Why Does Charles Halloway What to Be Young Again
Will Halloway's father. Charles is 50-four years old, and he considers himself style as well onetime exist the father of a 14-year-one-time male child. He is described equally an "one-time" and "ancient" man, and even the hairs on the backs of his hands are gray. Charles'south wife, Mrs. Halloway, who is 10 years younger than he is, as well serves to make him feel old, and she is frequently mistaken for his daughter. He believes that a father should run and play with his son, and when he tin't, he finds himself wishing that Volition was never born. Charles spends many sleepless nights alone in the library across town where he works as the janitor, and Will implies that he is just as aback of his father's job as he is his age. Each evening after piece of work, Charles goes to the local bar where he enjoys his "nightly i-and-only drink," which farther hints at his deep unhappiness and implies that he can't go home to his much younger family without first dulling the pain. Despite his sadness, however, Charles is described as a kind and loving—albeit distant—begetter to Will. Subsequently Robert frames Will and Jim for trying to steal Miss Foley'south jewelry, Charles goes to the law station to help get them out of trouble and never does tell the boys' mothers. He immediately believes Will and Jim when they tell him about Mr. Night and the carousel, and he is determined to discover a manner to save them. Nevertheless, it isn't until Charles accepts his age and mortality that he is able to defeat the Dust Witch and destroy Mr. Nighttime, which he manages to practice with the power of dear and happiness. Thus, the graphic symbol of Charles serves as an example of the power of good over evil, just he besides underscores the danger of looking too wistfully back on 1's childhood. In one case Charles accepts his historic period, he is finally able to run and play with Will, free of the resentment and deep unhappiness he feels in the beginning of the novel.
Charles Halloway Quotes in Something Wicked This Manner Comes
The Something Wicked This Style Comes quotes below are all either spoken by Charles Halloway or refer to Charles Halloway. For each quote, you can as well run across the other characters and themes related to information technology (each theme is indicated past its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Dad winked at Volition. Will winked back. They stood at present, a boy with corn-colored pilus and a man with moon-white hair, a male child with a summertime-apple tree, a homo with a winter-apple tree face. Dad, Dad, thought Volition, why, why, he looks…like me in a smashed mirror!
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And Will? Why he's the last peach, loftier on a summer tree. Some boys walk by and you cry, seeing them. They feel practiced, they look expert, they are good. Oh, they're non to a higher place peeing off a span, or stealing an occasional dime-store pencil sharpener; it's not that. It's just, yous know, seeing them pass, that'south how they'll be all their life; they'll become hit, hurt, cutting, bruised, and always wonder why, why does it happen? How can information technology happen to them?
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But Jim, now, he sees information technology happen, he watches for it happening, he sees it beginning, and he sees it finish, he licks the wounds he expected, and never asks why; he knows. He ever knew. Someone knew before him, a long fourth dimension ago, someone who had wolves for pets and lions for night conversants. Hell, Jim doesn't know with his mind. Simply his trunk knows. And while Will's putting a bandage on his latest scratch, Jim'southward ducking, weaving, bouncing away from the knockout blow which must inevitably come.
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For, he idea, it'due south a special hour. Women never wake then, practise they? They slumber the slumber of babes and children. But men in eye age? They know that hour well. Oh God, midnight's slap-up, you wake and get dorsum to sleep, one or two's slap-up, you toss simply sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there's promise, for dawn'due south just under the horizon. But 3, at present, Christ, iii A.M.! Doctors say the body's at depression tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You're the nearest to dead you lot'll always exist save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, just three in the forenoon, total wide-eyed staring, is living death!
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His wife smiled in her slumber.
Why?
She's immortal. She has a son.
Your son, too!
But what father e'er really believes information technology? He carries no burden, he feels no pain. What human, like woman, lies downward in darkness and gets up with child? The gentle, smiling ones own the skillful clandestine. Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. They nest in Fourth dimension. They brand the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity. They live inside the souvenir, know ability, accept, and demand non mention it. Why speak of Time when yous are Time, and shape the universal moments, every bit they laissez passer, into warmth and action? How men envy and often detest these warm clocks, these wives, who they know will live forever.
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Will grabbed Jim'due south shirt front, felt his center bang nether the chest bones. "Jim—"
"Let go." Jim was terribly quiet. "If he knows yous're here, he won't come out. Willy, if you lot don't let become, I'll remember when—"
"When what!"
