Good And Evil In John Connolly's The Gates

The Gates by John Connolly is a book about a boy named Samuel who ends up witnessing a “demon-summoning” ritual that actually works… in some sense of the word. What it actually does is opens a gate to Hell and demons take over all of the people who summoned them. After Samuel runs away, multiple times he is confronted by demons who threaten him, but he still needs to try to save the world even if none of the adults believe him. The book is extremely entertaining, and quite hilarious, to the point where it seems that it would be difficult to find a theme. However, as in all books, a great and applicable theme is featured, not about the typical perseverance, but of believing what others say, despite the unbelievability of what they say. After

He decides to tell both of his friends, Maria and Tom. Tom instantly assumes that he’s crazy. Maria, on the other hand, doesn’t jump to that conclusion but instead, she seriously considers that he might actually be telling the truth. (Page 139) Everybody else always assumed he was just making it up, especially adults. When he had told his mother about how the people attempting the demon ritual had been taken to Hell she had just said, ‘You had me worried for a moment there. I thought you were being serious. Where do you get these ideas from? I really need to keep a closer eye on you while you’re watching television.’ (page 63) This causes major problems for the main character. He is trying to get help to stop the demons from invading, but nobody will believe him. Other readers also agree, one saying ‘How will Sam convince the people? I mean really. Would you believe it if someone told you that your town had been invaded by beings from hell?’ While this is a very good point, at the same time, if they had believed him it would be a lot quicker to defeat the demons. They would have just been able to kill off the demons already there and then to have the best scientists work together on the problem. Maria still was a great help, though. Because Maria believed him, she helped come up with the solution to closing the gate to Hell. Both her and Professor Hilbert, a scientist, discuss ideas

Samuel believing Nurd, Maria believing Samuel, and Professor Hilbert believing everybody are perfect examples in this book. Believing people might make them think you’re gullible, and you might be teased, but at the same time you could save the world, which definitely is a fair tradeoff. You can’t dismiss everything as unbelieveable at the risk of dooming Earth and yourself… or you might just not live as pleasant of a