planet. Carrie, his wife, is dreadfully unhappy on Mars, and many, many times in the stillness of the Martian night, she has taken her clothes out from the bureau in preparation for packing and returning home. The things that are important to her are back home on Earth. But when her spirits are especially low, Robert surprises her by having those items which are most dear to her shipped from Earth to Mars. These items include the creaking front steps to their home, the front door with the strawberry window in it, and her piano. Robert promises his wife that soon he will have the entire house shipped to Mars. Carrie is now content. As she climbs the creaking front doorsteps to peer through the strawberry window, the pink glass gives Mars the appearance of a never-ending dawn. "The Strawberry Window," like "The End of the Beginning," is Bradbury's statement of belief in the necessity of travel to outer space. Robert Prentiss is the person through whom Bradbury speaks. Prentiss tries to persuade his wife to consider the importance of their inhabiting Mars. He tells her that one day the sun is going to explode. Then, humanity will die unless other planets have already been colonized. Prentiss compares our instinct to survive to the instinctive way that salmon fight against the stream to arrive at the proper place before they propagate and die. He assures Carrie that people may say that they are sending out space ships for the purpose of making money or seeing the sights, but the real reason for the space flights is to inhabit world after world so that nothing can ever totally destroy humanity. Bradbury is optimistic about achieving immortality through outer space exploration and colonization. He has strongly supported the United States' space program from the Apollo flights to the early investigation of Mars. He sees the nation's space program as an absolute necessity in the future and considers the space program to be of the greatest priority because it symbolizes the life force struggling to survive not just here on Earth but in other worlds, forever and forever.

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www.cliffs.com "The Day It Rained Forever" This story is set in the desert, in a ghost town, in a hotel that looks like "a hollowed dry bone." Mr. Terle, Mr. Fremley, and Mr. Smith live in this hotel, and they find the heat and dryness almost unbearable. They are described as being like a "damn desert cactus" in desperate need of a drink. Consequently, they are interested in little else but the possibility of rain. When they hear rumbling sounds in the distance, they are sure that rain is finally coming. However, the sound is only Miss Blanche Hillgood's car. She has "blue eyes like water," and in the back of her car is a harp case "tilted against the sky like the prow of an ancient ship." When she plays her harp for the men, the long desired rains finally fall, yet they come in the form of Miss Hillgood's music rather than real rain. Each time she plays, musical notes drop and patter like rain through the hotel, falling cool at the open windows and upon the dying cactus in the front yard. More important, however, this music rains upon the men who tilt their heads back, allowing it to fall where it will. When Miss Hillgood decides to make the hotel her permanent residence, the time of the long rains has arrived. The beauty of music as characterized by water imagery gives the elderly men the renewed strength of spirit that they have needed for a long time. Their mundane existence on this furnace-like desert is transformed into an abundant life of joy, for the life-giving rains of music fall upon them every day. Thus, water imagery is used here as an element of transformation and regeneration. Fremley, Terle, and Smith may yearn for rain, but equally important is their need to be surrounded by beauty. They are weary of their sterile existence. For this reason, they find spiritual rejuvenation in Miss Hillgood's beautiful music. The long drought ends when their tired hearts and spirits are renewed.

The October Country The October Country is comprised largely of stories originally contained in the limited edition of Dark Carnival, published in 1947 and long since out of print. Bradbury added only five new stories to the collection: "The Dwarf," "The Next in Line," "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse," "Touched with Fire," and "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone." Bradbury's "October country" is that place where autumn is a permanent season. The daytime wanes rapidly here and the night lingers on. For Bradbury, light is good and dark is evil, and thus his stories contain many cisterns, cellars, closets, and coal bins, all of which are devoid of the sun. Likewise, his characters are autumn people, those who function in this dark environment and whose evil natures flourish here. The October Country smacks of the macabre. These tales are bizarre and terrifying, and a large number of them are sheer pieces of horror. Many are indicative of Bradbury's love of the carnival since they contain witches, dwarves, and other carnival freaks. Yet even these stories, written with their built-in shock value, are indicative of Bradbury's more moralistic writings which were later to come, for many of these stories contain underlying philosophical truths concerning humanity and what is necessary for us to achieve happiness. "The Dwarf" Mr. Bigelow is a dwarf who works for a carnival. Each night after the customers have gone, he visits the Mirror Maze, where he stands before one mirror in particular, one that magnifies his image many, many times. Here he struts, pirouettes, and does a clumsy dance. He likes what he sees. Ralph Banghart, the ticket salesman at the Mirror Maze, watches this nightly ritual through a peephole, finding it a terribly funny joke. Ralph's girlfriend, Aimee, also watches Bigelow, but she empathizes with the dwarf. She

