Literary Arguments
Literary Arguments
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Stephen King has many hidden meanings and metaphors hidden throughout his novels, so many readers analyze his stories deeply.
Stephen King's IT
Stephen King's IT
In Stephen King’s IT, a horrific clown named Pennywise is shown through the perspective of a group of children and their adult counterparts. The Novel mainly focuses on the children’s fear of the clown and how it dictates their life. In the Novel IT, Stephen King employs Pennywise as a character who intentionally deceives others in order to convey its psychopathic tendencies and many horrific forms, ultimately illustrating that fear controls people’s actions.
Pennywise is first portrayed as biting a child’s arm off while playing in the rain. This opening scene sets the horrific tone and illustrates the horrific tendencies of the clown. Furthermore, Pennywise is often referred to as “it,” which presents the creature as inhuman; this pronoun usage acquiesces that the creature has no human morals and often acts in a psychopathic manner. More so, The entire structure of the creature is based around its shape shifting abilities, which is meant to take the form of any fear imaginable. Therefore, the creature’s shape shifting is constantly deceiving other characters by hiding its true identity– three balls of light referred to as the dreadlight– for its personal gain: its food source, which is humans when it comes out of hibernation.
Furthermore, Pennywise is ruthless against the children in this book, portrayed as not caring about their lives at all. Consequently, it deceives them by shapeshifting into different forms of horror in order to eat them. Since the children are in constant fear of being attacked, they are controlled by the fear and it often limits their actions. This fear is even portrayed years later through the perspective of the children as adults. King utilizes a dual-narration in order to portray that fear lingers with someone for a long time. Since Pennywise feeds on fear, it only grows stronger throughout the book and leads to deceiving the children in more creative ways.
It can be understood that Pennywise is a metaphor for people’s fear and overthinking, which often leads people to never try new things or stand up for themselves. Therefore, Pennywise contributes to the meaning of the book by making the children feel terrified over hallucinations that are blown out of proportion, like how people often get anxious and panic in simple situations. Consequently, King’s novel makes a statement that fear often controls people.
However, the novel contradicts its claim in the end of the book, where the children destroy the creature by overcoming their fear. When looking at the novel as a whole, the plot is shown as having a rushed ending, meaning that it may make readers say “It was that easy all along?” Some people argue that the children could have overcome their fears earlier on and defeated Pennywise long before they actually did, but fear is a weakness that takes a long time to overcome. This is precisely King’s point, and pushes the idea that fear is a deception in life that blows situations out of proportion.
Stephen King's Carrie
Stephen King's Carrie
Stephen King’s Carrie is a coming of age horror novel depicting an ostracized girl growing into a woman while simultaneously attempting to control her supernatural powers. In Carrie, King utilizes supernatural elements as a symbol of Carrie’s struggle at grasping her emotions and maturity, ultimately illustrating the discrepancy that comes with puberty and teenage life.
King initially employs Carrie’s powers lashing out in order to demonstrate the feeling of emotional torment during teenage years. For example, King depicts Carrie showering at the school and being harassed by other girls, and even throwing tampons at her. Carrie breaks down and eventually has a supernatural breakout. Because of the bullying, Carrie is left feeling anxious and ostracized. Furthermore, she feels a lack of control due to her supernatural powers. Consequently, Carrie’s outbursts and strong emotions metaphorically represent puberty and hormonal changes; this is hinted at by the tampons being thrown at her, which is a symbol of the start of women’s puberty. Through all of this, Carrie is able to control herself enough to not injure anyone. However, Carrie’s infamous scene at her senior prom where she is covered in pig's blood ends differently. This results in an event known as “The Black Prom” in which Carrie has a large outburst resulting in many deaths. This outburst represents the emotional limit Carrie has reached before an emotional breakdown. Therefore, Carrie’s supernatural powers represent her lack of control between her emotions and her actions, ultimately leading to her powers symbolizing puberty. Since puberty is a large part in a teens life, her powers also represent the emotional toll that puberty takes on teenagers. This emotional toll is seen by the stress caused on the bullies and herself after her breakdown.
Moreover, King portrays Carrie’s powers as hurting herself and others in order to illustrate that teenage emotions have an effect on other people. For instance, Carrie shares her suffering and anger with her mother at the end of the novel by lighting her house on fire out of guilt and rage. Because of the large flames and destruction, Carrie’s emotions are portrayed as too powerful for her to control. However, Carrie locks herself and her mother in the closet as a form of protection, but ends up killing them both. Consequently, both are punished for Carrie’s behavior and ultimately suffer because of her emotions. Therefore, King employs the destruction of Carrie’s powers to illustrate that Carrie’s recklessness and lack of control affect those surrounding her. Even someone as supportive and loving as her mother, is ultimately taken down by teenage emotion.
As demonstrated by Carrie's supernatural powers throughout the novel, it can be understood that they are a symbol that Carrie is growing and needs to adapt to her stronger emotions and blossom into a mature woman. Unfortunately, Carrie never reaches adulthood because of her overpowering emotions destroying both herself and her loved ones. Overall, King illustrates the hardships of teenage life and the troubles of puberty to demonstrate the amount of support teenagers need in the most crucial part of their lives.
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