"When I'k older, darn information technology, older!"
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"[…] At present, look, since when did you call up beingness skilful meant being happy?"
"Since always."
"Since at present acquire otherwise. Sometimes the homo who looks happiest in town, with the biggest grin, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. There are smiles and smiles; learn to tell the dark diverseness from the light. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the fourth dimension he's covering up. He's had his fun and he's guilty. And men do love sin, Will, oh how they love information technology, never incertitude, in all shapes, sizes, colors, and smells. […]"
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"Oh, it would be lovely if you could just exist fine, act fine, non think of it all the time. But information technology's hard, right? With the last slice of lemon cake waiting in the icebox, center of the night, not yours, but yous prevarication awake in a hot sweat for it, eh? Exercise I need tell y'all? Or, a hot spring twenty-four hour period, apex, and there you are chained to your school desk and abroad off there goes the river, absurd and fresh over the stone-autumn. Boys can hear articulate water similar that miles away. So, minute by minutes, hour by hour, a lifetime, information technology never ends, never stops, yous got the pick this 2d, at present this next, and the next afterward that, be good, exist bad, that'southward what the clock ticks, that's what it says in the ticks."
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"'For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life where October follows September and November touches October and and then instead of December and Christ's nativity, there is no Bethlehem Star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old October and so on downward the years, with no winter, jump, or revivifying summer. For these beings, fall is the ever normal flavor, the only weather, there be no pick beyond. Where do they come from? The grit. Where do they get? The grave. Does claret stir their veins? No: the night current of air. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The ophidian. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human being tempest for souls, swallow mankind of reason, make full tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they protrude-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles—breaks. Such are the fall people. Beware of them.'"
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"So—" Will swallowed— "does that brand us…summer people?"
"Not quite." Charles Halloway shook his head. "Oh, you lot're nearer summer than me. If I was ever a rare fine summer person, that's long ago. Near of us are half-and-half. The August apex in us works to stave off the November chills. We survive by what little Fourth of July wits we've stashed away. But there are times when we're all autumn people."
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"Oh gosh," said Will. "It's hopeless!"
"No. The very fact we're hither worrying nearly the difference between summer and autumn, makes me sure at that place's a way out. Y'all don't accept to stay foolish and y'all don't have to be wrong, evil, sinful, whatever you want to call it. In that location's more than three or four choices. They, that Dark beau and his friends don't hold all the cards, I could tell that today, at the cigar store. I'chiliad afraid of him simply, I could see, he was afraid of me. So there'southward fear on both sides. Now how tin we use it to advantage?"
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"Is…is information technology…Death?"
"The carnival?" The old man lit his pipe, blew fume, seriously studied the patterns. "No. But I recall it uses Death as a threat. Death doesn't exist. It never did, it never will. Merely we've drawn then many pictures of it, and so many years, trying to pin it down, cover information technology, nosotros've got to thinking of information technology as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All information technology is, yet, is a stopped watch, a loss, an stop, a darkness. Nothing. And the funfair wisely knows we're more agape of Nix than we are of Something. You can fight Something. But…Nothing? Where practise you hitting it? Has it a heart, soul, barrel-backside, encephalon? No, no. And so the carnival just shakes a nifty croupier's cupful of Nothing at us, and reaps united states as we tumble dorsum head-over-heels in fright."
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"Why, that if you're a miserable sinner in one shape, you're a miserable sinner in another. Irresolute size doesn't change the brain. If I made you lot twenty-five tomorrow, Jim, your thoughts would all the same be boy thoughts and it'd bear witness! Or if they turned me into a boy of ten this instant, my brain would still exist 50 and that male child would act funnier and older and weirder than any male child always. Then, too, fourth dimension's out of joint some other fashion."
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"So, what happens? You get your advantage: madness. Modify of body, change of personal surroundings, for i affair. Guilt, for some other, guilt at leaving your married woman, husband, friends to die the way all men dice—Lord, that lonely would give a man fits. So more fear, more than agony for the carnival to breakfast on. So with the greenish vapors coming off your stricken conscience y'all say you lot desire to go back the way you were! The carnival nods and listens. Yes, they promise, if you acquit as they say, in a short while they'll requite you back your xl and 10 or any. On the promise alone of existence returned to normal old age, that train travels with the globe, its side show populated with madmen waiting to be released from bondage, meantime servicing the carnival, giving information technology coke for its ovens."