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www.cliffs.com wants to help him find dignity and purpose in life. Ralph, though, has another plan in mind for Bigelow. Within the Mirror Maze he repositions his mirrors, inserting one that reduces a man's size. Bigelow is unaware of the change as he makes his nightly visit to the Maze, although he soon makes the discovery. Having viewed himself as even smaller than he is in reality, he shrieks hysterically and runs away in search of a weapon with which to take his life. All the while, Ralph sits looking, laughing, and slapping his thighs. Later, when Ralph leaves the carnival, he glimpses himself in the mirrors. He sees facing him in the mirror the image of "a horrid, ugly little man two feet high, with a pale, squashed face." Bradbury employs symbolism in regard to his characters' names in this story. Characteristically, Mr. Bigelow is "big." He has high aspirations for himself as a writer. However, he is also "low" in his estimation of himself, as well as low in stature since he is a dwarf. Aimee is also accurately characterized by her name. She is kind and compassionate towards Bigelow. Mirror imagery best depicts the true nature of Ralph. At first, the mirrors depict "ten thousand cold white images of him stalking down the glassy corridors." Ralph is hard, cold, unfeeling, and does "stalk" Bigelow in the same way that one would stalk an animal. Moreover, the mirror does not lie when it depicts Ralph as a small man; the mirror pictures Ralph as he inwardly is: small, petty, ugly, and cruel. Bradbury's sympathetic understanding of humanity makes him aware that humanity often experiences feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy, and sometimes even total disgust when forced to take a look at itself. He also feels that this dissatisfaction is the origin of man's desire to indulge in fantasy, to want to escape his real self, to want to be what he knows he never can be. Because of Bradbury's great interest in humanity, his stories often investigate these universal feelings that man has about himself. His use of mirror imagery depicts this theme of man's dissatisfaction. In "The Dwarf," Bigelow finds joy in the fantasy of the mirrors; Ralph Banghart sees in them reality. They reflect him as the despicable man that he really is. "The Next in Line" Because of her obsession with death and dying, Marie protests when her husband Joseph takes her on a tour of the catacombs in Mexico. Joseph, however, is strangely insistent. As they view the line of standing mummies, Marie is aghast at this spectacle of death and begins to wonder what it would be like to be the next in line. This added dimension to her obsession becomes so intense that she not only begins to lose touch with reality, but she also feels herself begin to die. At first, she is unable to read her favorite magazines and, later, cannot sleep. Then she begins to notice certain changes in her body whenever she looks at herself in her "coffin-sized mirror." Finally, she feels the cogs within her slip, and her entire body begins to shake itself to bits. Bradbury's use of sun imagery foreshadows the outcome of this study of absolute horror. The sun imagery depicts the wholeness of life, a quality now lacking where Marie is concerned, for everything reminds Marie of the mummified people standing in a queue within the catacombs. Foreshadowing begins early in the story as Marie stands in a Mexican street surrounded by shadows while the sun elsewhere shines brightly. Marie watches the sun go down in the sky, turning everything dark, and it is in the dark that she experiences the real terror of death. Finally, as Marie feels her body slowly dying, becoming like the parchment bodies of the mummies in the catacombs, she has thoughts of "bronze childhood when everything was sun on green trees and sun on water and sun on blond child hair." Joseph tells her that she will feel better when the sun shines again, but Maria's days in the sun are over. When Joseph leaves Mexico, he leaves smiling and alone.

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www.cliffs.com "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse" George Garvey is a prime example of the cliched middle-class creatures that our materialistically oriented society often creates. He is a connoisseur not of the fine arts but of the simple things in life: He enjoys the music of Guy Lombardo and the comedy of Milton Berle. When an avant-garde group of young people, The Cellar Septet, discovers Garvey, they think that he is unique because of his lack of cultural knowledge. Garvey thinks that James Joyce's Ulysses tells of a Greek and a one-eyed monster, and he believes that Tennessee Williams once wrote a kind of "hillbilly waltz." The Cellar Septet and their friends find Garvey's lack of intellectualism refreshing, and they make frequent visits to his home to admire his uniqueness. Later, when Garvey's popularity begins to decline, both as a facade against his boorish nature and as insurance on his future popularity, he resorts to eccentricities such as a Mandarin's golden finger guard and a poker-chip eye that Matisse himself painted. In this story, Bradbury's critical eye depicts the intellectual stagnation that a materialistic, keep-up-withthe-Joneses society is capable of producing. Also, through weird, dull George Garvey, Bradbury characterizes a segment of society which sorely needs love, for there is no limit to what Garvey will do to gain approval of Alexander Pape and his Cellar Septet. "Skeleton" Like "The Next in Line," "Skeleton" also focuses on an obsession which, when allowed to run its course, ultimately results in tragedy. In this case, Mr. Harris, suffering from what he describes as being painful bones, visits his doctor many times--to no avail. Finally, Harris finds a sympathetic doctor, M. Munigant, who makes him aware of his skeletal makeup. The preoccupation that Harris has with his body intensifies until he is convinced that this skeleton within him is in conflict with his dirty exterior body. The pains that his bones send through his body testify to this fact. He blames his skeleton for his loss of weight, his lack of success in business, and his problems with his marriage. After his skeleton almost "conquers" him during a business trip to Phoenix, Harris determines again to call on his doctor for help against this inner enemy. Dr. M. Munigant gives him aid, but not the kind that Harris wants. Munigant's treatment consists of surgery in which he extracts a major bone from Harris' body, one that holds all the others together. In so doing, he not only reduces Harris to a jellyfish-like state, but he provides himself with a new bone to munch on for his supper. Bradbury is a staunch believer in the kind of story that can be emotionally experienced, and "Skeleton" is precisely this kind of story. With quiet intensity, Bradbury leads his readers into this story about a man who realizes that he carries within himself the gothic symbol of death; then, he introduces us to an odd little doctor with a hollow tongue who gains sustenance from breadsticks and human bones, and a woman who shrieks with horror at hearing her name called by a gelatin-skinned jellyfish in her living room. In fact, the horror of this story is so skillfully passed on to the reader that he may never eat breadsticks with a quiet heart again. "The Jar" This story takes the reader to a carnival side show and to "one of those pale things drifting in alcohol plasma . . . with its peeled, dead eyes staring out at you and never seeing you." The protagonist of "The Jar" is Charlie, a man so charmed with the jar that he persuades the carnival owner to sell it to him. When he takes the jar home, Charlie's poorly constructed living room becomes a palace and the jar becomes it emperor. Folks from miles around come to his shack to sit, stare, and philosophize over his jar. Strangely, however, each person who looks at the jar sees something different in it. No one can seem to agree on the thing's eye or hair color, and the thing seems to move; it even seems to change. Moreover, each individual sees in the jar the manifestation of some deep evil, some dark and secret sin, or some hidden guilt. To

