Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

THE BASIS OF STEPHEN KING'S NOVELS

Powerful Essays
2440 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
THE BASIS OF STEPHEN KING'S NOVELS
THE BASIS OF KING’S NOVELS: FROM THE GOTHIC NOVEL TO POE
Since childhood the King of horror, Stephen King was very fascinated by the unusual and "the dark side” of man. In fact, at the age of ten, he discovered the horror genre after seeing the film about extraterrestrials Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. Two years later, the little King in his aunt’s attic, found his grandfather's books, who was fond of the authors Edgar Allan Poe, Howard Phillips Lovecraft and the British television writer Jamie Matheson. His grandfather had the reputation of being a wanderer and a sailor (as recounted in the family) but eventually, he was reduced to selling appliances door to door. He was also an aspiring writer, enchanted by science fiction and horror. So, these horror novels and in particular the Gothic novels are a big makeup of King’s cultural background; so much so, that a part of gothic elements such as mystery, fear and horror are the basis of much of his work.

The scary novel
The Gothic novel is a new kind of fiction that flourished in literature at the end of the 18th century in Great Britain. It represents a reaction against both Defoe's and Richardson's "rationalistic" novels and Enlightenment, which gave rise to industrialization. They were seen as a form of exploitation, which didn't bear in mind the individual’s feelings.

The Gothic novels were always set in mysterious and terrifying places, such as isolated castles, mysterious abbeys and convents with hidden passages, dungeons and secret rooms. Darkness is a key element for creating a mysterious, gloomy atmosphere; catholic countries are often the setting of the most terrible crimes, due to Protestant prejudices against Catholicism. In fact, the churches are the major places in which the reader could detect the presence of evil forces, frequently embodied by an important male character (for example Ambrosio, the cruel protagonist of The Monk by Matthew Lewis). On the contrary, the female characters are always angelical women in danger of the villain’s cruelty (always in The Monk Ambrosio rapes Antonia, an innocent girl).

All the characters are also dominated by exaggerated reactions caused mainly by obscurity, uncertainty and horror that marked the different stories, and often by the presence of supernatural beings (like vampires, monsters and ghosts). The hero is a sensitive man who saves a heroine that is usually stricken with both unreal terrors and persecuted by a villain. The latter is the embodiment of evil, either by his own fall from grace, or by some implicit malevolence. He is usually a satanic, terrifying male character who is a victim of his negative impulses.

The terrible and disturbing places, the characters suffering from disorders of various kinds, that will take them very often to insanity, and the presence of ghost, vampires, monsters, are the elements that characterize also the King’s novels.
For example, corridors, rooms, and lounges of the famous Overlook Hotel, protagonist of King’s bestseller The Shining (1977), are the home of numerous and disturbing presences that actually are not bad in itself, but can induce negativity in people who already have a predisposition to the evil. Predisposition that seems to have just the character of Jack Torrance, a character with a past not quite clear, suffering from alcohol problems, which, together with the '"encouragement" of ghosts, will lead to wanting to kill his wife Wendy and son Danny.

The Gothic novels weren’t a great success and perhaps for this reason, they had a short life. In fact, only three novels were to become famous, The castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole, Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelly and Dracula (1884) by Brom Starker. On the other hand, they have greatly influenced other forms of literature. One author who had an enormous success was Edgar Allen Poe who went on to influence Stephen King.

Madness vs. Intelligence
"Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence - whether much that is glorious - whether all that is profound - does not spring from disease of thought - from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect." Eleonora (1850) by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe, born Edgar Poe on 19th January 1809 and dead on 7th October 1849, was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.


Poe's best known novels are Gothic, a genre he followed to appease the public taste. Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre, a literary reaction to transcendentalism, which Poe strongly disliked. In fact, his most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning.

The most important short story written by Edgar Allan Poe is undoubtedly The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), considered the best example of Poe's "totality", where every element and detail is related and relevant. This piece, along with The Masque of the Red Death (1842), were the tales from which Stephen King took inspiration just to write his famous novels, The Shining. Indeed, King’s story is part of the thriller and supernatural genre because he uses the concept of a building that has a consciousness (or soul), an idea already explored by the same Poe just in The Fall of the House of Usher.

