Steven King Paper 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).

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 .