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www.cliffs.com Juke Marmer, the thing in the jar represents a horrible childhood experience; as a child, he drowned a litter of newborn kittens. But Mrs. Tridden sees within the jar the form of her three-year-old son Foley, whom she lost in the swamp. Thedy, Charlie's unfaithful wife, peers into the jar and remarks that the thing in there looks just like Charlie. Charlie is tired of her infidelity to him and murders her in order to end her whoring. Afterward, when Charlie looks at the jar, he, like the other townsmen, finds the thing familiar. Certainly now, at least, Charlie's wife will never wander from him again. As one of the finest examples of Bradbury's macabre writing, "The Jar" sets the tone for the many socalled carnival stories that were to follow. In these stories, carnival imagery is the major source for Bradbury's discussion of the presence of evil as a threatening force in the world. "The Jar" reveals Bradbury's belief that the potential for evil as well as for good dwells within each person. The evil nature of the jar is suggested early in this story when the carnival boss admits that he has been having strange thoughts about the jar. Then, the night meetings at Charlie's are described as a "kind of rude church gathering" where the townsmen sit with "reverent awe" gazing at the jar. Also, the embryo in the jar is depicted as being a "Holy Grail-like thing." Here, then, the nature of religious worship is juxtaposed with the implied evil nature of the jar, indicating that either of the two is possible. Yet the fantasies that the characters engage in concerning the "thing" in the jar indicate that for them, evil is so strong that it has taken precedence over the good. Implicit is Bradbury's warning that this disguised evil can be a potent possibility unless humanity is careful to cling to that which is good. "The Lake" Harold takes one last swim before he and his mother close their summer house. While he swims, he calls for Talley, a young friend of his. They had both been playing in the lake together last spring, but Talley went out too far, and "the lake would not let her return." Her body was never found. Though they were both only twelve years old, Talley and Harold had loved each other with more than a childish love. They had often swum for hours in the lake together, and they had made serious work out of building sand castles. Now, as Harold swims, he calls her name again because without her, a part of his life has died. The story then moves forward; Harold is twenty-two and is married. He and his wife, Margaret, have taken a honeymoon trip back to his hometown. While standing on the shore of the lake, he sees a lifeguard step out of a boat with a body in his arms. Although it seems impossible, Harold recognizes it immediately as being Talley's. The water has given her back to him after ten long years. She is still young and small, and she still has golden hair. "She will be forever young and I will love her forever," he grieves. He then goes back, walking along the beach to where a strange woman named Margaret waits for him. "The Lake" is another of the stories which exhibits Bradbury's strong affinity for the carnival. Here he describes the summer's end as if it were nailed into a series of coffins in traditional sideshow fashion. The merry-go-round's music is the wind, and the lake water is like a magician, sawing in half anyone who wades out in it. Water imagery, however, holds the dominant place in this story. When Talley drowns, an integral part of Harold's life is taken away from him. Even as a child, he seeks this life within the lake's waters. Years later, when the lake finally returns Talley to Harold, he pledges his everlasting love for her. At this point, however, the waters are actually destroying the life that Harold has begun with Margaret. The life-giving quality of water is not meant for Harold. The lake has taken his love away from him, returned it, and now he is alone.

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www.cliffs.com "The Emissary" Ever since Martin was confined to his home as the result of an illness, his only connection with the outside world has been his pet, whom he calls Dog. Dog is Martin's emissary, reporting the changes in the weather and the seasons by the way his fur feels and smells, and by the bits of nature that cling to him. Dog not only faithfully fetches news from outside, but he brings visitors to Martin's bedside. Martin's favorite visitor is his teacher, Miss Haight. She is his friend and gives him books and cupcakes and loses to him in games of dominoes and checkers. When he learns of Miss Haight's death, Martin begins a thoughtful consideration of death. He concludes that being dead must be quite dull since all that dead people do is lie around. In the last days of October, Dog begins to act strangely and, on Halloween, disappears. However, Dog does return, bringing with him the rancid smelling soil of the cemetery. As usual, Dog has also brought Martin a visitor. He has provided Miss Haight with a brief outing. Once, when Bradbury was a boy, he showed extreme despair after a particularly exciting Halloween party because he feared he might die before another Halloween came. His brother told him not to worry about missing Halloween because if he died, he would then be Halloween. "The Emissary" blends both Halloween and death, as this tale of death occurs on and around the holiday that has always been Bradbury's favorite. The shock ending in which Dog provides Miss Haight with a respite from the grave is made even more horrible because it is implied rather than stated. This permits the reader to participate in the sort of fantasy that Bradbury believes is a necessity if one is to survive final reality. "Touched with Fire" Mrs. Shrike is a loud and coarse menace to society. Because of a subconscious desire to die, she deliberately aggravates people to the extent that one day someone will not be able to resist the urge to murder her. She blatantly insults the butcher, her son-in-law, and even Mr. Foxe and Mr. Shaw, who are trying to save her from herself. These men know that ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which most murders are committed. This is the apex of irritability, so Mr. Foxe and Mr. Shaw are like firemen who try to prevent a fire from occurring. They want to expose Mrs. Shrike to love and serenity before her obnoxious personality and the heat of the day make her self-imposed situations perfect for her murder. However, Mr. Foxe himself almost causes the destruction that he and Shaw try to prevent. When Mr. Foxe realizes how he has nearly murdered Mrs. Strike, these self-appointed firemen run for safety. A commentator on life and humanity's customs, Bradbury has made observations which have led him to put an accurate finger on certain evils that are at work in the world. Fire is the image that he often utilizes to depict the purification or destruction of these evils. His earliest story containing this image and theme is "Touched with Fire." When Mrs. Shrike speaks to Foxe and Shaw, her voice is like "pure blazing sunlight that [burns] their eyes"; she swears at them with language that blazes and flies through the air "like great searing torches." Furthermore, she is described as a "feverish dragon" who lives in a "fire clouded" room, speaking nothing but "fire and smoke." When the men make their hasty exit from the apartment, they pass Mr. Shrike, who is coming home from work. Typically, he, too, is described in images associated with fire. He seems painfully sunburned, raw, and sweating. The temperature has climbed to ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit, and Shrike's longshoreman's hook is hanging from his back pocket as he climbs the stairs. In the safety of the store across the street, Foxe and Shaw sip colas while awaiting her murder. Mrs. Shrike has been shopping for death, and today, she is not going to be disappointed. Bradbury the moralizer is here displaying his belief in the importance of such powerful emotional values as love and kindness.