The Fall of the House of Usher, so, shows Poe's ability to create an emotional tone in his tale, specifically feelings of fear, doom, and guilt. These emotions center on Roderick Usher who, like many Poe characters, suffers from an unnamed disease that inflames his hyperactive senses. The illness manifests physically but is based in Roderick's mental or even moral state. He is sick, it is suggested, because he expects to be sick based on his family's history of illness and is, therefore, essentially a hypochondriac. Similarly, he buries his sister alive because he expects to bury her alive, creating his own self-fulfilling prophecy.

A similar suggestion is present in the Stephen King’s novel.
As said before, one of protagonist of The Shining, Jack Torrance, is an author and former teacher, who accepts a position as winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in Colorado, where he moves with his wife Wendy and son Danny. He thinks this isolated place and "quiet" give him an opportunity to finish the book that he is writing. But the evil spirits, which inhabit the hotel, bribing him with his worst enemy where he is trying to escape, alcohol and deceiving him that the "true owner of the hotel", or the hotel itself, need him and his "ability" (in reality, the hotel does not desire anything but the "shine" of his son Danny), drive him crazy and force him to attempt to murder his family with a roque mallet. However, the little Danny also has some psychic ability called “shine” which he uses to try to protect Jack and the mother. At the end, Danny e Wendy manage to escape, but unfortunately, Jack regains his sanity too late and the hotel boiler explodes, killing him as well as destroying the hotel. The Jack’s instability can be found in many parts of the book; for example, in the chapter 2 “Boulder”, Wendy, talking with the son, says about the husband Jack: “Your daddy… sometimes he does things he's sorry for later. Sometimes he doesn't think the way he should. That doesn't happen very often, but sometimes it does."

So, the place, where the family Torrance moves, plays a key role for the outcome of the story. In the same way, family The House of Usher of the Poe’s story, itself doubly referring both to the actual structure and the family, plays a significant role in the story. It is the first "character" that the narrator introduces to the reader, presented with a humanized description: its windows are described as "eye-like" twice in the first paragraph. The fissure that develops in its side is symbolic of the decay of the Usher family and the house "dies" along with the two Usher siblings. This connection was emphasized in Roderick's poem "The Haunted Palace" which seems to be a direct reference to the house that foreshadows doom.

In The Masque of the Red Death (1842), instead, Poe describes the arrival of a tragic disease: cholera.
 The characters in this story are Prince Prospero and his guests, invited by him to his palace to try to escape the disease; but perhaps the most important protagonist is the mask of the Red Death. The Prince locks herself in his castle and orders barricades to be built in order to protect his palace and life, but this is not enough to save him.

The castle is thus an almost inaccessible place, and also with the description that is given of the seven rooms gives us the idea of an enclosed space, much like a maze. This is the same description that can be seen about the hotel in The Shining. The Overlook Hotel, in fact, is an isolated vacation spot during the summer, but during the winter months of closure, when all connections with neighboring cities are interrupted due to snow, it became a spooky and disturbing place, populated by ghosts and paranormal activity.

This macabre atmosphere, as in the castle of Poe’s tale, creates in the reader a feeling of panic and suffocation. Poe also, uses rapid sequences of adjectives all related to the sphere of the fantastic but at the same time he makes use of phrases coordinated between them and a very simple lexicon.
 Also, the narrator of the story is omniscient and narrates the events firsthand in the narrative. There isn’t a defined interlacement, but it corresponds perfectly with the fable, so much so that we can speak of a full parallelism.

The Poe’s piece is, also, divided into three main sequences: the first serves to explain to the reader the time when the story takes place, and to clarify what is happening in the story. The second part contains the description of the abbey and its inhabitants, while in the third and final sequence, the more narrative, we find the unfolding of the whole story: the arrival of death and its consequences.


But, the most disturbing element in The Masque oh the Red Death is undoubtedly the setting. The seven rooms, in fact, are full of chaos and colors, but the last is empty, the only one that conveys a sense of terror to diners; it is covered by black curtains, like death, the windows are a blood red, and on the wall was leaning a grandfather clock that marked the hours with a terrifying noise that disconcerts partygoers.

