The Haunted House of Memory in the Fiction of Stephen King
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Napier, Will (2008) The haunted house of memory in the fiction of Stephen King. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/516/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] The Haunted House of Memory in the Fiction of Stephen King Will Napier Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctorate of Philosophy University of Glasgow Department of English Literature July 2007 © Will Napier 2007 For Elaine, Ethan, Zac, Alex and Brody ii Acknowledgements Over the past four years I have been in contact with many people as I researched material for this book. Some of those people were instrumental in assisting with putting the following pages together. I’ll start with Willy Maley, a mentor and a friend and one of the most inspiring individuals I know. As my supervisor at the University of Glasgow Willy has looked at too many versions of drafts and listened to too many ideas for me to list them, and never once did he leave a single word unread or refrain from responding to my chattering. I’d also like to thank John Coyle, my other supervisor at the University of Glasgow, who steered me in the right direction from early on. John always gave me sound advice and honest opinions on what was working and what needed more attention. The University Library was not only an invaluable source of research materials, but provided the kind of perspective through its great views of Glasgow that lets reflection reinforce reading. Outside of the University I want to thank my publisher Jonathan Cape for giving me additional time to complete my second novel. My editor Robin Robertson has been persistent, but not pushing and my agent Gill Coleridge has continually assured me she understands my drive to finish what I have already begun. Tony Magistrale was good enough to respond to my emails and remained accessible and candid over the years as I continued to send questions relating to King. I’d also like to thank “my local”, the Dunfermline Carnegie Library, for providing me space to work and for stocking – or acquiring – a long list of books on King, Horror and Gothic Literature. My employer, the Bank of Scotland, has allowed me time to travel through to Glasgow for meetings relating to my research and my writing and continued to do so throughout my time in their employ. Finally, and most importantly, I’d like to thank my family who put up with an absent husband, father and son. I’m coming home. iii Declaration I declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. I have consulted all of the references cited. The work has not been previously accepted for a higher degree. Signed _____________________________ Will Napier iv Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to explore a set of key issues and themes in the fiction of Stephen King, and then to present, in the form of a creative extract, a demonstration of an imaginative engagement with those same literary preoccupations mapped out in that opening critical section. This thesis is thus divided into two parts. The first part, ‘Critical Encounters’, explores through an interconnected series of close readings a selection of novels and novellas that circle around questions of suffering and survival. Chapter One, ‘Monsters by Design’, looks closely at Carrie (1974), The Shining (1977), and Misery (1987), among other texts, in order to define King’s human monsters and investigate the episodes of domestic violence that are among his most terrifying scenes. Chapter Two, ‘Retrospection of Abuse’, uses ‘The Body’, a novella in Different Seasons (1982), as a core text to examine King’s use of abuse and abusive characters as a means of defining character and assigning motivation for further violent tendencies. Chapter Three, ‘Remorse and Resurrection’, examines the influence of science and religious faith in terms of mourning the loss of loved ones. Chapter Four, ‘The Selfish Apparition’, a detailed engagement with Bag of Bones (1998), delves into the meanings behind the appearance of ghostly apparitions and suggests they may be less para-psychological and more psychoanalytical in nature. The second part, ‘Creative Engagement’, demonstrates the influence King’s writing has had on my own work by providing an extract from a new novel, Without Warning , a sequel to my first book, Summer of the Cicada (Jonathan Cape, 2005 ). Without Warning is a unique experiment for me, as it has been written not only in the wake of the literary works of King – which have long exerted an influence on me as a writer and as one of his ‘constant readers’ – but in the light of a sustained period of research and reflection on King as a writer. Being in the midst of a critical and creative immersion in King, including his own accounts of his craft as well as interviews and essays by other scholars, has shaped my writing and made me meditate on my craft in a way I had not done before. This thesis then is both a study of aspects of the fiction of one of America’s foremost storytellers, and an example of an emerging writer grappling with the fiction and criticism of a major influence. v The Haunted House of Memory in the Fiction of Stephen King CONTENTS Preface 1 Part One: Critical Encounters 1 - Monsters by Design: 5 The Reality of King’s Creations 2 - Retrospection of Abuse: 41 Recollection of Mistreatment and Neglect 3 - Remorse and Resurrection: 67 Interpreting Loss and Suffering Through Faith and Science 4 - The Selfish Apparition: 105 Memory and Fear Projecting Entity Bibliography 140 Part Two: Creative Engagement Extracts from Without Warning 146 Preface With a corpus as considerable as Stephen King’s my initial challenge in researching his fiction was to narrow my focus to points of interest and core texts. As a ‘constant reader’ – King’s term for those who have stayed the course with him through an enormously productive writing career – and as a fiction writer in the genre that King has made his own, it was not an easy challenge to select those texts which have most inspired my own writing and critical thoughts. However, with the recent critical interest in King’s fiction, and with horror fiction in general becoming more fashionable and even academically chic, I set out to locate gaps in the study of King’s fiction. My reasons for this have been both personal and professional. Find out what makes King’s fiction work so well. The hardship came when I found a growing source of reference material focussing on his writing. And so my research shifted once again as I decided not to wait to write my own ideas on his fiction as I searched for gaps in what had already been written. Instead I began to look at the core texts which have inspired my own writing and picked it apart in terms of the elements and themes that matter most to me both as a constant reader and as writer cutting his teeth on similar material. The research for this book started before my own writing career had taken off. It was originally intended to explore the writings of Stephen King through an interconnected series of close readings. In combining this with research of existing critical analysis I hoped to draw attention to questions of craft rather than dwelling on his status as a celebrated author of genre fiction. As one of 1 King’s constant readers – as well as an aspiring writer - I have been fascinated with the way King can transcend genre and build within his fiction a universe that sees characters pass from one novel to the next, from short story to epic tale. King mixes the horrific and the humdrum in a way that rakes in readers and dollars by the million, his movies are watched by countless arm-gripping viewers. There is a marked shift in King’s fiction, notably seen with the publication of Misery (1987), followed by Gerald’s Game (1992), and Rose Madder (1995), where his preoccupations appeared to shift from the supernatural towards a more naturalistic, social and domestic horror. This shift is apparent, but it is arguably also more a matter of emphasis than substance. From the very beginning King has been obsessed by abuse, bullying, and the fallout from childhood trauma and domestic violence. His constant readers recognise these realistic elements as crucial to King’s fiction, and key to the supernatural manifestations that have made him such a celebrated author. Still, something happened from Misery onwards that can be seen as a turning-point insofar as the highly achieved and admired writer of horror fiction now felt able to pull the skeletons that had rattled in the closet more emphatically out into the glare of moonlight or torchlight. In the critical encounters that follow, I look at King’s use of abuse in his fiction as a means of defining character. As a naturalistic writer, King’s characters are created by the world around them, by the natural elements of human violence that King believes is inherent in us all.