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www.cliffs.com "The Small Assassin" Almost dying in the delivery room, Alice Leiber gives birth to a healthy baby boy. Instead of being filled with joy, though, Alice is horrified because she is convinced that her baby is trying to kill her. At first, her husband, David, refuses to believe that anything is wrong. Later, however, he is called home from a business trip because his wife is near death because of pneumonia. He is forced to give second thoughts to his wife's fears when she vows that the child made her ill by crying so loudly through the night that she could not get proper rest. She insists that their child almost succeeded in ending her life. One night when the baby will not stop crying, David goes downstairs for the baby's bottle. In the dark, he trips on the baby's doll and nearly plunges headfirst down the stairs. Luckily, he grabs the banister. Alice, however, is not so fortunate, because David discovers her the following day lying twisted and dead at the foot of the stairs. She, too, tripped over the baby's doll. Now his wife's accusations concerning their son return to him. He finally accepts the idea that his son is the "small assassin" who placed the doll at the head of the stairs each time. He becomes hysterical. Dr. Jeffers sedates David and puts him to bed, assured that he will not awaken until morning. When the doctor gets no answer at Leiber's home the next day, however, he steps inside and, smelling gas, races to David's room. There he finds David still lying in bed, but dead. Now Dr. Jeffers begins to believe in the baby's evil actions and goes in search of the baby with a scalpel in his hand. "The Small Assassin" is a good illustration of Bradbury's technique of putting a little twist on reality. Here there is the intrusion of a baby named "Lucifer" into the previously normal life of David and Alice Leiber. At first, the child seems harmless enough, and the reader has a tendency to judge Alice as the "strange" character because of her fantasy concerning the child. Before long, however, the reader agrees with Alice that the baby's actions are menacing. Too often, the baby's face is red and his lips are moist. The norm has been upset. Ultimately, both parents are murdered, and Dr. Jeffers' determination to perform terminal surgery on the child adds a deft touch of horror. The reader is left to decide whether or not Lucifer was indeed destroyed. "The Crowd" When this story begins, Mr. Spallner has just been hurled through the air because of an automobile accident. He lies bleeding on the asphalt street, yet he realizes that before the police or the ambulance arrives, a crowd of gawking men, women, and children lose no time in getting to the scene of his accident. He lies gazing up at this crowd peering down at him and senses an unexplainable yet definite foreboding about them. On his way home from the hospital, his taxi passes an auto accident which has just occurred, and Spallner notices that the onlookers seem strangely familiar. When Spallner observes yet another accident, he again watches the rapidity at which the crowd gathers and, once more, recognizes many of the onlookers as being the same ones who stood over him. Through research, as well as through personal observation, he concludes that this same crowd has continually been present at accidents. But before Spallner can take this information to the police, he is involved in yet another serious accident. The same crowd closes in on him immediately, hanging over him until they seem to suck up all the air that he needs for breath. When, under the pretense of making him more comfortable, the crowd pulls him from beneath his wrecked automobile, Spallner realizes that they intend to murder him. They somehow know about evidence that he has against them. Ironically, his last words before death are an acknowledgement to the crowd that now he will be joining their ranks. Another of Bradbury's "dark" stories about humanity, "The Crowd" has as its focal point the psychological truth that all people are attracted to and even thrive upon the pain and the problems of their fellow humans. Perhaps this story was triggered when Bradbury was writing Something Wicked This Way Comes because in that novel Charles Halloway echoes the same dark truth when he says that "man salts

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www.cliffs.com his life with others' sorrows." "The Crowd" ends on a tragic note as Spallner himself becomes a member of the crowd. This depicts an undeniable truth that within us there is an overwhelming power which is always enticing us to join forces with evil. "Jack-in-the-Box" Edwin has been taught that the house that he and his mother-teacher live in is the Universe. His father, whom he regards as God, constructed this house for them years ago and was later killed by a Beast in the garden. Since then, Edwin has been carefully supervised by his mother, who tells him that if he ever leaves their Universe, he, like his father, will die. However, Edwin does not understand death and is curious about what may be beyond the trees and the garden wall of his Universe. No matter which of the rooms of the Universe he visits, Edwin uses their windows as vantage points from which to try to catch a glimpse of the world beyond. He is unsuccessful until he discovers the door open to one of the rooms forbidden to him. He enters, climbs the spiral stair to the tower, and looks out of the windows. In an experience not unlike that of the biblical Saul, Edwin views the world beyond his Universe. He even fears blindness because of the wonder of what he sees. Later, after an especially happy birthday celebration, Edwin discovers his mother lying motionless on the living room floor. When he cannot awaken her, Edwin experiences freedom for the first time in his life. He frantically races through the town, announcing his death. "Jack-in-the-Box" is unique to The October Country because of its sheer fantasy element. Here Bradbury creates an entire fantasy world, a Universe so unique and separate from the real world that Edwin can adapt to it yet is totally unable to function normally when he faces reality. Throughout the story, the Jack-in-the-Box is an obvious symbol for Edwin and his plight. At first, the toy doll is shut away within its box and unable to be free. Likewise, Edwin is trapped within the Universe that his father-God created for him, and all the while, he longs for freedom. Only when the Jack-in-the-Box has been cast from the Universe window is the doll capable of being rid of its prison box and of stretching its arms in a gesture of freedom. Edwin, too, never experiences freedom until he casts himself out of the Universe that was created for him. Bradbury is a staunch believer in the innate goodness that exists within us. His use of sun imagery demonstrates this belief since he often uses these images to depict the life source and wholeness of humanity. When Bradbury describes father-God's creation of the Universe and his placing of Edwin's mother as the center of that Universe, he establishes the sun as the central image in the story. Edwin's mother is indeed his sun. She is his teacher, his friend, and his life. But Edwin's world is destroyed when he discovers his mother lying cold and quiet on the floor. The center does not hold. Edwin's sun is dead and his life source no longer exists. Ironically, in what he believes to be sure suicide, he runs into reality, crying "I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm glad I'm dead." Bradbury speaks to his readers from his pulpit of fantasy here. All people are dead unless they give meaning and order to their lives. "The Scythe" When Drew Erikson stops his car in front of a small white house and a nearby wheat field, his prayers and those of his destitute family seem answered. Erikson enters the house in search of food and finds an old man dressed in funeral clothes and lying dead upon his bed. Erikson reads a note written by the man entitling the ownership of both house and land to whomever next enters the cottage. Erlkson claims the farm for himself, and he and his family settle in to what seems to be a most fulfilling life. Not long afterward, Erikson notices a certain strangeness about his farm. The wheat matures in separate clusters and rots within hours after it has been cut. Then it begins new growth again, overnight. Also, his scythe is engraved with the strange words: "Who Wields Me--Wields the World!" Stranger still is the compelling

