How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Both touched toward fourteen; it almost trembled in their hands.
And that was the October week when they grew up overnight, and were never so young any more (Prologue.5-6)
How, exactly, have Will and Jim grown up by the end of the novel?
Quote #2
For it was no longer the street of the apples or plums or apricots, it was the one house with a window at the side and this window, Jim said, was a stage, with a curtain – the shade, that is – up. And in that room, on that strange stage, were the actors, who spoke mysteries, mouthed wild things, laughed, sighed, murmured so much; so much of it was whispers Will did not understand. (6.10)
This is really the only part of the novel where sex is addressed at all. But because of the boy's ages, they don't see this as sex – they see it as a stage with naked actors. This is a great example of the way the innocence of the characters affects the perspective of the narration.
Quote #3
Framed through the hall door Will saw the only theater he cared for now, the familiar stage where sat his father […] holding a book but reading the empty spaces. In a chair by the fire mother knitted and hummed like a tea-kettle. (8.3)
Will's entire view of his family is marked by a sort of childlike innocence. There's a simplicity to this; his mother is domestic, and so she is a like a tea-kettle. His father is the wise, old man reading a book.
Quote #4
"I dub thee…asses and foolssss…I dub…thee…Mr. Sickly…and…Mr. Pale…!" (24.66)
These words are spoken by Mr. Electrico, and reflect the boys' wide-eyed innocence as he perceives it.
Quote #5
"Together? You two feet taller and going around feeling your leg-and-arm-bones? You looking down at me, Jim, and what'd we talk about, me with my pockets full of kite-string and marbles and frog-eyes, and you with clean nice and empty pockets and making fun, is that what we'd talk, and you able to run faster and ditch me – " (26.31)
Will describes the world as it existed for the boys before the arrival of the carnival. Their world view will never be this simple – this innocent – again.
Quote #6
Jim gazed up with that funny warm look of breathless anticipation he often had nights in summer at the shadow-window Theater in that house a few streets over. (26.8)
It's interesting that Jim is so eager to grow up while Will is reluctant. What explains these differences between them?
Quote #7
"You know what I hate most of all, Will? Not being able to run anymore, like you." (27.14)
Mr. Halloway longs for youth…but what does he think about innocence?
Quote #8
"Changing size doesn't change the brain. If I made you twenty-five tomorrow, Jim, your thoughts would still be boy thoughts, and it'd show! Or if they turned me into a boy of ten this instant, my brain would still be fifty and that boy would act funnier and older and weirder than any boy ever." (40.15)
Charles Halloway understands that boyhood innocence cannot be recovered by mere physical transformation.
Quote #9
Will paused in his desperate push and relaxation, push and relaxation, trying to shape Jim back to life, unafraid of the watchers in the dark, no time for that! Even if there were time, these freaks, he sensed, were breathing the night as if they had not been fed on such rare fine air in years! (53.6)
Will has been through a lot over the last 53 chapters. He watched a man get electrocuted, saw his seventh-grade teacher turn into a little girl, and here in this passage he tries to revive his best friend, who looks like he's dead. Does this mean he's growing up? Is he any less innocent at the end of the novel than at the start?
Quote #10
Will slapped, Jim slapped, Dad slapped the semaphore signal base at the same instant.
Exultant, they banged a trio of shouts down the wind. (54.147-54.148)
This bothered us a bit. So that's it? Dad gets to run like a boy, Jim is fine, and the three of them live happily ever after? We thought the boys were supposed to have grown up by the end of the novel, but this looks to us like a tribute to the triumph of boyhood innocence.