Steven King Essay, Research Paper

?If you have an imagination, let it run free.? – Steven King, 1963 The King

of Terror Stephen Edwin King is one of today?s most popular and best selling

writers. King combines the elements of psychological thrillers, science fiction,

the paranormal, and detective themes into his stories. In addition to these

themes, King sticks to using great and vivid detail that is set in a realistic

everyday place. Stephen King who is mainly known for his novels, has broadened

his horizons to different types of writings such as movie scripts, nonfiction,

autobiographies, children?s books, and short stories. While Stephen King might

be best known for his novels The Stand and It, some of his best work that has

been published are his short stories such as ?The Body? and ?Quitters

Inc?. King?s works are so powerful because he uses his experience and

observations from his everyday life and places them into his unique stories.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine, on September 21, 1947, at the

Maine General Hospital. Stephen, his mother Nellie, and his adopted brother

David were left to fend for themselves when Stephen?s father Donald, a

Merchant Marine captain, left one day, to go the store to buy a pack of

cigarettes, and never returned. His fathers leaving had a big indirect impact on

King?s life. In the autobiographical work Danse Macabre, Stephen King recalls

how his family life was altered: ?After my father took off, my mother,

struggled, and then landed on her feet.? My brother and I didn?t see a great

deal of her over the next nine years. She worked a succession of continuous low

paying jobs.? Stephen?s first outlooks on life were influenced by his older

brother and what he figured out on his own. While young Stephen and his family

moved around the North Eastern and Central United States. When he was seven

years old, they moved to Stratford, Connecticut. Here is where King got his

first exposure to horror. One evening he listened to the radio adaptation of Ray

Bradbury?s story ?Mars Is Heaven!? That night King recalls he ?slept in

the doorway, where the real and rational light of the bathroom bulb could shine

on my face? (Beaham 16). Stephen King?s exposure to oral storytelling on the

radio had a large impact on his later writings. King tells his stories in visual

terms so that the reader would be able to ?see? what was happening in their

own mind, somewhat in the same fashion the way it was done on the radio (Beaham

17). King?s fascination with horror early on continued and was pushed along

only a couple weeks after Bradbury?s story. One day little Stephen was looking

through his mother?s books and came across one named ?The Strange Case of

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.? After his mother finished reading the book to him,

Stephen was hooked. He immediately asked her to read it again. King recalls

?that summer when I was seven, [my mother] must have read it to me half a

dozen times?(Beaham 17). Ironically that same year, while Stephen was still

seven years old, he went to go see his first horror movie, The Creature from the

Black Lagoon. This is important because Stephen says, ? Since [the movie], I

still see things cinematically. I write down everything I see. What I see, it

seems like a movie to me?(Beaham 17). During this year the biggest event that

probably had the biggest impact on Stephen King?s writing style was the

discovery of the author H. P. Lovecraft. King would later write of Lovecraft,

?He struck with the most force, and I still think, for all his shortcomings,

he is the best writer of horror fiction that America has yet produced?(Beaham

22). In many of Lovecraft?s writings he always used his present surroundings

as the back drop of his stories. King has followed in his footsteps with the

fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. Castle Rock is a combination of several

towns that King moved to and from with his family in his childhood. The main

town that it resembles is that of Durham, Maine. It was after the exposure to H.