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www.cliffs.com power of the scythe upon him, forcing him to work even when he wishes to stop. Before long, in a startling revelation, Erikson perceives that each time his scythe cuts a broad swath, hundreds of people die. Now he can understand the words on the scythe and finds satisfaction in knowing that he discovered this truth before he accidentally cut down the lives of his wife and two children. On the day that he recognizes that the lives of his family are akin to the mature grain in the field, he refuses to cut it and determines never to harvest his wheat again. That night, Erikson's cottage is totally destroyed by fire, yet his wife and children sleep on amid the flames. Although the fire does not harm them, no matter what Erikson does, he cannot awaken them. He now understands that they should have died yesterday, but he hindered their natural death when he did not cut their grain. He hurries to the field, wielding his scythe rapidly as he goes. When the story ends, he is still working "wildly, without even stopping, night and day, in the endless fields of wheat." "The Scythe" is based upon the biblical allegory of the grim reaper, whose name is Death. In the allegory as well as in Bradbury's story, this reaper has absolute control over the bounds of life and death. "The Scythe," then, depicts death incarnate. Furthermore, the scythe or the sickle itself is also linked with many allegories of death. Symbolically, it carries a double meaning. First is its function of cutting, paralleling the insatiable hunger of Death. Then, the scythe is also symbolic of the hope of rebirth, indicative of the continuity of the life force. This second meaning finds substantiation in the story when new grain sprouts magically from the old. This story is one of Bradbury's earliest attempts at dealing with and ridding humanity of what he calls the "hairball" fears about death. Free from such fears, we can devote our energies to positive endeavors. "Uncle Einar" Uncle Einar once spent many joyous evenings sailing through the late night skies on his beautiful green wings, but an accidental crash into a high-tension wire grounded him from his night flying. At first, Einar did not mind that his delicate night perception was gone, for as a result of his accident he met Brunilla, and he kept himself busy courting her and planning their marriage. Brunilla and Einar were quite happy together for a while, but such is not the case when the central action of Bradbury's story begins. Now, Uncle Einar realizes that his night perception is lost to him forever. Any flying in the daylight that he might do is a risk of his safety, and flying at night is impossible. This knowledge is deeply depressing to him, and his uselessness to his family causes him to withdraw from their love. His one obsession is centered on "heavens, skies, horizons, infinities," which are now closed to him. His spirits soar again only after his family discovers a safe, daytime flight assignment for him. He fulfills his children's request for a wonderful green kite that dips and soars and makes "a great and magical exclamation mark across a cloud!" "Uncle Einar " can almost be considered comic relief after one has experienced many of the dark stories of horror and the grotesque contained in The October Country. This story is a fantasy about a man whose green wings make him quite bizarre. Yet Bradbury leaves his readers warmly smiling after having read a "they lived happily ever after" ending. In spite of its happy ending, however, Bradbury also treats themes of loneliness and isolation. Uncle Einar has always been divided from the normal world because of his wonderful wings. When he suffers the loss of some of his supernatural powers, he becomes despondent and useless except for the degrading task of drying wet laundry. He is indeed a man alone. Only after Uncle Einar's children ask him for a kite does his loneliness disappear. As the children's wonderful green kite, he finds his full potential tapped again. He finds a useful, thrilling, dignified task for himself, and his loneliness vanishes. Bradbury's style of writing should also be noted here. His images and metaphors provide an added intensity to his writings, allowing his readers more readily a firsthand experience as they read. Uncle

