Major Themes
The major theme of Carter Beats The Devil is one of seemingly impossible escapes. This theme runs from Carter's first glimpse of magic as a child when he is imprisoned in the cellar of his parents' house to the final, most impossible, death defying escape of all which he reveals only to Agent Griffin at the end of the story.
Another theme is the way different things inspire wonder. From early encounters with the world's tallest man and the world's richest man to the modern marvel of television and a really fast motorcycle, the book explores the sense of wonder experienced by both Carter and his audience.
Yet another, more subtle and underlying theme, is that of achievements being made in secret. Carter's greatest trick is performed to the knowledge of only a few close people.
Read more about this topic: Carter Beats The Devil
Famous quotes containing the words major and/or themes:
“When I see that the nineteenth century has crowned the idolatry of Art with the deification of Love, so that every poet is supposed to have pierced to the holy of holies when he has announced that Love is the Supreme, or the Enough, or the All, I feel that Art was safer in the hands of the most fanatical of Cromwell’s major generals than it will be if ever it gets into mine.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)