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And then, at last, he gave the maze, the mirrors, and all Time ahead, Across, Effectually, Above, Behind, Beneath or squandered inside himself, the but reply possible.
He opened his mouth very broad, and let the loudest sound of all costless.
The Witch, if she were alive, would accept known that sound, and died once more.
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He gathered the boy somewhat closer and thought, Evil has simply the power that we requite it. I give y'all nothing. I take back. Starve. Starve. Starve.
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"Will!" His father savagely jabbed a finger at him and at Jim. "Damn information technology, Willy, all this, all these, Mr. Nighttime and his sort, they like crying, my God, they love tears! Jesus God, the more than y'all bawl, the more than they drink the salt off your chin. Wail and they suck your breath like cats. Become up! Get off your knees, damn information technology! Bound around! Whoop and holler! You hear! Shout, Will, sing, but most of all laugh, you got that, laugh!"
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"Dad, will they always come back?"
"No. And yes." Dad tucked away his harmonica. "No, not them. But yes, other people like them. Not in a carnival. God knows what shape they'll come in adjacent. Only sunrise, apex, or at latest, sunset tomorrow they'll testify. They're on the route."
"Oh, no," said Will.
"Oh, yes," said Dad. "We got to lookout man out the rest of our lives. The fight'southward just begun."
They moved around the carousel slowly.
"What will they look like? How volition we know them?"
"Why," said Dad, quietly, "maybe they're already hither."
Both boys looked around swiftly.
But there was simply the meadow, the automobile, and themselves.
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"Peradventure this isn't necessary," said Charles Halloway. "Possibly information technology wouldn't run anyway, without the freaks to give it power. But—" He hit the box a last time and threw down the wrench.
"It's late. Must be midnight straight up."
Obediently, the City Hall clock, the Baptist church clock, the Methodist, the Episcopalian, the Catholic church, all the clocks, struck twelve. The wind was seeded with Fourth dimension.
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The father hesitated merely a moment. He felt the vague hurting in his chest. If I run, he thought, what volition happen? Is Expiry important? No. Everything that happens earlier Death is what counts. And nosotros've done fine this evening. Fifty-fifty Death tin can't spoil it. Then, there went the boys…and why not…follow?
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Charles Halloway Grapheme Timeline in Something Wicked This Mode Comes
The timeline beneath shows where the grapheme Charles Halloway appears in Something Wicked This Way Comes. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that advent.
...did." Will looks, surprised, to an "former man" hard at piece of work in the library. "That'south Charles William Halloway," Will thinks, "non granddad, not far-wandering, aboriginal uncle, equally some might call up, but…my... (full context)
"Heck," replies Jim. Charles reminds Jim that in that location is no such place and hands the boy a volume. "But... (full context)
Will winks back. As he stares at Charles, Volition thinks, "why, why, he looks…like me in a smashed mirror!" Will remembers back to... (full context)
"Huh?" responds Will, distractedly. "Yous need a white-hat or blackness-hat book?" Charles asks him. Will looks up at his father, dislocated. "Well, Jim," Charles explains, "he wears... (full context)
Volition selects a copy of The Mysterious Island, and Jim asks Charles what all this talk of hats is virtually. "Why—" Charles stammers, "it's just, a long... (full context)
As Charles watches Volition and Jim run down the street, he fights the "sudden urge to run... (full context)
"That'due south Jim," Charles thinks, "all bramblehair and itchweed." But Will, he thinks, Volition is the "the concluding peach,... (full context)
Charles locks up the library and thinks that Will and Jim are "strangers." "Go on," he... (total context)
As Charles leaves the bar, his "gray hairs" stand up up "like antennae." Outside, a man in a... (full context)
Charles crosses the street to the empty shop. Inside are 2 sawhorses, adjacent, belongings... (full context)
...looks in and sees "the merely theater he cares for now, the familiar stage" where Charles sits, normally holding a book. His parents look pocket-size in the large room and Will... (total context)
Charles tells Will that the stone lion on the library steps has blown away and is... (full context)
...the wall and listen to his parents talking in the next room. He listens to Charles's faint voice, "the sound truth makes beingness said," like a lesson "and the field of study is... (full context)