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www.cliffs.com Einar's flight over "moon-dreaming country hills" while he watches "a faint bandage of dawn appear" and, later, the description of Einar and his despondency as being like a "sun-parasol, green and discarded" are examples of Bradbury's blending of poetry and prose, a technique that will grow and flourish in his later works. "The Wind" Herb Thomson's friend Allin claims that while he was in the Himalayas during the war, he discovered what he calls the Valley of the Winds. There, he found himself in the midst of snow, rain, hail, and wind, all occurring simultaneously. He is convinced that he has angered the winds by discovering their origin, and that now the winds seek revenge upon him. As the story's action begins, Allin is certain that tonight is the time that the winds have chosen to settle their debt with him, for the wind has followed him home and has gradually been increasing in intensity. Hoping for moral support, Allin makes frequent telephone calls to his friend throughout the night, describing the latest activities of the vengeful wind. He tells Herb that the wind has taken the life-power and intellect from millions of people throughout the years, and now it is stalking his. Herb, however, provides no help for Allin because he believes that his friend is only indulging in fantasy. When Allin's frequent calls suddenly cease, Herb puts in a long distance call to him. To his disbelief, he hears the operator say that she is unable to connect his call because all the telephone lines are down as the result of a tremendous wind storm in that area. Later, when Herb hears Allin's voice outside his door, he breathes a sigh of relief. Upon opening the door, however, he is greeted by the wind. "The Wind" is another of Bradbury's emotionally experienced horror stories which utilizes the everyday things familiar to all of us. Here he personifies the commonplace wind and gives it a sinister quality. He depicts it as a kind of monster who tracks its victims to the ends of the earth and sucks away their lives. Of note here is Allin, the protagonist in the story, who serves as little more than a symbol. He is a representative of people who sometimes find themselves alone and misunderstood even in the presence of friends. Although Bradbury readily admits that this theme of loneliness was not consciously planted in this story, he nevertheless confesses that, unconsciously, a majority of the stories presented in The October Country, and in many of his later works as well, center around such lonely people as Allin. "The Man Upstairs" Douglas has watched his grandmother clean, dress, and stuff chickens for her boarding house guests so many times that he imagines he can almost do it himself. He is quite interested in the sizes, shapes, and uses of a chicken's internal organs and wonders if he looks like they do inside. His life is merry until Mr. Koberman rents the upstairs room. One morning, Douglas observes Koberman through the multicolored glass window in the upstairs alcove and, for a moment, believes that he can see inside him. What he sees staggers his boyish imagination. When Koberman catches him spying, he gestures angrily at Douglas with his umbrella. Koberman obviously fears being observed through this glass, for he breaks the colored window and manages to blame Douglas for the accident. Later that day, after Koberman goes to his room, Douglas sneaks in, carrying with him bits and pieces of the broken window. He examines Koberman with a discerning eye. Then, with the same meticulous skill that his grandmother demonstrates with chickens, Douglas performs exploratory surgery on Koberman with a large kitchen knife. He discovers strange shaped and marvelously colored gelatin-like objects within Koberman's body, all of which he takes to grandmother for identification. Strangely enough, though, Koberman's death does not result from the removal of his "parts." Instead, it is the "stuffing" that Douglas uses, the six dollars and seventy cents worth of silver coins that he sews inside Koberman's chest that causes him to die. Bradbury feels strongly that a writer is never able to write well about anything with which he is unfamiliar. He advocates writing from personal experience, and such is the case in "The Man Upstairs"

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www.cliffs.com because Bradbury considers this story a eulogy of sorts to his grandmother whose culinary skills were always a delight to him. "The Man Upstairs" is another of Bradbury's macabre tales in which the normal world with all of its rules and behavioral patterns is confronted with a creature whose actions are antithetical to the norm. Bradbury's love of the carnival and his great delight in Halloween surely must have merged here to create Mr. Koberman. He is, indeed, not the normal kind of boarder at Grandmother's boarding house, but Douglas is the only one to realize this due to his childhood perceptiveness. Koberman refuses to use the table silverware, he carries nothing but copper pennies in his pockets, and his working hours are at night rather than in the day. Even the surgery that Douglas performs does not end Koberman's life, for just as in the deeply steeped tradition of vampire legends, Koberman dies from silver implanted in his chest. The analogy between Grandma and her chickens and Douglas and the man upstairs adds a light touch of humor to this story and therefore prevents Douglas's surgical murder of the vampire-boarder from ever becoming heavy-handed horror, typical of many of the other stories in The October Country. "There Was an Old Woman" Aunt Tildy's single philosophy of life is that death is ridiculous. She is sure that if she does not believe in death then she will never die. She has never married because she can see no future in living with a man who will eventually "up and die." When the story begins, she is entertaining a guest in her home: He is a dark and handsome young man, a man who she later realizes is Death himself. Death entices Aunt Tildy to climb into a wicker basket and go away with him, but she refuses to accept the advances of her gentleman caller. She says that she is too old to be made love to and she is not interested in his kisses. In fact, she has no time for him at all. She is expecting a visit from her granddaughter Emily today and has sewing to do. Her will to live is so strong that Death is forced to leave her indomitable spirit behind. He can only steal her body. Aunt Tildy is filled with wrath when she discovers what Death has done. With angry determination, she sets out to regain custody of her body. She horrifies the chief mortician and the three vice-presidents of the mortuary as well. Visibly shaken by the demands of this spirit woman, they grant her request. She steps into the wicker basket, and body and spirit are reunited. In a great moment of triumph, Aunt Tildy commands her granite-like body to come alive again. Having conquered death, she cries tears of victorious happiness. Even today, Aunt Tildy is delighted to entertain guests. She will even show them her long, blue scar where her autopsy was performed--if they are interested. "There Was an Old Woman" has a profound resemblance to Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death." In both poem and story, the main character is an active individual, involved in too many labor and leisure time activities even to consider that life is drawing to a close. Likewise, Dickinson's poem and Bradbury's story both depict Death as a kind, polite, gentleman caller who stops by in order to take the protagonist on a ride. Of note here is Bradbury's mild and gentle way of characterizing death. Since Death's behavior is almost like that of an earthly lover, Bradbury obviously does not intend to horrify his readers with this physical description. Instead, he seems to direct his readers to Aunt Tildy. She is old now and, by her own admission, no longer able to move as quickly or see as well as she could in the past. However, she has unshakable faith, and this romantic belief in the value of faith is the central theme of the story. One of Bradbury's often recurring themes is the concept of faith as opposed to reason. In "There Was an Old Woman," Aunt Tildy uses reason to persuade the morticians to give her physical body back to her, yet faith and faith alone is that ingredient which permits her to command her dead body to return to life and have it respond. Nothing, not even death itself, can shake Aunt Tildy's faith. The surgery that she is so proud of displaying depicts the ultimate power that faith can generate.

