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Content FAMILY SURVIVAL:
DOMESTIC IDEOLOGY AND DESTRUCTIVE PATERNITY .
IN THE HORROR FICTIONS OF STEPHEN KING
by
Joe M. Abbott, Jr.
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillm ent of the
Requirem ents for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(English: Film, Literature, and Culture)
M ay 1994
C opyright 1994 Joe M. Abbott, Jr.
UMI Number: DP23187
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UMI DP23187
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This dissertation, w ritten by
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under the direction of h .^ ......... Dissertation
Committee, and approved by all its members,
has been presented to and accepted b y The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillm ent of re
quirem ents for the degree of
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D O C TO R OF PH ILO SOPH Y
Dean of Graduate Studies
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DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
hairperson
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m y helpm ate and constant encourager
Acknowledgm ents
I am deeply grateful to Leo Braudy, M arsha K inder, and Ron Gottesm an for
their guidance and encouragem ent. The diversity of their com m ents and ex
pertise in their respective areas forced m e to consider critical perspectives in
this project that I could not possibly have anticipated at the outset nor
w orked through alone.
iv
Table of Contents
Introduction: Id eo lo g y /N arrativ e/G en re/H o rro r 1
C hapter One: A Theoretical O verview of
C ontem porary H orror in Literature and Film 15
C hapter Two: The "Domestic" H orror N arrative 44
C hapter Three: O edipal Discourse and the
Father as A gent of Destruction 90
C hapter Four: The Father as A gent of Destruction and the
Ideology of Domestic Security: THE SHINING 132
C hapter Five: The Father as A gent of D estruction and the
Ideology of Domestic Apocalypse: PET SEM ATARY 175
Conclusion(s) 214
A ppendices
A. King's Published W orks and A daptations 225
B. Excerpt from an Early Treatm ent of Kubrick's THE SHINING 233
Films Cited 236
W orks Cited 239
V
. the underside of culture is blood, torture, death and horror.
— Fredric Jameson,
"Postm odernism , or the C ultural Logic of Late Capitalism "
The tale of the irrational is the sanest w ay I know
of expressing the w orld in w hich I live.
--Stephen King,
"A N ote on 'The Sun Dog'" (Four Past Midnight)
In t r o d u c t io n
Ideology/Narrative/G enre/H orror
This dissertation is a project in literary, filmic, and cultural analysis
that takes as its prim ary sources the collective horror fictions of Stephen King
and films adapted from those fictions. I will attem pt to situate and analyze
these w orks as participant in a cultural dialogue and to argue that King's sig
nificance as an Am erican w riter lies specifically in his designation as a "pop
ular" author. Such a claim m ay appear at first glance to assum e a defensive
position w ithin a conventionally structured aesthetic argum ent. Certainly, to
argue for the "importance" of any one author is to propose an evaluative as
sessm ent resonant w ith im plications of aesthetic w orth or artistic value. Yet I
do not w ant (nor do I intend) to construct m y argum ent on this kind of as
sum ption. In fact, I do not base m y claims for K ing's im portance on any
aesthetic grounds whatsoever; rather, I will argue that King's w ork is im por
tant as both a reflection of and form ative influence on post-1960s Americana.
M y concerns will thus be m ore w ith cultural politics and ideology than w ith
aesthetic evaluation, and m y em phasis w ill be on cultural, rather than strictly
literary, analysis.
I have chosen King's work as my central object of study for several
reasons. Having acquired a following that m ay be described with, I believe,
minimal objection as impressive in num bers and often obsessive in nature,
King has attracted little attention within the academic critical community.
This neglect is due in part, no doubt, to the fact that King's work has found
and maintained its most devoted audience outside of academia— in, that is,
"mass" culture. As such, one is tem pted to assume that King's fiction appeals
prim arily to an audience less concerned w ith aesthetic assessment a n d /o r
strenuous philosophical argum ent than with entertainment. A nd yet for King
to have m aintained over the course of two decades and (at this writing)
twenty-eight novels a marketability unequalled by writers of w hat is gener
ally considered more serious literature indicates that King shares, at some
meaningful level, a common vision or perception of our world w ith a sub
stantial percentage of post-1960s Americana. This meaningful level of shared
perceptions is, I think, largely unconscious (and, hence, unexamined); thus,
the prospect of articulating and exploring those perceptions suggests King's
growing body of work as an object of some importance for the critic con
cerned with the mechanics of ideology and the relationship between artifacts
and the culture in which they thrive.
I will argue, in the following pages, that a large part of King's popular
appeal comes from an ambivalence his work shares not only with members
of his select following but with virtually every sector of post-1960s American
3
society: an ambivalence over the changing nature of the family. Of prim ary
interest here will be K ing's concern w ith the fragm entation and restructura
tion of the fam ily unit along w ith the redefinition of its paternal authority
figure, the signifier of an increasingly problem atic "Patriarchal Law." As we
will see, the survival and revitalization of fam ily em erges as a consistently
trium phal them e across K ing's body of w ork, yet this them e is always
haunted by an underlying paranoia, a sense of the fam ily m ade vulnerable by
its subjection to a complex array of natural and supernatural influences
operating on and forcing alterations w ithin its fundam ental structure.
K ing's only sustained w ork of nonfiction to date is his Stephen King's
Danse Macabre (1981), a self-consciously colloquial, decidedly commercial, and
often insightful critical survey of the contem porary horror genre. King con
tem plates horror across various m edia— radio, television, film, and literature--
to argue that the resonance and pow er of the horror narrative resides in its
ability to probe w hat he calls variously "psychic" and "phobic" "pressure
points." He proposes that "the prim ary duty of literature [is] to tell us the
truth about ourselves by telling us lies about people w ho never existed" (251).
For the w riter of horror, perhaps m ore than in any other genre, this necessi
tates "a d e a r— perhaps even a m orbidly overdeveloped— conception of w here
. . . the socially (or m orally, or psychologically) acceptable ends and that great
w hite space of Taboo begins" (278). Along sim ilar lines, King accords the
horror film its greatest "social merit" (130) w hen it establishes "a liason be
4
tween our fantasy fears and our real fears" (129). Like the horror novel, the
horror film provides a m eans by w hich its audience m ay "better understand
w hat those taboos and fears are, and w hy it feels so uneasy about them"
(131).