The clock is also described with human characteristics: lungs of bronze clock and voice.. So much so that Poe says:
“It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies), there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before. But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel.” The Masque of the Red Death (1842)

Therefore, all this description gives us the idea of approaching death: the clock marks the minutes left before the end of life. This is also one of the citations at the beginning of The Shining and the same emblematic figure of the clock is present in the novel: in fact, in chapter 44, when Jack becomes involved and goes to the party "organized" by strange presences who live the hotel, King says:
"There was a clock under a glass dome, flanked by two carved ivory elephants. Its hands stood at a minute to midnight. He gazed at it blearily. Had this been what Grady wanted him to see? He turned around to ask, but Grady had left him. Halfway through "Ticket to Ride," the band wound up in a brassy flourish. «The hour is at hand!» Horace Derwent proclaimed. «Midnight! Unmask! Unmask» He tried to turn again, to see what famous faces were hidden beneath the glitter and paint and masks, but he was frozen now, unable to look away from the clock — its hands had come together and pointed straight up. «Unmask! Unmask!» the chant went up. The clock began to chime delicately.” The Shining (1977)

The link between King and the father of all horrors stories, Edgar Allan Poe, is therefore loud and clear. But contrary to his Master to which, however, King, preferring to follow the way of the way psychological, makes continual and explicit references in "The Shining". Poe, influenced by the Gothic genre, Ossianic poetry and the epigones, as Lovecraft, centers on the story or novella. The same mythical The Masque of the Red Death, which inspired generations of authors and four films, is a tale of a handful of pages is the best example of Poe’s work. It clearly shows Poe’s love of playing with his readers fears and emotions.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Frankenstein and Terror

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A classic gothic novel emphasises fear and terror. It has the presence of the supernatural, the placements of events within a distant time and an unfamiliar and mysterious setting. Romantic writer Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein conforms to these conventional ‘classic’ Gothic traits as well as to the modern conceptions of what is considered as Gothic. Shelley’s Frankenstein is host to a range of significant gothic elements, evident through Victor’s creation of the gigantic creature, the dark setting of the novel, set in places of gloom and horror, and the disempowered portrayal of females, in which women are threatened by the tyranny of males and are often in distress. Omens and visions are also evident in the novel, further enhancing the Gothicism found in the novel. Frankenstein is defined as a Gothic novel through the many Gothic aspects it features. The connections, and relevance it has to today’s modern society and the lessons that can be learned from it, is what classifies it as being classic.…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gothic literature is a type of writing that is characterized by the elements of fear, death, and gloom. Edgar Allan Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a good example of Gothic Lit because it uses the factors of a spooky home, the weather is bad, and there is a ghost or a monster. “He suffered from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable.(18)” This sentence is tied to gothic literature because he is in a old house and he is going crazy. Therefore…

    • 479 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gothic Literature is a unique form of writing that encompasses: fiction, horror, death, and romance. This type of writing uses the idea of the supernatural as well as the capacity for evil in a human being which ultimately thickens and intensifies the plots of the stories and makes them more intriguing. In the following three works: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, “The Raven”, and “The Black Cat”, there are many unique elements of gothic literature, however the most prominent are: psychological issues, ambiguity, the color black, spirits/demons, and violence.…

    • 644 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stephen King is one of the most famous writers of the horror, science fiction, supernatural fiction, and suspense genre.…

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Francis Russell once said “fiction evocative of a sublime and picturesque landscape… depict(ing) a world in ruins.” Gothic fiction can be characterized by the elements of fear, horror or the supernatural. Other elements that characterize this type of fiction might include darkness mystery, or romance, lust and even dread. William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” uses a gothic setting to describe Miss Emily’s home. The upstairs and the outside of the house shows the darkness romance and lust of the setting in which she lived.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William Faulkner have presented gothic literature throughout their writing during the 18th and 19th centuries. Gothic literature is defined as a "distinct modern development in which the characteristic theme is the stranglehold of the past upon the present"(294 Drabble and Stringer).Therefore, to deliver this theme to their readers they used gothic elements to create a "dark" sensation especially in the area of setting. All three authors in their literature portray accursed or decaying settings that are associated to violence, poverty, and human behavior. It appears authors like Poe, Hawthorne, and Faulkner were drawn to this elements of Gothicism for what it revealed about human psychology…

    • 1549 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Gothic Literature is concerned with the breaking of normal moral and social codes” Discuss (40 marks).…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gothic Literature is “a literary genre that began in England in the late 1700s”(33). This literary genre contains elements such as weird or violent plots, gloomy and eerie moods, characters in torment(physical and psychological), and desolate settings. In Poe’s story, Poe writes, “upon the mere house, … an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the subline.”(Usher 14). This citation shows the element of gloomy and eerie moods, creating an element of Gothic Literature. Therefore, proving…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    <br>Two legendary writers have ruled the universe of death and horror with remarkable success, both gifted with the talent of introducing each reader to his or her own subconscious fears. Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King are the masters of their craft, blessed- or perhaps cursed- with imaginations that set higher standards in the field of writing. Both authors broke new ground in fiction that has had a significant impact on the world of literature. Similar in quite a few ways, though contrasting in many others, this paper will explore the lives and styles of these two remarkable men, paying close attention to the differences that exist in their approaches to writing. A look into Poe's childhood might shed some light on where this divergence stems from.…