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www.cliffs.com "The Cistern" This story reveals the inner thoughts of Anna, one of two spinster sisters who spend a gray and rainy afternoon together. During the afternoon, Anna relates a story of fantasy to her sister Juliet about a dead city in the cistern beneath their street. She rambles on about there being two dead people in this cistern who are in love and who have been lovers for years. Desperation due to loneliness and depression was what once led the man to look into the cistern. There he saw water rushing out to the sea. He lifted the cistern's lid higher and climbed down into this "city" beneath the city. Anna tells Juliet that his sweetheart is newly dead and that now she and her lover can be together. In her fantasy, Anna describes this togetherness by saying that during heavy rainfalls, the water rushes slowly around this man and woman, giving them a special kind of life. Anna graphically describes the water carrying the man and woman together. The life-giving qualities of the tide allow the couple to open their eyes, touch each other, and smile. Anna's fantasy climaxes in stark reality when she admits that she is that woman in the cistern, or, at least, she soon will be, and Frank is the man. Anna and Frank fell in love long ago, but when he was unable to break away from his mother, the romance came to an end. But Anna is ready to go to him now. While Juliet looks on in disbelief, Anna leaves the houses and hurries to the cistern, where she slams the heavy metal lid tightly behind her. Edgar Allen Poe is one of Bradbury's favorite writers, and "The Cistern" uses an idea that often appears in Poe's works--the death of a beautiful woman. In this story, Anna is that beautiful woman and is another of Bradbury's lonely people. She is unfulfilled in love because she failed to fight to win her lover Frank away from his mother's protective grasp. Water imagery is dominant in this story and, here, functions as a symbol of rebirth and regeneration for Anna and Frank. First, the rain that falls upon Anna and, later, the cistern water into which she and Frank submerge themselves serve as baptismal waters for them both. Frank has left his lonely death-in-life situation in the world, seeking something more from the water into which he steps. Likewise, Anna, too, leaves her lonely, deathlike existence. She immerses herself into a watery death which will finally mean life to her. Paradoxically, then, only in the baptismal waters that bring about death by drowning do they find a meaningful life together. Here in this cistern city, the tide causes them to touch and washes them together. "The Cistern" deals with loneliness, love, and love's fulfillment. Using such universal themes, Bradbury urges each of us to see something, if only a little, of ourselves. Also, "The Cistern" makes another comment on the power of love, which can transcend even the bounds of death. "Homecoming" Timothy's family is busily engaged in preparations for the All-hallows Eve celebration. It will be a real homecoming this year, with relatives from as far as Europe, Asia, and South America congregating at Timothy's house. Timothy's family is quite unique, for each member has been endowed not only with the gift of immortality, but also with supernatural powers. Each member, that is, but Timothy. His sister Cecy is able to fuse her mind with other people's minds, momentarily becoming the person whose mind she penetrates. His brothers Leonard and Bion are vampires, but Timothy has none of their abilities. His teeth will never be sharp enough for those of a vampire, his wings will never sprout, he dislikes the taste of blood, and he is afraid of the dark. Timothy's mortality sets him painfully apart from the rest of his supernatural family. The homecoming celebration only makes him more dejected, for it points up specifically his many shortcomings. Timothy asks Cecy's aid in helping to make himself more acceptable. At first, she is cooperative, projecting herself into him so that he can nip his sister's neck in true vampire fashion, drink an entire glass of "warm, red liquid," and fly like Uncle Einar. Soon, however, Cecy lets all the relatives know that she is responsible for Timothy's abilities. Then everyone laughs all the harder at him, intensifying his humiliation. His mother, though, does her best to console her broken-hearted son by assuring him that although he is mortal, she loves him just as he is.

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"Homecoming" is another of the stories which centers around the outsider, the one who is different from the norm. Here, Timothy is an outsider in his family. He has none of the abilities of his brothers and sisters, and he lacks their approval. This rejection and dejection of Timothy sets an ideal situation for one of Bradbury's philosophical statements about the power of love. Timothy's mother encourages her mortal son by trying to convince him that he is loved in spite of his differences. She assures him that her love will continue, even beyond the limits of Timothy's own mortality. In the same vein, Bradbury uses Uncle Einar to point out that man, in realizing his mortality, should appreciate life's richness all the more. Although a predominately serious story, "Homecoming" is not devoid of humor. Timothy's vampire brothers, who operate the local funeral parlor and bring home "sustenance" for the family, and the "onethousand-odd-greats Grandmama," who is wrapped in Egyptian cerements and must be propped against the wall like a burned ironing board, were surely inserted by Bradbury to make us smile. The setting of the story is one of Bradbury's favorites considering the great excitement that Halloween always generated at young Bradbury's home. His Aunt Neva hosted this holiday each year, and it was always more special than even Christmas. The fetching of toadstools and spiders, the hanging of black crepe, and the filling of the numerous punch bowls in "Homecoming" all have a parallel in the glorious Halloweens of Bradbury's youth. His use of the real names of many of his relatives in this story is sufficient evidence of his having written a fantasy steeped in reality. "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone" Dudley Stone is an author who eventually could have surpassed Faulkner, Hemingway, and Steinbeck had he continued writing novels; instead, he has written no new books in the past twenty-five years. Mr. Douglas, an avid reader of Stone's works, makes a visit to his home in search of the truth behind the author's disappearance from the literary world. Stone startles Douglas by admitting that he is no longer writing novels because he was murdered twenty-five years ago by John Oatis Kendall. Stone explains that he and Kendall were once equally successful authors until fate smiled upon him, allowing him to outprosper Kendall. Stone boasts that his literary fame continued to grow at the same rate that Kendall's began to wane. Stone suggests that Kendall became disgusted at being constantly overshadowed by Stone's literary merits. This led ultimately to his "murder." Stone confesses that he bargained with Kendall for his life, saying that if he wanted him dead, he would be dead by never writing another book. He says that he gave Kendall the two unpublished manuscripts of the new novels that he had been working on and breathed a sigh of relief when Kendall accepted his proposal. Since then, Stone has been living life, not just writing about it. With wry humor, he admits that he is glad he "died" while he was still famous, for he is convinced that his latest book was so poor that had it ever been published, it would have destroyed him just as efficiently as if he had died at Kendall's own hands. This story is neither a tale of horror nor of the macabre. Perhaps the only element it has in common with the other stories contained in The October Country is the paradoxical treatment that Bradbury gives Dudley Stone's so-called "death." Throughout the story, Dudley Stone is described in images of light to parallel his greatness in the literary arena. When Mr. Douglas first meets Stone, the writer looks like "Michelangelo's God creating Adam." His face is "ablaze with life," and a great golden watch hangs from his vest on a bright chain. His wife is like "the sun in the East," so bright that her face lights up their table at dinner. Stone's name on the spines of numerous books in his library blazes "like a panther's eye in the Moroccan blackness." Diametrically opposite to Stone is Kendall, whose literary success is compared to a train's caboose that "went out on a dark siding behind a tin bailing-shed at midnight."