The sam e year that King's inform al exam ination of the horror genre hit
m ainstream bookstores, Fredric Jam eson was directing a sim ilar argum ent at
a decidedly sm aller audience, an academic readership steeped in Freud and
Marx. In The Political Unconscious Jam eson prescribes "that all literature m ust
be read as a symbolic m editation on the destiny of com m unity" (70). N arra
tive carries in its them es and structures evidence of the intrapsychic processes
at w ork in the individual author or film m aker as well as of a m uch larger in
terpsychic netw ork for w hich Jameson has proposed the term "political un-
conscious"~an "inform ing pow er of forces or contradictions w hich the text
seeks in vain w holly to control or m aster" (Jameson 49). Jam eson's argum ent,
deriving as it does from A lthusserian and Lacanian theories of subject form a
tion, conceives of this "unconscious" textual register as com prised of those
traces of ideology that reside in the "symbolic order" of signs and sign sys
tems constituting culture and that, from the m om ent of the individual's initia
tion into that culture, begin to form the basis of his or her social discourse.
Hence the book's subtitle: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act.
For Jam eson and for King, narrative m ust be read sym ptom atically, but
not sim ply to uncover the psychological preoccupations of a particular author
5
or film m aker so m uch as to understand the social forces that have in som e
w ay contributed to the formation of those preoccupations. It w ould seem,
then, that Jam eson's argum ent is com patible w ith King's, although Jam eson
does not argue that it is so m uch literature's "duty" to tell us about ourselves
as it is its nature to do so. Significantly, too, both popular author and critical
theorist argue their respective positions from an initial assum ption that any
study of narrative is obligated to locate its object of study w ithin the larger
sociocultural context~the field of signs and sign system s— w ithin w hich it
circulates. Such contextualization allows m editation to move beyond broadly
herm eneutic or m etaphysical questions of w hat a narrative means to how
m eaning is constructed and subsequently exchanged in the narrative trans
action. Prim ary em phasis is thus placed on w hat narrative, as an ideologi
cally em pow ered (and em pow ering) apparatus, does. For both King and
Jameson, narrative offers us an opportunity to better understand ourselves as
individual subjects and as a collective culture.
Popular novels and m ainstream cinem a, as exem plary of tw entieth-cen
tury A m erican cultural artifacts, should reveal, then, certain sociocultural
im pulses, som e consciously injected by their authors/film m akers, som e not.
The popular text functions, as contem porary film theory has show n us, as a
kind of "cultural mirror,"1 and although the printed ("arbitrary") text per
forms this function in a very different w ay than does its cinematic ("iconic")
counterpart, each acts as a m etaphorical looking glass through w hich w e can
detect those traces of ideology that supply the w riter/film m aker w ith the
netw ork of codes he or she (consciously or unconsciously) presses into ser
vice. To the degree that w e associate those characters and events inhabiting
the designated fiction w ith our ow n sense of self and w hat Louis A lthusser
called our "real conditions of existence" (87), and to the degree that we see
those fictions as providing w hat Jam eson calls "im aginary or form al 'solu
tions' to unresolvable social contradictions" (79), w e are indoctrinated w ith
the "ideology" of that text.2 W hether the text accepts or rejects, questions, at
tacks, or even explicitly acknow ledges that ideology out of w hich it comes is
another question entirely; how ever, this process of indoctrination, this trans
m ission of (some form of) ideology, will take place and, furtherm ore, it will
do so largely at the level of the unconscious. H ence the psychological, politi
cal, and, ultim ately, ideological nature of narrative.
H ow , then, m ight the cultural critic/analyst uncover those psychoso
cial im pulses constituting the political unconscious of any one text or body of
work? One m ight begin by exam ining those specific institutions or "appara
tuses" (to seize on A lthusser's term) w hich the narrative presents as occupy
ing a positive or negative position w ithin the overall textual economy.3 The
appropriate questions for such an exam ination m ight include: W hat appara
tuses are foregrounded? H ow are they depicted? In w hat condition does the
narrative leave them at its conclusion? Such questions should help us to
7
probe the ideological underpinnings of the text by inviting us to "meditate"
on its underlying assum ptions and themes.
If the exam ination of the w ays in w hich various ideological appara
tuses are represented in a particular text prom ises to reveal w hat m ay be
called a "thematic" ideology, an exam ination of how that text is constructed
should reveal aspects of a "formal" ideology. One of the m ost pow erful sys
tems through w hich narrative perpetuates ideology form ally is genre. For
Jam eson genres are "essentially literary institutions, or social contracts be
tw een a w riter and a specific public, w hose function is to specify the proper
use of a particular cultural artifact" (106, italics in text). Stephen N eale
extends Jam eson's literary /w riter specifications to cinem a, proposing that
genres are "systems of orientations, expectations and conventions that cir
culate betw een [the film] industry, text and subject" (19). Genres, says Neale,
operate on a principle of "regularised variety" (48), by w hich he m eans the
alternation of repetition w ith difference. But perhaps Tzvetan Todorov estab
lishes the connections betw een ideology and genre m ost succinctly w hen he
proposes that genres reveal the "constitutive traits" of those societies to w hich
they belong. This is because, says Todorov, "a society chooses and codifies
the acts that m ost closely correspond to its ideology; this is w hy the existence
of certain genres in a society . . . reveal a central ideology, and enable us to
establish it w ith considerable certainty" ("OG" 164).
8
Genres, then, provide a m eans for contextualizing the reading of narra
tive through specific system s of conventions. But m ore than sim ply the pres
ence or absence of such conventions, genres depend on the interplay of "repe
tition and difference" (Neale), of convention and invention, as constitutive of
a kind of dram atic paradigm by w hich readers a n d /o r spectators come to a
text "pre-program m ed," as it w ere, to infer w hat Todorov calls "horizons of
expectation" (163). These horizons tem pt, tease, gratify, and frustrate the
audience to the degree that they fulfil or thw art that audience's expectations.
