Evil In 'The Thief Of Always'

In the Thief of Always, by Clive Barker. A boy named Harvey is taken to the Holiday House. He discovers that there is a great evil to the Holiday House. There is a man who sucks children’s souls. So harvey tries to defeat this man, first he flees, then he remembers a friend, and then he attempts and succeeds in defeating hood. Barker implies that evil is equal to nothing. He implies that through characters, objects, and settings.All of the evil characters that are defeated turn to nothing. The foods eaten are also nothing. And same with the gifts and all else about the house. Evil is represented as a large threat except that, all of the evil characters end up as nothingness, and maybe they were nothing in the first place. The evil characters turn to nothing.

Lulu had handed harvey his ark figurines that had fallen to the bottom of the lake. Once he had brought them out into the real world they disintegrated.Harvey says, “Illusions” as the figurines ran away to dust in between his fingers. (134). When harvey entered the real world the identical copies that hood created out of nothingness turned to dust because they were created by evil and they were the possessions of evil. The ark was made so that it would keep harvey happy and hood could continue feeding off of his soul. So technically the ark was being used as a weapon. The food is also dust. Jive is confronting harvey with the pie and harvey doesn’t take it, so Jive eats it and Jive is dying. Harvey says, “It’s all dust, Dirt and dust and ashes! All the food! All the presents! Everything!” (191) Harvey states that the food is dust and dirt and ashes. All of the pleasures of the house are used to enforce the trance over the children. Tools can be used for evil too. Barker implies that if anyone or anything is used for a great evil that it only is equal to nothing there is no soul beneath the people and no meaning behind the toys and