P. Lovecraft?s stories that King first began to write. While growing up and

moving around the way his family did, Stephen had never been able to feel

comfortable and settle down in one place and make friends they way other kids

his age did (Underwood 77). Around the age of twelve the King family finally

settled in the town of Durham, Maine. For Stephen King, Durham was the place

where his imagination began to shine. It was at this time that Stephen first

began to make friends. Along with his friends, Stephen would go the movies a

lot. Stephen would use the movies as a inspiration. Although he enjoyed going

out and having fun, whenever he would come home, Stephen would immediately write

down his experiences and observations. Frequently King would place his friends

and family into childhood fantasy tales. And one would always know how Stephen

felt about them because of how long they lived in the story. It was not until

college that Stephen King received any kind of real recognition for his

writings. In the Fall of 1967, King finished his first novel, The Long Walk, and

turned it into his sophomore American Literature professor for review. After a

couple of weeks and a couple rounds around the department, the English

professors were stunned. They realized that they had a real writer on their

hands. *From then until he graduated with a bachelors degree in English from

University of Maine at Orono in the Spring of 1970, King concentrated on

rounding off the edges of his writing technique. One short story that best shows

the type and technique of Stephen King?s writing is ?The Body.? ?The

Body?, which has been adapted into to a Hollywood movie, was first published

in the collection of short stories called Different Seasons. The story is a tale

of four twelve year old friends who at the end of one summer go out on a journey

in into the woods to see a dead body. While on their journey they learn about

life, friendship, and are propelled from innocent to experienced. On the surface

of the story it appears to be simple journey with its occasional mishaps, but

the true magnificence is that this story has a strong autobiographical

coincidence. The main character, Gordie Lachance, is a boy growing up on his own

through the memory of his dead older brother. Growing up, Gordie, an avid story

teller, dreamed of becoming a writer. Before his brothers accidental death, all

his parents would ever care about was his brother. Since his death, Gordie?s

parents have presumably shut themselves away from Gordie. This, to a certain

degree is true of King. Because of his father leaving when Stephen was two, and

his mother taking on around the clock jobs, he never really had any parental

guidance. The story itself is written with Gordie narrating in the present time

look back at the journey. At the time of his flashback, Gordie is a best selling

author who has returned to his home town of Castle Rock to revisit his past.

This is ironic because at the time Stephen wrote the story he himself had just

moved from Bolder, Colorado, back ?home? to the town of Bangor. King?s

childhood home town of Durham is used in several different stories under the

fictional town name of Castle Rock. It is also noticeable how in the story when

Gordie ?looks? back to him and his brother, his brother is the only person

who cares for him. He noticeably goes out of his way to look out for Gordie, and

is always encouraging his and asking him about his writing, while all his

parents seem to do is ignore Gordie. This also can be related to King?s past

because while growing up his brother while only two years older then him, always

seemed to be there for Stephen and look out for him. Probably the deepest

imagery of the story is at the end of the novel. Gordie is shown back at home

and putting the finishing touches on his latest work. While finishing up, Gordie

is interrupted by his son who is shown in a sense to be a good-natured and

caring boy. Gordie experiences a deep love for his family at the time. This

setup is presumably placed in the story as an escape for King. In his

autobiography Danse Macabre, King tells of his fear of providing for and caring

for a family (Reino 112). This shows King pushing away the fear, in a sense

saying that he is all right. That he has now embraced the idea. One of King?s

best work is also one that does not fit in any category of his usual writings.

For an author who usually writes horror, ?Rita Hayworth and Shawshank

Redemption?, is a story that is a refreshing sidestep. The story tells of how

Andy Dufresne, who is falsely tried, convicted, and sentenced to back to back

life sentences for the double murder of his wife and her lover, deals with being

trapped within a dreadful situation that are out of his hands. Throughout the

nineteen years that he is in Shawshank prison, Andy has to endure everything

from a gang called the ?Sisters?, who go around raping and beating their

prey to being forced to create and run a money laundering scheme for the prison

Warden. If this story was written without the authors name on it, there is none

of Stephen King?s characteristic style, except for maybe in one place in the

story. The one possible place that even hints that it is from the mind of King

is at the end of the story where Red is off to keep his promise to Andy. Andy

asks Red, that when he get out of jail to travel to a southern Maine town called

Buxton and look for something he buried in a ?hay field under a large oak

field.? The suspense of what was buried and the description of the field in

Buxton is what is typical of Stephen King. While the story is very

uncharacteristic of King it does deep down relate to himself. The theme of hope

and of how Andy overcomes the situation is one that is tied closely to King. It

runs a direct parallel with life as a child and how his life has turned out.

Just as Andy was thrown into predicament and later escapes and lives his life on

his own terms, Stephen, early on was forced to move from town to town with

mother and brother. In the end Stephen escapes and now lives on his own terms.

Stephen King?s works are so powerful because he uses his experiences and

observations from his life and places them into his unique works. What seems to

make Stephen King?s stories almost magical is that the settings of his stories

are placed into common every day places. Additionally, Stephen?s writings are

true to life in peoples mind?s because he draws upon common fears. Just as

King?s writing style and genre had been influenced by movies throughout his

life, he is now influencing the same industry with his own vision and

imagination. King?s writings are so widely appealing that over 42 of his works

have been based upon or turned into Hollywood movies which have included stars

like Jack Nicholson (The Shining), John Travolta (Carrie), and Morgan Freeman

(The Shawshank Redemption).

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Beaham , George . Stephen King Companion , The . Kansas City : Universal

Press Syndicate Company , 1995 . Beaham , George . Stephen King Story, The : A

Literary Profile . Kansas City : Universal Press Syndicate Company , 1992 . King

, Stephen . ?Body , The? in Different Seasons . New York : Viking Penguin

Inc ., 1982 . King , Stephen . ?Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption? in

Different Seasons . New York : Viking Penguin Inc ., 1982 . Reino , Joseph .

Stephen King : The First Decade , Carrie to Pet Sematary . Boston : Twayne

Publishers , 1988 . Underwood , Tom . Conversations on Terror with Stephen King

. New York : Warner Books , 1988 .