Questions for approaching ideological analysis of narrative by w ay of genre
m ight include: W hat conventions does the narrative appropriate in its attem pt
to create and com m unicate m eaning? H ow are those conventions inscribed
in the narrative? self-consciously? ironically? H ow does the narrative com
bine convention w ith invention and to w hat purpose or effect?
In the following portions of this study I intend to "meditate" on the
horror narrative in order to articulate w hat I will call an ideology of horror
and, in the m ore specific case of Stephen King, an ideology of "domestic"
horror. I will exam ine the w ays in w hich horror has been and m ay be read
as "a m editation on the destiny of com m unity" in an attem pt to better u n d er
stand horror novels and films both as generic constructs and as ideological
apparatuses in their ow n right, offering "im aginary 'solutions' to unresolvable
social contradictions." This in turn should prepare the w ay for a better u n
derstanding of how Stephen King has, "in num bers and dollars, em erged as
9
the m ost successful story teller in hum an history" (Skal 354). Before proceeding
further, how ever, it seems appropriate at this point to propose explicitly a
schem atic diagram illustrating the structural logic on w hich I have until now
only im plicitly based m y argum ent.
For the purposes of this study, I w ant to conceptualize genre as a kind of
subset of narrative, w hich can likewise be posited as a subset of ideology. This
conceptual fram ew ork reaches its finest point w ith its arrival at "horror" as a
subset of genre. This line of argum ent can be schem atized perhaps m ost clearly
via w h at D avid Bordwell has called a "core-periphery schema"^:
Ideology
Narrative
Genre
Horror
A t the center of the schem a, and at the center of this study, is the horror text.
Each of the surrounding areas m ight be designated "dom ains of discourse" that
10
in various w ays feed into, and thus collectively construct, this central text.
H ow they do so and to w hat effect w ill constitute the focus of the following
chapter.
In chapter one I offer a general review of the studies that I believe rep
resent the m ost im portant advances in current scholarship pertaining to those
aspects of horror literature and film that concern this dissertation. My p u r
pose there is twofold: to engage in critical analyses of those w orks to w hich
this project is m ost indebted and to m ap m y ow n study onto the present ter
rain of horror scholarship. As is, I believe, proper, I have given pride of
place (and space) to those w orks that have proven particularly valuable to
m y ow n investigation, and m y debt to those w orks not review ed at length
will be acknow ledged at the proper place(s) of this dissertation.
In chapter two I establish a historical and theoretical basis for w hat I
will designate "domestic horror"— a m ode or subgenre of horror that takes as
its setting the contem porary hom e and its principal dram atic concern the sur
vival of the fam ily unit. I will argue that the paternal authority figure has
become one of the m ost prom inent threats to that unit. This developm ent is
due in p art to the fact that fathers have been faced w ith m assive changes in
their perceived dom estic roles since fem inism em erged as a significant cul
tural force in the early 1960s. The m ost eclectic chapter of this study, chapter
two draw s on sociological and historical m ethodologies and discourses to sit
uate the dom estic horror narrative in its proper sociocultural context.
11
Psychoanalysis and the role of the oedipal dram a in the process of sub
ject form ation are foregrounded in chapter three. Because the fam ily is a
crucial institution through w hich ideology constructs individual subjectivity, I
exam ine in the early p art of this chapter the w ays in w hich the oedipal
dram a an d the role of the father in that dram a contribute to or inhibit the
psychological and em otional stability of the subject-to-be. I then argue that
F reud's "oedipal m aster narrative" affords a clearly defined, ready-m ade dra
m atic schem a to w hich King returns tim e and again as a point of narrative
departure. Because of its fam iliarity, this schem a establishes a psychological
passagew ay betw een a num ber of K ing's w orks and their audience. Reading
King in term s of oedipal com plications brings into sharp focus his preoccupa
tion w ith the father and the num erous w ays in w hich the father potentiates
destruction in the dom estic sphere.
C hapters four and five exam ine specific narratives— THE SHINING
(chapter four) and PET SE M ATAR Y (chapter five)— to discover how King's
novels and their film adaptations com m unicate an ideology of dom estic secu
rity (in the former) and of dom estic apocalypse (in the latter).5 Both pairs of
narratives address dom estic crisis by positing the father as principal agent of
potential destruction. The Shining urges a conservative/residual vision of do
mestic security, opting for the reestablishm ent of a conventional nuclear
household follow ing the novel's exam ination of familial crisis. Kubrick's
adaptation, w ritten in collaboration w ith novelist Diane Johnson— a w riter
12
w hose w orks exhibit decidedly fem inist sensibilities— offers a m ore am bigu
o u s/em erg en t vision by killing off both good an d bad fathers, leaving the
"family" to face its future as a m other-child dyad- Both novel and film im ply
a sense of dom estic security, how ever, in that regardless of the fam ily's final
configuration, it survives as a unit. Both narratives m ay be said, therefore, to
em brace an optim ism regarding the future of the A m erican family.
PET SE M ATAR Y offers no such optim ism . In depicting the father as
agent of the fam ily's com plete annihilation, both novel and film urge a the
m atic rhetoric that places culpability for dom estic destruction squarely w ith
the paternal authority figure. This them atic argum ent is then intensified for
m ally by a lack of conventional narrative closure. In its rejection of this
structural convention, PET SEM ATARY extends its disturbing reach beyond
the "safe" boundaries of narrative to invade the outer perim eter of the core
periphery schem a; thus, in PET SE M ATAR Y paternal culpability creates a ter
ror that threatens the real reader/spectator.
M any of K ing's critics have noted his obsession w ith childhood. This
w ork was begun as a response to a slightly different observation: K ing's pre
occupation w ith the father. If, as scholars of culture, w e accept Jam eson's
notion of narrative fiction as a symbolic m editation on com m unity, the persis
tence of destructive paternity across K ing's w orks, coupled w ith the appar
ently insatiable hunger of a m ass audience for m ore of those works, im plies a
relationship that should not go unexam ined. I therefore conclude this study
13
by proposing that any "value" judgm ents w e m ay m ake regarding the w orks
of Stephen King and their adaptations m ust go beyond w h at m any have seen
as the aesthetic vacuity of those w orks to consider the w ays in w hich they
perpetuate or underm ine an increasingly diverse array of dom estic para
digm s. In locating and articulating the nature, origins, and potential
ram ifications of fam ily conflict in various m anifestations of K ing's domestic
horror narratives, w e stand to gain a greater appreciation of one of A m erica's
m ost popular contem porary authors as well as a better understanding of the
culture that has created him.
