The Cycle
The Cycle is the recurring twenty-seven-year period during which the entity known as It awakens in Derry, Maine, to feed on children and unleash a wave of violence and terror. This cyclical pattern, documented by Mike Hanlon through historical research, defines the novel's central conflict: the Losers' Club must confront It both as children in 1958 and as adults in 1985, when the cycle comes due again. The Cycle is not merely a plot mechanism but a structural principle that governs the town's hidden history, the characters' forgotten childhoods, and the novel's dual-timeline narrative.
Definition and Historical Pattern
The Cycle operates on a roughly twenty-seven-year interval, though Mike Hanlon notes that it has never been perfectly exact. Through his research into Derry's history, Mike discovers that every quarter-century or so, the town experiences a furious peak of violence, child disappearances, and inexplicable tragedies. These cycles are documented as far back as the 1715-16 period and continue through 1740-43, 1769-70, and onward to the present. Each cycle culminates in a catastrophic event that seems to quiet the force—the explosion at the Kitchener Ironworks in 1906, the fire at the Black Spot in 1930, and the Losers' confrontation in 1958. The cycle that began with George Denbrough's murder in 1957 ended prematurely in August 1958, when the seven children of the Losers' Club drove It deep underground, forcing It into a hibernation that lasted twenty-seven years.
The Cycle's Impact on Derry
The Cycle is not merely a supernatural phenomenon but a force that has shaped Derry's very character. Mike Hanlon's research reveals that the murder rate in Derry is six times that of any comparable New England town, and that during each cycle's peak, child disappearances shoot nearly out of sight—over one hundred and seventy in 1930 alone, and one hundred and twenty-seven in 1958. The town's residents exhibit a peculiar amnesia about these horrors; as Mike observes, "In Derry such forgetting of tragedy and disaster was almost an art." This forgetting is not merely psychological but seems to be a function of the Cycle itself, a curtain of quiet that cloaks much of what has happened. The Cycle has become so ingrained that It has become "a part of Derry, something as much a part of the town as the Standpipe, or the Canal, or Bassey Park, or the library."
The Cycle and the Characters' Lives
The Cycle's influence extends beyond Derry's borders to shape the lives of the Losers' Club members. Mike Hanlon notes that all of them have achieved remarkable success in their adult lives—Bill Denbrough as a novelist, Beverly Rogan as a fashion designer, Richie Tozier as a disc jockey, Ben Hanscom as an architect, Eddie Kaspbrak as a limousine company owner, and Stanley Uris as an accountant. Mike concludes that their success "stems from what happened here twenty-seven years ago," as if the confrontation with It left an indelible mark on their fates. More disturbingly, none of them have children, a fact that Mike finds "suggestive" and that Bill Denbrough identifies as a common thread. The Cycle has not only shaped their past but has also determined the shape of their adult lives, leaving them childless and bound by a promise they made as children to return if It ever started again.
The Cycle's End
The novel's climax suggests that the Cycle may finally be broken. In the final battle of 1985, Bill Denbrough and Richie Tozier kill the Spider-form of It, and Ben Hanscom destroys Its eggs. The destruction of downtown Derry during the storm that accompanies the battle seems to symbolize the end of the town's long complicity with the Cycle. In the aftermath, the characters begin to forget again, but this time the forgetting carries a different quality—a sense of relief rather than dread. Mike Hanlon writes in his journal, "This forgetting... the prospect fills me with panic, but it also offers a sneaking sort of relief. It suggests to me more than anything else that this time they really did kill It; that there is no need of a watchman to stand and wait for the cycle to begin again." The novel ends with Bill Denbrough riding Silver with his wife Audra, racing down a hill in Derry, suggesting that the Cycle has finally been broken and that the characters can move forward into a future no longer governed by the past's recurring horror.