Will hears Charles proceed about a carnival, and Will's mother remarks that information technology is too late in... (full context)
From the empty library, Charles hears the painful shriek of the train's whistle and the "disjointed calliope hymns." He goes... (total context)
"I'll become in that location," thinks Charles. "I won't become there." He leaves the library and passes the empty shop with the... (total context)
Back at habitation, Charles tin can't imagine why a carnival would come up at three in the morning. To Charles, three... (full context)
Charles looks to his wife, who is sleeping with a faint smiling on her face. "She's... (full context)
...that they have been gone then long. Both boys are sent to their rooms. "Volition…" Charles says to his son, "…be conscientious." Volition waits in his room. It is besides early... (full context)
...Robert, she tin't wait to ride the carousel. Miss Foley goes to the telephone, calls Charles at the library, and tells him to meet her at the police station. (full context)
...hear voices from the police station, and they can see Miss Foley sitting adjacent to Charles. "You saw their faces?" Will's male parent asks. Miss Foley confirms, simply she neglects to mention... (total context)
Charles walks Jim and Will home from the police station. He doesn't come across the indicate in... (full context)
Equally Charles and Will approach their house, Charles looks at the ivy. "Our place, too?" he asks.... (full context)
Instead of going within, Will and Charles sit together on the front porch. "Dad?" Will asks. "Am I a good person?" Charles... (full context)
"Are you a practiced person?" Volition asks Charles. After some thought, Charles tells his son that he is "all right." Will is confused.... (full context)
Charles continues. "So, minute by minute, 60 minutes by hour […] y'all got the choice this 2d"... (full context)
Will is shocked. Death is sad, he tells Charles. His begetter explains that "decease makes everything else sad. But death itself but scares." Will... (total context)
The telephone rings and Charles answers it. Will is on the other end of the line, and he frantically tells... (full context)
Charles sits in the local bar drinking a cup of coffee. He hasn't slept all night,... (full context)
Back in the bar, The Illustrated Man stares at Charles. The bartender offers the stranger a drink, but he says he is only looking for... (full context)
The Illustrated Man tells Charles that he is searching for 2 boys. The boys have won unlimited free passes to... (total context)
...to feel their presence beneath the grille, and Volition and Jim begin to panic. Suddenly, Charles lights his cigar. "Now, this is a fine cigar!" he says, blowing a huge deject... (full context)
"Your proper noun, sir?" the Illustrated Human asks. "Halloway," Charles answers. "Work in the library. Drop by former." The Illustrated Man walks away, and Charles... (full context)
At seven o'clock, Charles waits in the library for Will and Jim. It has been the "longest solar day of... (total context)
...for a while in a church building steeple. When they get in at the library, they find Charles in the back room, staring at the clock made of books. "From the beginning," Charles... (full context)
Charles then shows Will and Jim a series of old newspaper advertisements for Cooger and Dark's... (full context)
"What?" Volition and Jim enquire, puzzled. Charles tells the boys nearly an old religious story he heard every bit a child in which... (full context)
"Oh gosh," cries Volition. "It'south hopeless!" Charles disagrees. "The very fact that we're hither worrying about the divergence between summer and autumn,... (total context)
Charles continues. "Nosotros tin can't be skillful unless we know what bad is, and it'due south a shame... (full context)
And so, Jim asks, does the carnival "purchase souls?" No, Charles explains, they "become them for costless." "The carnival is like people, only more than so," he... (full context)
"No," Charles answers again. "Merely I think information technology uses Death every bit a threat." Co-ordinate to Charles, death... (full context)
"Oh, poor Miss Foley," Will cries. Charles agrees. "They've probably thrown her in with the freaks," he suggests. Every bit Will and Jim... (total context)
Mr. Nighttime enters the library and formally introduces himself. "Where are the boys?" he asks. Charles doesn't tell. "I could kill you lot," Night says, quietly. The Dust Witch is waiting exterior,... (total context)
Charles remains silent. Mr. Nighttime offers to make him young again if he tells him where... (full context)
...his own face as Mr. Night grabs him with the other hand. "Dad!" yells Will. Charles runs into the room and punches Mr. Dark, then the man grabs Charles's left... (full context)