NOTES
1. See, for exam ple, Jean-Louis B audry's discussion of the "screen-mir-
ror" in "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinem atic A pparatus," Movies and
Methods, ed. Bill Nichols, vol. 2 (Berkeley: U of California P, 1985) 538-41. See
also C hristian M etz's "Identification, M irror" in The Imaginary Signifier (Bloom
ington: Indiana UP, 1977) 42-57.
2. I am not suggesting here the kind of "secondary identification" w ith
the character that ends w ith the conclusion of the novel or film but rather the
"qualities" that w e perceive in the fictional character as belonging equally to
ourselves. Such qualities are not restricted to diegetic boundaries. I w ould
never im agine m yself to be Dr. Frankenstein, but I m ay see m any of m y ow n
psychological a n d /o r sociological tendencies em bodied in his character.
3. A lthough A lthusser uses the phrase "State A pparatus," he anticipates
the confusion inherent in his chosen term s by attem pting to differentiate be
tw een the "(Repressive) State A pparatus" and "Ideological State Apparatuses."
The form er operates prim arily by violence and secondarily by ideology
w hereas the latter operate prim arily by ideology and only secondarily by vio
lence. Thus, the preferred operative strategy is the essential determ inant by
w hich A lthusser categorizes organizations such as the m ilitary, police, court
system s, and prisons as parts of the Repressive State A pparatus and institu
tions such as schools, churches, trade unions, and families as Ideological State
14
A pparatuses. But w hy, if this is the principal distinction, insist on the w ord
"state" at all? A lthusser continues:
But som eone is bound to question . . . by w hat right I regard as
Ideological State A pparatuses, institutions w hich for the m ost
p art do not possess public status, b u t are quite sim ply private in
stitutions. . . . The distinction betw een the public and the private
is a distinction internal to bourgeois law , and valid in the (sub
ordinate) dom ains in w hich bourgeois law exercises its "author
ity." The dom ain of the State escapes it because the latter is
"above the law": the State, w hich is the state of the ruling class,
is neither public nor private; on the contrary, it is the precondi
tion for any distinction betw een public and private. The same
thing can be said from the starting-point of our State Ideological
A pparatuses. It is unim portant w hether the institutions in
w hich they are realized are "public" or "private." W hat m atters
is how they function. (74, em phasis added)
A lthusser's two germ inal essays on ideology and the role of the fam ily in its
perpetuation are "Freud and Lacan" and "Ideology and Ideological State A p
paratuses," both in Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays.
4. See D avid Bordwell, Making Meaning (Cam bridge: H arvard UP,
1989) 170.
5. Because this study concerns itself w ith narrative as it occurs in dif
ferent m edia, I will designate novels by the standard convention of italicizing
their titles (The Shining). Films, on the other hand, will be signified by ALL
CAPS (THE SHINING). W hen I w ish to refer to the narrative only, w ithout
differentiating betw een novelistic and filmic m edia, the title will be italicized
and in all-caps (THE SHINING). Thus, for exam ple, THE SHINING is a do
m estic horror narrative in w hich the father attem pts to m urder his family. In
The Shining his attem pt fails largely because of the aid offered to the fam ily
by Dick H allorann. In THE SHINING, on the other hand, H allorann is m ur
dered by the psychotic father.
15
C h a pter o n e
A Theoretical Overview of Contemporary
Horror Literature and Film
This chapter review s those studies central to m y interrogation of how
ideology m ay be seen to operate in contem porary horror literature and film.
W hile I do not intend to offer a com prehensive review of all the scholarship
in all the related areas from w hich this study draw s, I do w ant to acknowl
edge those w orks that have proven of particular value and how they have
done so. I should note here that in the thirteen years since the publication of
Danse Macabre, K ing's ow n critical survey is finding credibility am ong intel
lectuals and as a result has m anaged to bridge the gap separating the "aca
demic" and the "popular," m aking its w ay increasingly into circles of discus
sion usually considered (implicitly at least) sacrosanct to the form er.1
I will begin w hat I intend here as a critical survey by pointing to a text
that evidences num erous affinities w ith Danse Macabre: James B. Twitchell's
Dreadful Pleasures: An Anatomy of Modern Horror (1985). Twitchell follows
closely K ing's structural and rhetorical strategy, organizing his study around
the same horror Trinity--"the vampire, the werewolf, and the 'hulk with no
name'" (Twitchell 10).2 He also proposes w hat is essentially a variation of
King's oft-repeated it-is-the-tale-and-not-he-who-tells-it argum ent by calling
for "a broad approach, an ethnological approach, in which the various [hor
ror] stories are analyzed as if no one individual telling really mattered" (84).
I do not w ant to criticize Twitchell on the basis of a lack of originality here
largely because I suspect the argum ents of Danse Macabre are not original
with King either. It could also be argued that the stating of similar argu
ments really serves as m uch to corroborate and validate as to indicate any in
tentional usurpation of critical ideas. A t any rate, Dreadful Pleasures reflects, I
believe, a deeper problem.