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www.cliffs.com Paradoxically, Stone's "death" is indeed wonderful. His successful career in writing may have been terminated, but he is more successful than many men; he has discovered real joy in simply being alive. Consequently, images of brightness continue to describe him: He roars off to a "suddenly brilliant town called Obscurity by a dazzling shore called The Past."

ESSAY TOPICS AND REVIEW QUESTIONS FAHRENHEIT 451 1. Using specific examples from the novel to support your answer, discuss Bradbury's attitude toward literature. 2. Compare and contrast the philosophical attitudes of Clarisse and Mildred. 3. In the novel, Montag reads Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" to Mildred and her friends. Show how the situation described in this poem is an accurate representation of Montag's futuristic society. 4. Discuss Bradbury's use of fire imagery in this novel. 5. Trace the steps which led to Montag's decision to preserve books rather than destroy them. SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES 1. Bradbury once confessed that had he not become a writer, he would have become a priest or a minister. Show how this tendency to sermonize manifests itself in this novel 2. Using specific examples from the novel, show how the second stanza of the Christmas carol "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is actually the basis of the plot structure of the novel. 3. What is the significance of the smile imagery in the novel? 4. Discuss the theme of dissatisfaction with self using Miss Foley, Charles Halloway, and Jim Nightshade as examples. 5. Describe in some depth the significance of the title of the novel. A MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY 1. Discuss the future of the space program as depicted in "The End of the Beginning," "Icarus Montgolfier Wright," "The Gift," and "The Strawberry Window." 2. Using "A Medicine for Melancholy," "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit," and "The Smile," discuss Bradbury's belief that smiles can remedy the ills of a materialistic world. Do you agree with him? 3. Discuss Bradbury's water imagery as a symbol of transformation and regeneration in "The Day It Rained Forever" and "The Shore Line at Sunset." 4. Describe Bradbury's philosophy about death in "The Time of Going Away." 5. What moralization does Bradbury imply with his use of mirror imagery in "The Headpiece"?

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THE OCTOBER COUNTRY 1. Carnival imagery is a major source for Bradbury's discussion of the presence of evil in the world. Discuss his use of this imagery in "The Jar" and "The Dwarf." What is the philosophical message which appears in each of these stories? 2. Discuss the theme of loneliness in "The Wind," "The Homecoming," and "Uncle Einar." 3. Using specific examples to support your answer, discuss the conflict between reason and faith in "There Was an Old Woman." 4. Explain how Bradbury uses fire imagery to emphasize the importance of love and kindness in "Touched with Fire." 5. How does water imagery enhance and explain the relationship between Anna and Frank in "The Cistern"?

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY WORKS BY BRADBURY Novels Dandelion Wine. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1973. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballentine Books, Inc., 1966. The Halloween Tree. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1972. Something Wicked This Way Comes. New York: Simon Schuster, Inc., 1962. Short Story Collections Golden Apples of the Sun. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1966. The Illustrated Man. New York: Bantam Books, 1951. I Sing the Body Electric. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1971. Long after Midnight. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1975. The Machineries of Joy. New York: Bantam Books, 1965. The Martian Chronicles. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1962. A Medicine for Melancholy. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1963. The October Country. New York: Ballentine Books, Inc., 1967. R is for Rocket. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1965. S is for Space. New York: Bantam Books, 1966. Plays Pillar of Fire and Other Plays. New York: Bantam Books, 1975. The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other Plays. New York: Bantam Books, 1972.

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www.cliffs.com Articles "Apollo's Foes Would Refuse Eternity." Waukegan, Illinois: The News-Sun. 25 May 1972, 13A. "Cry the Cosmos." Life. 14 September 1962. "How Instead of Being Educated in College, I Was Graduated from Libraries or The Chap Who Landed on the Moon in 1932." Wilson Library Bulletin. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. "Magic, Magicians, Carnivals and Fantasy," "Science and Science Fiction," and "Where Do You Get Your Ideas?" The Ray Bradbury Review. California: William F. Nolen, 1952. "Remembrances of Things Future." Playboy. January 1965. Soundings Magazine. California: University of California. "Tricks! Treats! Gangway!" Reader's Digest. October 1975. CRITICAL WORKS ABOUT BRADBURY Allen, Wm. Barclay. "An Interview with Ray Bradbury." Vertux Magazine. April 1973. Dimeo, Steven. "Man and Apollo: A Look at Religion in the Science Fantasies of Ray Bradbury." Journal of Popular Culture. Ohio: Bowling Green University, 1971. Eldridge, James M. and Barbara Kopala, eds. Contemporary Authors. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1967. Hall, Mary Harrington. "A Conversation with the Fantasay Makers." Psychology Today. April 1968. Just, Bernice. "Ray Bradbury Sends His Regards." The News-Sun. 19 February 1975. Nolen, William. Three to the Highest Power. New York: Avon Books, 1968. Oliver, Chad. "Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicler." The Ray Bradbury Review. California: William Nolen, 1952. Otterburn-Hall, William. "The Supremo of Science Fiction Writers." Chicago Tribune. 26 August 1971. "A Portrait of Genius: Ray Bradbury." Show. December 1964. Savoy, Maggie. "Ray Bradbury Keeping an Eye on Cloud IX." Los Angeles Times. 15 March 1970. Sullivan, Anita T. "Ray Bradbury and Fantasy." English Journal. December 1972. Turmell, Kitte. "Predicting the Future Is an Art as Old as Plato." Youth. 17 January 1965.

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