Good and Evil
While the reader of Song of Susannah might sometimes wonder whether the characters that King presents as heroes are entirely good, there is little doubt that King's evil characters are purely and entirely malevolent. In stanza 10, Susannah describes her enemies as eating the brains of children. When Mia rips the fake flesh from the followers of the Crimson King in the Dixie Pig, she discovers they are actually monstrous rats disguised as humans. The name Dixie Pig itself might reflect the historical malevolence of the Southern whites against African Americans. The greeting Mia receives upon entering the Dixie Pig, "Hile Mia," echoes the Nazi salute, "Heil."
The presence of purely evil figures in Song of Susannah means that anyone acting against those figures is good almost by definition. This includes Roland, Eddie, Jake, Callahan, and Susannah, as well as those who help them, like John Cullum and Reverend Harrigan. However, while the evil figures are purely evil, the good are not so straightforward. While Roland is good, he is also cold, distant, and a remorseless killer. While Eddie is good, he is also a former heroin addict and thief who has trouble containing his anger. And while Susannah is good, she is also the vicious former prostitute Detta Walker. The problem they all face is how to best deal with the evil that is within them—whether to suppress it, or try to harness it without becoming evil themselves.
Quest
The struggle of good against evil gives meaning and shape to Roland's quest to enter the Dark Tower and save the universe from falling into chaos. This structure places Song of Susannah in a long line of quest literature extending as far back as ancient Greece. The poem by 19th century poet, Robert Browning, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" (1852), which directly inspired King's "Dark Tower" series, also deals with a quest. However, Browning never states why the hero Childe Roland comes to enter the Dark Tower or what he finds there.
Quest literature, as Browning's poem suggests, may be less about good and evil and more about the search for the meaning of human existence. Certainly, this seems to be King's understanding of Roland's quest. In stanza 2 of Song of Susannah, Henchick asks Roland to pray. Roland answers that he does not "hold to any God," only "to the Tower, and I won't pray to that." Roland does not assume that there is a god or that the Tower is good or worth praying to—only that the Tower is necessary and significant to life, the meaning of which is what he arguably seeks.
Religious Faith
If Roland refuses to believe in anything but the Tower, he also fears he will not find anything there worth believing in. As he admits to Eddie in stanza 11, he worries that the top room of the Dark Tower will be empty and that the "God of all universes" is either dead or nonexistent. Roland's doubts have to do with a general loss of religious faith associated in Song of Susannah with the modern world. In stanza 6, Mia tells Susannah that when "faith fails … you replace it with rational thought," and that this is the exchange made when religion is replaced by science as the method people use to understand the world. Mia argues further that where faith is eternal, rationalism is loveless, temporary, and dead. Roland's quest might be read as a response to this problem, an attempt to determine in an empirical manner—by actually entering the Dark Tower—if faith can be justified.
Machines
In stanza 6, while denouncing rationalism, Mia also denounces...
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the loss of magic from the universe, and the use of machinery instead. Machines, she says, eventually run down. InSong of Susannah, machines are generally portrayed as being on the side of evil. They are the robot wolves that attack a town prior to the start of the book, and they are the android prostitutes in the Wild West theme park from stanza 11. The theme park is also where a group of children is brought to have their brains mechanically removed and fed to servants of the Crimson King; and where, in a room full of sinister machinery, Mia will bear Mordred.
Magic, Mia informs Susannah, is what created the universe, including the six beams that support the Dark Tower. It is significant, in this context, that the novel opens with Roland wondering whether there is enough magic left to open the magic portal from Mid-World. It is also significant that Susannah uses a magic totem, the small ivory turtle, to get shelter when in New York.
Fantasy
Magic, a force for good in Song of Susannah, is also a hallmark of fantasy literature like J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which Eddie Dean remembers reading at the beginning of stanza 8. Song of Susannah itself, like the entire "Dark Tower" series, is an example of fantasy literature. Mid-World is a realm of fantasy not unlike Middle Earth in Tolkien's series. However, whereas Tolkien's entire story takes place in Middle Earth, the "Dark Tower" series juxtaposes, or compares, the realm of fantasy with places like Maine and Brooklyn. King makes no firm division between fantasy and reality, though. Instead, the two intermingle throughout Song of Susannah.
Music
Like magic, music in Song of Susannah represents a force for good. The novel's title, the use of the term stanza instead of chapter, and the song-like poems that end each section all serve to reinforce the significance of music. In stanza 3, when Trudy Damascus returns to the place where she saw Susannah appear as if from nowhere, the humming she hears is a sign of the goodness of that particular spot. A man tells her, "That's not humming, that's singing," and goes on to explain how, when he was young, the same singing helped clear up a bad case of acne. Music is also a force for good in stanza 13, when a street musician's rendition of "Man of Constant Sorrow" reminds Susannah of her participation in the civil rights movement.