Twitchell argues that "the horror scenario is uniquely appropriate for
only one audience" (66)— adolescent males— and he rationalizes "the fascina
tion of horror" (84) accordingly:
. . . [We] know w hat is within this specific audience that keeps
it interested. It needs information. Here anthropologists, so
ciologists, and psychologists all agree: the prim ary concern of
early adolescence is the transition from individual and isolated
sexuality to pairing and reproductive sexuality. It is a concern
fraught w ith inarticulated [sic] anxiety and thus ripe for the
experience of horror. And so it is here with this audience . . .
that any study of horror should begin. (68)
Twitchell's "adolescents only" argum ent paves the way for the central thesis
of Dreadful Pleasures: "the fear of incest underlies all horror myths in our
culture that are repeatedly told for more than one generation" (93). Horror
17
i
texts of any lasting value come equipped w ith a sexual "subtext" by w hich I
i
their prim ary audience intuits w hat constitutes proper sexual behavior by ,
!
w itnessing w hat happens w hen such propriety is violated. Because horror
narratives "carry the prescriptive codes of m odem W estern sexual behavior" ,
(104), they offer their adolescent audience inform ation necessary to accom
plish the "transition" from onanism to "pairing and reproductive sexuality."
Twitchell is not the first nor the latest to link the appeal of horror w ith
drives that em erge during adolescence.3 H e m ay be the first, how ever, to
take the reductive stance that this group constitutes horror's only "appropri
ate" audience. W om en are never present at horror m ovies, asserts Twitchell
(69), and w hen older m en do occasionally attend, these "rogue m ales . . .
m ake a lot of m um bling noises and m ay even p u sh and shake the seats
around them" (69). "Often," Twitchell claims,
you can even hear these two audiences [young and old] con
verse; the adolescents interested in the young lady's health, the .
m ale rogues interested in her demise. You can occasionally
hear the young audience, especially the girls, squealing "watch
out! be careful!" to the female protagonist, w hile the older m ales
m utter, "yeah, get her, get even, knife her, punish her!" (70)
M y ow n experience (exem plifying, I suppose, the behavior of a quieter genus
of Tw itchell's rogue male) has been that the violent urgings he attributes to
the older m ale audience m ore often characterize the responses of the adoles
cent m ales.4 Still m ore frequent, how ever, is the absence of any outw ard re
action w h atso ev er-b y any m em ber of the audience. A t any rate, Tw itchell's
18
"personal observations" (69) unsubstantiated as they are by any em pirical
data, are too obviously open to attack to be taken as seriously as he w ould
have us take them.
To be fair, this kind of subjective argum ent is not characteristic of
Twitchell, but that m akes it stand out even m ore in Dreadful Pleasures. O ne
could argue, in fact, that of all possible audiences, adolescents com prise the
least "appropriate" one for horror. If intense sexual aw areness accom panies
the onset of adolescence, significantly problem atizing the subject's sense of
physical and em otional self-control, w hy, this line of argum ent m ight
dem and, aggravate an already com plicated situation by suggesting extrem ely
violent m ethods of dealing w ith these new -found urges? This argum ent m ay
seem com m onplace, b u t it has proven strikingly resilient in popular criticism
of the genre. W itness, too, that the m ajority of post-1970 horror film s call for
restricted adm ission, theoretically (if not actually) lim iting audiences to
"adults" (patrons over seventeen years old).
But if, on the other hand, horror does act as a kind of "social m anual"
for "sexual correctness," could one argue that the m ore graphic horror be
comes, the m ore "socially beneficial" it is? Twitchell seems obligated by his
position to at least hazard w hy m odern horror grow s consistently m ore sexu
ally explicit as society becomes m ore an d m ore open to public discussion of
sexual m atters at younger and younger ages. W hy do w e need horror films
to express in veiled sym bolism and graphic violence w hat is becom ing m ore
19
and m ore acceptable as a topic of open discussion? Such questions fall
squarely w ithin the pale of Dreadful Pleasures b u t go unaddressed.
O ne w onders, too, if Twitchell affords too m uch analytical sophistica
tion to his designated prim e audience. H ow m any adolescent boys absorb
the inform ation contained in a HALLOW EEN or a FRIDAY THE 13TH in
term s of "subtext"? O ne could argue, of course, that the m essages encoded in
the horror narrative pertaining to familial sexual relationships and the taboo
inscribed in the incest subtext are com m unicated at an unconscious level, but
Twitchell does not consider this in his theory of "the psychological attraction"
of horror, nor does he seem aw are of this potential objection to his stated
position. Finally, if one is not inclined to accept T w itchell's initial
"adolescents-only" prem ise, the conclusions to w hich his argum ent leads are
equally unconvincing.
I have been hard on Dreadful Pleasures for its reductive nature, and al
though I believe Tw itchell's argum ent is seriously flaw ed by its general lack
of qualification, I do find his proposed strategy— his "broad approach"— prom
ising and, in fact, m ost like the strategy I have adopted in this study. I
appreciate Twitchell's intention to avoid bogging dow n in questions of "artis
tic merit" or "literary quality" inform ing the w orks he investigates (other than
to note how such qualities, w hen present, contribute to the m ass appeal of
those works). He is m ore concerned w ith the pervasive presence of those
20
w orks and w ith attem pting to articulate w hat their consistent appeal says
about the culture w ithin w hich they circulate.5
Tw itchell's subsequent w ork in cultural studies is im pressive and
strategically diverse. Two studies of particular relevance to m y ow n are
Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste in America (1992) and Preposterous
Violence: Fables of Aggression in Modern Culture (1989). Carnival Culture
exam ines the three prim ary m edia of popular culture— m ass m arket p ap er
backs, m ovies, and television— u n der the general rubric of "the vulgar."
A lthough Twitchell points occasionally to various w ays these m edia inevita
bly fashion our ideas, how they inform ideology, his m ain objective is to lay
out a blueprint of how these m edia operate logistically. Carnival Culture is
thus not so m uch an argum ent as a catalog of inform ation in w hich "Stephen
King" surfaces time and again in the com pany of such nam es as Tom Clancy
and Danielle Steele as em blem atic of the vulgar. In Preposterous Violence,
Twitchell considers King from a m ore "aesthetic" angle, rem arking K ing's
"extraordinary talent" (292) and even going so far as to argue his "genius"
(94). The third chapter— "Preposterous Violence in Prose Fiction: The
C oronation of Stephen King" (90-128)— offers one of the m ost provocative crit
ical surveys of King's w ork that I found in m y research for this project. But
w hether Twitchell accords King genius as he does in Preposterous Violence or
excessive vulgarity as in Carnival Culture is finally beside the point. Both
attributes are significant only in that they indicate a reciprocal influence be
21
tw een King and contem porary A m erican culture. Twitchell's m ost telling
quality is his ability to give the im pression of com plete disinterest: he comes,
one m ight say, neither to praise nor condem n b u t to "illuminate."
