Prevailing Conflicts in Something Wicked This Way Comes

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Authors often make use of rhetorical strategies for additional effects, appeals to the reader, relating to an audience, or even for simply drawing attention to a specific section/part of a work. Nonetheless, these Rhetorical Strategies can prove crucial in the unraveling of such a work. The preceding is the case for a work entitled Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury. Within the context of the story, a circus enters a small town and changes its overall atmosphere with never before seen mystical evils. Only two boys, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, stand in their way. These uncanny occurrences bring out the morality and malevolence of several characters in the story. In Bradbury’s work, there are many discrepancies in the moralities of each character relative to the development of the plot and their overall portrayal in the novel. Bradbury adds many instances in which certain characters have to make a choice between what they wish to do and what they should do. Such decisions accurately portray the conflict as an internal discontinuity between the ultimatums of good and evil. Thus, making the readers question his or her interpretation of each and challenge the societal parameters that encompass them.

The father of a character named Will, is seemingly facing a midlife crisis; wishing to regain the years lost in order to fill the hole that life had dug into his soul: “Add up all the rivers never swum in, cakes never eaten, and by the time you get my age, Will, it’s a lot to miss out on...”(Bradbury 136). As a result, his philosophies of being are inherently influenced by such a mindset. In one portion of the book, his son asked him straightaway what was hindering his happiness; the father then described what happines...

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...o exploit the imperfections of the human mind and the impurities that cause them. Bradbury may not have explicitly stated the preceding; however, he allowed for his audience to pick these ideals up with his objective rhetorical strategies. Hence, Bradbury broke the barrier between literature and real life by allowing the reader to reflect on their humanity and acknowledge the imperfections that arise from such an existence, thus strengthening their awareness of human limitations.

Works Cited

April, M., Thomas, Youngblade, Lise, Palermo, Francisco, Henry, Kimberly. (2011). PARENT

AND PEER INFLUENCES: THEIR ROLE IN PREDICTING ADOLESCENT MORAL

VALUES AND DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR. Retrieved from http://digitool.library.colostate.edu/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=120518.

Bradbury, Ray. Something Wicked This Way Comes. New York City: Avon Books, 1998. Web

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