Back within the library, Charles'southward hand feels as if it has been placed in a "white-hot furnace." Suddenly, he hears... (full context)
As the Witch moves in closer for the kill, Charles is struck by a strong and inexplicable desire to laugh. "Why?" he thinks. "Why am... (full context)
Backside the parade the Dust Witch scurries to catch up, and behind her, Charles walks slowly with the "remembrance of age." Mr. Nighttime leads Will and Jim to the... (full context)
...the audience. He is met with silence and is about to abolish the testify when Charles stands up. "Hither," Charles yells. (full context)
"Get get 'em, Pop!" a man yells from the oversupply as Charles makes his way to the phase. The Dust Witch begins to "tremble secretly," and Mr.... (full context)
"I demand a boy volunteer to help," Charles says. Several easily shoot up in the crowd, just he wants Will. "Hold on. My... (total context)
Mr. Dark easily Charles a bullet. "Marking it with your initials," he says. Instead, Charles carves a "crescent moon"... (full context)
Charles ejects the bullet. "Let's cut our mark more clearly, eh, male child?" Charles says to Will... (full context)
Charles readies the burglarize to fire and the crowd begins to laugh and clap. "Bear witness the... (full context)
The Dust Witch screams and falls from the platform. Charles instantly knows she is dead. "Information technology's all right!" Mr. Dark reassures the audience. "Show's over!... (total context)
Inside the Mirror Maze, Charles can see the endless reflection of "one million sick-mouthed, frost-haired, white-tine-bearded men." The human reflected... (full context)
Volition stands backside Charles in the dark Mirror Maze and digs in his pockets. He produces a kitchen friction match... (full context)
...I don't care what, I don't care anything! Oh, Dad, I dearest you lot!" he weeps. Charles stands and looks at his reflection in the mirror and sees his son reflected behind... (full context)
...Maze shatter simultaneously and fall to the ground, "all considering of the sound" made past Charles. With his scream, Charles "accepts everything at concluding." He "accepts the funfair," and Will and... (full context)
...to the surrounding tents and sees the Dwarf standing near the other freaks. Volition asks Charles why the freaks don't endeavor to stop them. "Scared," answers Charles. They watched the Witch... (full context)
...electric chair toward the carousel. Suddenly, the freaks "spring and scurry," and drop the chair. Charles sneezes every bit a potent wind stirs up the grit effectually the tents. The chair sits... (full context)
...to draw Jim in. Every bit Will watches, Jim "walks slowly toward the free, free ride." Charles tells Will to "go become him" and runs for the control box. (full context)
...yells. "Jim, don't leave me hither!" Will runs next to the carousel, wildly screaming to Charles to shut it downwardly. Jim's optics expect blank. "Jim, please!" Volition yells again as he... (total context)
...Will rips Jim from the carousel, and both boys autumn to the ground only equally Charles shuts downward the ride and the empty carousel slows. "Oh, God," cries Will. "Is he... (total context)
As Charles and Will assess Jim, they hear someone cry for help in the distance. "Help! He'southward... (full context)
Charles runs to the young boy. "What's your proper name?" he asks. "Jed," the male child replies, nonetheless... (full context)
"You lot can't hurt me!" Jed cries. Charles disagrees and pulls the boy near, "almost lovingly, close, very close." Jeb begins to scream,... (full context)
Equally Charles stands over Jed's dead trunk, the freaks begin to come up out of the tents. The... (total context)
...the living Skeleton, the only remaining freak, lifts Jed from the ground and walks away. Charles looks to Will, still attempting to revive Jim. Jim is "cold every bit spaded earth." (full context)
"He's dead!" Will screams and starts to cry. "Stop that!" Charles yells as he slaps Volition's face. "Mr. Dark and his sort, they similar crying, my... (full context)
Charles drags Volition to his feet and rifles through his pockets. He finds a harmonica and... (full context)
As Will and Charles trip the light fantastic toe around Jim's body, he begins to stir. They keep dancing and Jim begins to... (full context)
"Dad," Will asks, "will they ever come back." Charles looks to the abandoned carnival. "No," he answers. "And yes." Charles says the funfair won't... (full context)
Charles, Will, and Jim plough to leave, and equally they exercise, they walk by the even so... (full context)
...Crossing is an former lady!" Will and Jim yell as they meet the night. Charles "hesitates only for a moment." He feels a familiar hurting in his chest merely decides... (total context)
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