W here Twitchell speaks in Dreadful Pleasures of "the psychological at
traction" of horror, Terry Heller speaks of "aesthetic pleasure" (17). H is The
Delights of Terror: A n Aesthetics of the Tale of Terror (1987) attem pts to define
the unique em otional experience afforded by horror literature and to discover
w hy certain of these texts outlast others, w hy som e have acquired canonical
status w hile others have not. W here Twitchell is concerned w ith num erous
m anifestations of the horror narrative and how it inform s rites of sexual
passage, H eller confines him self to "classic" literary horror and audience-
response theory. H e appropriates W olfgang Iser's notion of the "implied
reader" to account for the im pact of the m ost potent kind of horror narrative—
w hat Heller calls the "terror fantasy":
Like all literary w orks, a terror fantasy invites the reader to
use the signals of the text to construct an im plied reader and to
establish thereby an aesthetic relation to the text. Unlike m ost
literary w orks, a terror fantasy offers at least two sim ultaneously
valid b u t opposed readings. . . . This splitting of the role of
im plied reader precludes the ending of that role. As a result,
the terror fantasy produces anticlosure; it pointedly refuses to
end. (170)
This "closed loop" (170) effected by anticlosure is essentially w hat Todorov
defined as "the fantastic," b u t the im plications of being caught in this psycho
logical state of hesitation by the terror fantasy produces a very special kind of
22
terror, which, in turn, H eller argues, produces a very special kind of pleasure.
Im plicit in H eller's argum ent is that anticlosure need not pose a threat in all
literature; indeed, certain narrative genres (fantasy or rom ance, for exam ple)
m ay m ake such "intransigent am biguity" (16) quite enjoyable. In horror, how
ever,
The role [of im plied reader] m ust have an end that should coin
cide w ith the com pletion of the concretion of the work. To
frustrate this com pletion arouses anxiety in the real reader. A
key expectation is violated, if only m om entarily, but the effect
reverberates along the entire system by w hich the real reader
participates in the w ork. . . . [S]uch an experience, even w hen so
brief as in these w orks, can be seriously shocking. (40, italics in
text)
The only w ay to escape the terror of the terror fantasy is in recognizing the
im plied reader as a psychological construct, as a p art of oneself that can be
abandoned to the text. In releasing the im plied reader, H eller claims, the real
reader experiences "liberation" (196).
Also of im portance to the psychological im plications of the terror
fantasy's anticlosure (and the processes of escape an d liberation in w hich it
involves the reader) is the notion of "aesthetic distance"— "the relationship be
tw een the reader and the whole w ork at any stage in the reading process" (2,
italics in text). A lthough Heller does not pursue the possibilities of aesthetic
distance in cinem atic analysis, the concept is clearly adaptable to that as well
as other alternative narrative media. The m anipulation of aesthetic (or "psy
chological") distance should prove an im portant aspect of the overall potency
of any horror narrative and, as w e will see in chapter four, is one w ay that
Stanley K ubrick is able to effectively unnerve the spectator of THE SHINING.
The ideological im plications of H eller's argum ent are equally intrigu
ing. In their use of anticlosure and forced recognition of aesthetic/psycholog
ical distance, terror fantasies bring the process of subject form ation to a level
of consciousness that other m odes of horror literature do not:
Terror fantasies are unique am ong w orks of literature in their
m anipulation of aesthetic distance in a w ay that m akes a partic
ular version of the reader's self into a p art of his [sic] concretion
of the w ork, thus bringing that self in its relations to ideology
before the reader's ow n consciousness. (186)
By forcing the real reader to recognize the im plied reader as a construct, the
terror fantasy im plies "that all versions of the self are fictional and, therefore,
changeable" (196, em phasis added). Terror fantasies thus throw considerable
light on the shadow y process of ideological m anipulation.6
Carol Clover takes a different approach to the question of terror in her
investigation of the contem porary horror film. In Men, Women, and Chain
Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (1992), Clover em ploys form alist and
deconstructive strategies to contend that characters are "gendered" by their
position, or function, w ithin the narrative (I w ill deal w ith the P roppian
notion of character function in greater detail in chapter four.):
. . . [TJhere is som ething about the victim function that w ants
m anifestation in a fem ale, and som ething about the m onster and
hero functions that w ants expression in a male. Sex, in this uni
verse [the universe of the horror film], proceeds from gender,
not the other w ay around. A figure does not cry and cow er be
24
cause she is a w om an; she is a w om an because she cries and
cowers. A nd a figure is not a psychokiller because he is a man;
he is a m an because he is a psychokiller. (12-13)
This inversion of cause and effect allows for the superim posing of gender on
to horror film characters w ith no regard w hatsoever for their biological m ake
up. Victims are gendered fem inine, heroes an d m onsters m asculine. A nd
just as characters are gendered according to their function in the narrative,
spectators are likewise gendered according to their position in the narrative
transaction.
I assum e that Clover w ould agree w ith H eller's notion of terror as "the
fear that harm will come to oneself" (DT 19), although her study is not so
concerned w ith arguing the validity of definition as it is w ith the notion that
this particular em otional response carries specific gender implications:
Abject terror . . . is gendered fem inine, and the m ore concerned
a given film is w ith that condition— an d it is the essence of
m odern h o rro r-th e m ore likely the fem aleness of the victim. . . .
Cinefantastic horror, in short, succeeds in incorporating its
spectators as "feminine" and then violating that body— which
recoils, shudders, cries out collectively— in w ays otherwise
im aginable, for m ales, only in nightm are. (51, 53)
All spectators of horror films are "gendered" fem inine. A s audience m em
bers, w e are assaulted, subjected to a particularly brutal kind of violence
practiced on us by the im ages we confront. This encourages our identifica
tion w ith on-screen surrogates on the basis of their narrative function rather
than on the basis of their sex.