    • 2682 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Gothic literature was born in 1764 when Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto, which is considered to be the first gothic novel ever written. Gothic literature was originally written as a reaction to the age of reason, order, and the politics of eighteenth-century England. Containing anti-Catholic sentiments and mythical aspects, Gothic literature explored the tension between what we fear and what we desire. The stories were usually set in some kind of castle or old building that showed human decay and created an atmosphere of mystery and suspense. Often, one of the main characters would be some sort of damsel in distress, threatened by some man. The words chosen in these novels and short stories were very descriptive, creating overwrought emotion and often, feelings of gloom and horror. Also, within the plot, some sort of ancient prophecy, along with omens and visions, could usually be found. The most important elements to the structure of canonical gothic literature, however, are supernatural and unexplainable events.…

    • 1452 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gothic Literature Essay

    • 834 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the movie ‘Coraline ‘ and the texts ‘The Red Room’, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper”’ and ‘Northanger Abbey’, there are many aspects of gothic literature present, gothic literature is used to create mystery and a sense of something odd to come. Coraline is a movie about a young girl who discovers a parallel universe in the new house she moved into, The Red Room is about a supposedly haunted room, Northanger Abbey is about a girl who is spending some time in an old Abbey, she begins to imagine everything is much more interesting and out of the ordinary than what it actually is, lastly The Yellow Wallpaper is the story of a woman locked in the upstairs room of her summerhouse. Many stories in the Victorian era showed several signs of having used gothic literature.…

    • 834 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The fear of the unknown is a common Gothic theme that is used to create fear and uncertainty in the responder. This is achieved through the use of a number of different techniques and conventions. The fear of the unknown is expressed through dark, uncertain and mysterious circumstances cause responders to feel vulnerable and fearful. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula the overpowering force of the sublime, the prominence of religion, death and use of darkness accompanied by typical Gothic techniques evoke a fear of the unknown in responders. This common Gothic themes can also be observed in The Road by Cormac McCarthy, in which the fear of the unknown is enhanced by the sublime, the prominence of religion, death and the use of darkness. Furthermore, it is clear that context has played a massive part in composition of each novel, establishing a fear of the unknown that relates to the values of the time in which the novel was published. Both Dracula and The Road are ideal examples of how the fear of the unknown is used to create a sense of insecurity and uncertainty in the responder.…

    • 3497 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gothic literature, which is sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre that links horror and romance into one tale of ‘transgressing the boundaries’. Gothicism was unheard of until the late 1700’s, this movement into a new genre of literature. This was pioneered by the English author Horace Walpole, in his famous fictional book ‘The Castle of Otranto’, or as Walpole alternatively titled it ‘a Gothic story’. Horace Walpole himself had transgressed the boundaries slightly; by introducing this new style of writing he had added a whole new genre into literature. Walpole’s style of writing was unique and captivated the readers mind and imagination to let he or she share the act of transgression, or as Robert Kidd, a renowned critic put it, “The Gothic has somehow seduced the reader so that he or she is complicit in engaging in whatever he or she might encounter”. This is what kept Gothicism alive, the author’s ability to intrigue the reader and give them a thirst to read more gothic literature.…

    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Gothic Literature

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The setting of gothic literature is a stereotype perpetuated within all texts of the genre. A typical gothic tale will be set in a place with a dark, sinister mood and a menacing feel. An old castle especially ruined or haunted, with secret passageways, labyrinths, crypts and dungeons, is a major convention of the gothic genre. The building is usually decrepit, and can have winding staircases, dark corridors and spooky attics. To increase the eerie feel of the setting, the light in the castle or ruins is often dim and flickering, with creepy shadows on the wall, or sources of light suddenly extinguishing. The setting of a gothic novel is a key aspect in creating the atmosphere of the text and arousing fear, two of the most important features of the genre.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gothic literature can be defined as literature that combines fiction and horror. Frankenstein does an exemplary job conveying this because of the mythical creature created within the novel. Victor encounters much terror after he constructs Frankenstein, which also is an underpinning of gothic literature. Chaos is a common theme throughout the book.…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics