The fire of this fever completely purges Charles of his good qualities. Now he has the evil power to burn other living creatures to death. He begins with a group of fire ants scurrying across the pavement. He touches them with his foot and knows that they lie cold and lifeless. Next, he shakes hands with the doctor and his mother and father. Finally, he pets his yellow canary once, shuts the cage door, stands back, and waits.

Bradbury’s use of fire imagery usually depicts the theme of good triumphing over evil. “Fever Dream,” however, is presented as an ironic reversal of this theme. Bradbury does depict a regeneration taking place in the young boy, yet this regenerative process changes good into evil. Perhaps this story best characterizes Bradbury’s belief in the tremendous force that evil can and will exert on the world if humanity does not eradicate it.