25
C lover's argum ent calls into question som e fundam ental assum ptions
of fem inist film theory, not the least of w hich is the proposition that the
"gaze" is "controlling" and thus gendered as inherently m ale.7 W hen m en go
to a horror film, C lover argues, they choose to assum e a fem inine position,
for to incorporate such im ages is to be in som e way(s) violated, entered. One
is tem pted to object, how ever, on the basis that the very act of choosing m ay
itself be perceived as a "masculine" prerogative. A lthough C lover does not
address this objection directly, she evidently anticipates it and tactfully side
steps it by questioning why m en w ould choose to position them selves in this
way. W here a m ore conventional line of argum ent m ight presum e m asochis
tic tendencies as m otivating this aspect of the horror film experience, Clover
takes a different stance. She reasons that contem porary m ale audiences are
"m ade u p of the sons (and daughters) of the 'new fam ily' of the sixties and
seventies (w om an-headed fam ilies, families w ith w orking m others), for w hom
'sufficient' female figures are m ore plausible than they m ight have been to an
earlier generation" and because these m ale audiences "by the sam e token . . .
m ay not have experienced adult m ale authority in the sam e form or degree as
earlier generations" (231).
This issue of redefining fem ale authority will be dealt w ith m ore com
prehensively in the follow ing chapter, and notions of the gendered gaze will
be addressed and problem atized in m y discussion of PET SEMATARY in
chapter five. Sufficient for now is the recognition that for Clover, substantial
26
reasons no longer exist to equate (unquestioningly at least) a m ale spectator's
assum ption of a fem inine position w ith vulnerability a n d /o r m asochistic im
pulses. Films such as THE ACCUSED and I SPIT O N YOUR GRAVE further
concretize her position. Both film s encode the fem inine as an aggressive
w illingness to vie for one's personal rights, in term s of legal justice (in the
form er) a n d /o r m oral justice (in the latter).8 The desire of the m ale and
fem ale spectator to assum e such a position seem s understandable in a w orld
of increasing bureaucratic alienation and the feeling that one's ow n govern
m ent and various other repressive apparatuses (conventionally coded and per
ceived as "male") are concerned only w ith exploiting the individual for their
ow n purposes. To be an individual in such a society, w here alienation is
nourished by m onolithic corporations an d governm ental corruption is to be
gendered in w hat traditionally is perceived as feminine. Clover thus draw s
specific sociological and psychological associations grounded in a social
theory of gender rather than in biological distinctions of sex.
O ne of the m ost am bitious recent studies of the horror genre is N oel
C arroll's The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart (1990). Carroll
offers an adm irably rigorous and elaborate "philosophy," m uch of w hich will
prove valuable (although often as antithesis) to m y ow n argum ent. Like Hel
ler and Twitchell, Carroll proffers a reason for the appeal/attraction of
horror, and like H eller he places em phasis on form al elem ents as determ i
nants of our aesthetic response to the horror narrative. Unlike H eller, how
27
ever, C arroll pursues a m ore conventional line of argum ent, seeing closure
rather than anticlosure as the essential elem ent effecting a positive response.
O ur interest in the horror narrative "is an interest that the plot has engen
dered in how certain forces, once p u t in m otion, w ill w ork them selves out.
Pleasure derives from having our interest in the outcom e of such questions
satisfied" (179). The sam e argum ent could be posited for any narrative,
regardless of its genre, b u t horror differs, says Carroll, in that "it has at the
center of it som ething w hich is given as in principle unknowable" (182, italics
in text). Thus, Carroll sees the pleasure w e derive from horror as originating
in the reassertion of repression (an argum ent Robin W ood has also m ade)
w hereas H eller argues that the finest pleasure em erges n o t w hen w e experi
ence repression b u t w hen w e recognize it, w hen w e are virtually forced by the
narrative to understand the psychological m echanism s on w hich the horror
narrative plays.9
The unknow able som ething at the center of C arroll's theory is the
m onster, defined by him as "any being not now believed to exist according to
reigning scientific notions" (35). This "m onster or a m onstrous entity is a
necessary condition for horror" (16). Such an "entity-based" (41) stipulation
underm ines C arroll's pursuit of a "com prehensive theory" prim arily because
it smacks of prescription. If horror (or C arroll's m ore audience-centered "art-
horror") is an em otion (as Carroll argues it is), then surely one m ust entertain
the possibility of eliciting that em otion by depicting an event or events as
28
well as by m onsters.1 0 As w e will see, a num ber of K ing's m ost effective
horror narratives follow an "event-based" logic in that they attem pt to
generate horror by hypothesizing situations rather than entities.1 1 To insist,
as C arroll does, that horror cannot be evoked w ithout the presence of a m on
ster is needlessly reductive.1 2
Perhaps w hat appears to prom ise the m ost volatile conflict betw een
m y ow n project and The Philosophy of Horror occurs in C arroll's chapter four,
in the segm ent titled "H orror and Ideology" (195-206). C arroll decries the
ideological analysis of horror on the basis that "m any horror fictions seem too
indeterm inate from a political point of view to be correlated w ith any specific
ideological theme" (197). A lthough this claim seem s on the surface to p u t
C arroll at total odds w ith the agenda of the present study, such w ill not
prove to be the case. I w ill show that apparent differences betw een m y
position and C arroll's come d ow n not to a m ode or technique of textual anal
ysis b u t to a definition of ideology.1 3
Carroll equates ideology w ith political dom ination throughout his dis
cussion of "H orror and Ideology"; indeed, the two are synonym ous for him.
Because, then, m any horror narratives are "politically vague or trivial" (204),
they cannot be adequately interrogated using ideological strategies of analy
sis:
I do not deny that a given w ork of horror fiction could be used
rhetorically to su p p o rt a dom inant, repressive social order in
given circum stances. A nd w ith such cases, I do not doubt that
29
an ideologically m inded critic could show how a given w ork or
a group of w orks prom ote an ideologically pernicious view
point. W hat I do deny is that horror fiction either alw ays or
necessarily operates in this way. (204)
But in those instances (and I agree w ith Carroll that there are m any) in w hich
horror does not operate "in this w ay"— that is, "to support a dom inant, repres
sive social order"— is ideology a non-issue? Carroll believes it is. M y ow n
position is that ideology can never be a non-issue. W hat Carroll objects to,
how ever, is not ideological analysis in the Jam esonian/A lthusserian sense
that I have outlined in the introduction to this study, b u t rather to a narrow ly
defined and overtly political m ode of analysis. For Carroll, ideology is ipso
facto repressive, a position w hich m any in the field of culture studies m ay
share w ith him b u t w hich an equal num ber, m yself am ong them , do not.
