The Skeleton Crew Essay, Research Paper

Skeleton Crew

-Stephen King 573 pgs.

1.) The Mist

a.) Main characters:

1.) David

2.) Billy

3.) Ollie

4.) Mrs. Carmody

b.) Situation:

1.A huge storm hits the town where David is staying w/ his wife and son.

2. A mist starts to appear.

3. David and his neighbor start cleaning up outside.

4. They decide to go to the grocery store w/ Billy, his son, to get some lunch food.

5. Once they get there, a man comes in and warns everyone about the fog.

6. David gets a bad feeling and decides not to leave the store.

7. People start clearing out of the store.

8. Mrs. Carmody starts preaching to the grocery store about a terrible Armageddon.

9.The mist comes up and surrounds the grocery store and everything else.

10. The people sort of set up camp in the grocery store.

11.David goes into the backroom and hears gurgling noises from outside.

12. One of the store s checkout boys opens the storage doors a little.

13. A huge tentacle grabs him by the leg.

14. Ollie cuts it off.

15. The men try to tell the other people, but they don t believe it.

16.Mrs. Carmody has now gathered some people together who all believe in the Armageddon.

17. David, Ollie, and several others decide to make investigations around the supermarket area.

18. During the day they go to the pharmacy, and huge spiders with acid webs chase after them.

19. They discover the only way to get away from the Mist Creatures are by not letting them smell you.

20. They decide to make a break for it.

21. Mrs. Carmody makes a big fuss and tries to stop them, so Ollie shoots her dead.

22. They get into David s Scout and start driving south.

23. The mist is everywhere, so they stop at a gas station.

24. You re left hanging at the end. No real ending to the story.

25. David tells the reader that all he has left is hope.

c.) Situation- an interesting situation is when David goes to the back storage room due to a strong smell. When he gets back there, he notices that the smell is coming from the generator, which is plugged. The room fills up with gas, so he gets some of the store workers to help him shut it off. One of the checkout clerks wants to be a hotshot, and just opens the door to unplug the generator. As soon as he opens the door, a huge squid/octopus like tentacle wraps around him and the suction cups on the squids tentacles start eating the boy. The boy is carried outside as another tentacle comes in. They start to close the huge doors, and end up cutting off the tentacle. They examine it, and even though it s dissevered from the rest of whatever it is, it grabbed a bag of dog food, and squeezed it until the bag burst sending puppy chow everywhere.

2.) Theme:

a.) A huge fog with strange creatures in it trapped a bunch of people in the grocery store. They were all desperately searching for a solution to the dilemma, but finally, David, Ollie, and several others decide they have to get out sooner or later, so they get in the car and try to escape.

b.) Lessons:

1. People will panic during a crisis, so try to stay calm.

2. Hope is sometimes the only thing we have to hold on to.

3. People will cling to any logical answer to their problems, just because they need one so bad.

3.) Recommendation:

This was the longest story in the novel. It was also the best. This story was for the most part interesting, but it was pretty unbelievable sometimes. It had a comic book plot to it. This story was science fiction.

4.) Conclusion:

This was a good story. It showed some different types of writing that were very unique. This story was pretty long, and it could probably have been passed for a short novel in itself. I enjoyed reading it, because it didn t follow the normal rules of stories and dared to be different. It did have a pretty bad ending though. It just sort of stopped. I wanted to find out what happened, but I was left hanging!