In fact, because m ass m arket narratives are largely regarded as politi
cally vacuous ("merely entertainm ent"), they have a decidedly ideological
potential that m ore overtly political rhetoric has not. James K avanagh has
rightly observed that "A horror film does not w ork in the sam e w ay as a
cam paign speech, though it is in fact the kind of address that w orks better
and for mare people” (313, italics in text). Robin W ood takes K avanagh's ob
servation one step further w hen he argues regarding the horror film that
For the film m akers as w ell as for the audience, full aw areness
stops at the level of plot, action, and character, in w hich the
m ost dangerous and subversive im plications can disguise them
selves and escape detection. This is w hy seem ingly innocuous
genre m ovies can be far m ore radical and fundam entally u n d er
m ining than w orks of conscious social criticism, w hich m ust
30
alw ays concern them selves w ith the possibility of reform ing as
pects of a social system w hose basic rightness m ust not be chal
lenged. (PR 174, HfVtR 78)
W hat W ood's argum ent reasserts is that ideological "messages" are so deeply
ingrained in the cultural unconscious that their inclusion in a particular text
is inevitable although often not even acknow ledged by the creator of that
text.
In Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie
(1989), A ndrew T udor tracks the horror film from 1931 to 1984, proposing a
structuralist m apping of these films into a system of "paired oppositions" (8).
For m y ow n project, the m ost im portant of T udor's oppositions will be that
betw een "secure" and "paranoid" horror. O ther sem antic oppositions around
w hich T udor organizes his study include supernatural/secular, ex tern al/in
ternal, and autonom ous/dependent. In the first of these the "distinction is on
the degree to w hich a film 's taken-for-granted genre w orld presum es a sepa
rate order of reality as its prim ary source of m onstrous threat" (9). Unlike
Dreadful Pleasures and The Philosophy of Horror, Monsters and Mad Scientists
considers film s such as PSYCHO and TARGETS (Bogdanovich 1968) horror
film s m ade no less horrifying by the fact that "the threat is 'this-w orldly'"
(9).u The in tern al/ex tern al dichotom y attem pts to address "the threat's
practical locus of application" (10), and the au to n o m o u s/ dependent dichot
om y distinguishes betw een those threats that are "sim ply there" (a la Twitch
ell and Carroll) and those that are "consequences of hum an actions" (10).
O ne advantage of T udor's system is that it has practical applications
not necessarily lim ited to film b u t that m ay be applied to literature as well.
U nfortunately, a m ajor disadvantage is that the theory only "works" in cases
of the sim plest narrative structure. Regardless of the chosen narrative m e
dium , the system gets extrem ely unw ieldy as one begins to p u t it to practical
use. C om binations of the dichotom ies allow eight possible narrative types,
but determ ining to w hich category a given narrative belongs can becom e at
best highly subjective, at w orst virtually im possible.1 5
To take one of m any potential examples: K ing's Carrie w ould seem to
exem plify the se cu la r/in terio r/d e p en d e n t narrative type. The threat is secu
lar: the m anifestation of C arrie's telekinetic pow ers is "explained" (pseudo-
scientifically) as a possible, if bizarre, result of her reaching the age of
m enstruation. A dm ittedly, the explanation stretches T udor's stipulation that
secular horror pertains to "the everyday 'n atu ral' w orld" (9), b u t it seem s de
fensible in light of his ow n claim that "invaders from space [and] prehistoric
m onsters . . . are quite clearly 'secular'" (9). But is the threat in Carrie
"interior" or "exterior"? A lthough the threat resides inside C arrie's physical
and psychic being, it is not a "threat" to her per se but to those unfortunate
enough to occupy her im m ediate environm ent at the m om ent of her w rath.
It w ould seem that, for these unfortunates at least, the threat m ust be desig
nated as external. This, how ever, prom pts another question: w ho is vic
tim ized by this threat? The tow nspeople of Cham berlain, M aine w ho are sub
32
jected to C arrie's apocalyptic tem per tantrum are obviously victim s, yet a
fundam ental prem ise of the narrative is that Carrie is herself a victim of her
environm ent. It is her ow n exasperation w ith that environm ent that initiates
the ensuing apocalypse.
If, then, the question of w hom w e are to view as the prim ary victim(s)
cannot be determ ined definitively in Carrie, there does appear a fairly clear
indication that the threat is "dependent," that it is a consequence of hum an
actions, does there not? Perhaps, b u t even though C arrie's telekinetic pow ers
are triggered by external forces (her m other and schoolmates), the origins of
telekinesis are so vague as to suggest the phenom enon just is; thus, w e arrive
back at our initial point of investigation, the origins of C arrie's telekinetic
pow ers, w ithout having adequately answ ered questions crucial to validating
the practicality of T udor's m odel. Equally difficult problem s and am biguities
arise w ith any num ber of other fictions, especially those like The Stand, in
w hich a supernatural and a secular threat are at work. Such problem s could
perhaps be resolved by revising T udor's m odel, b u t as it stands in Monsters
and Mad Scientists, that m odel cannot account for those narratives involving
m ore than one threat.
The m ost provocative aspect of T udor's "cultural history," how ever,
lies in his tracing of a decisive shift in em phasis that originated "som ew here
in the sixties" (102). He labels this shift as a m ovem ent from secure horror to
paranoid horror.1 6 The form er places em phasis "on effective expertise, on
33
clear boundaries betw een know n an d unknow n, on the desirability of existing
order and on the significance of our dependence on socially central paternal
istic authorities" (215). In the latter, how ever,
Everyone is open to attack, an d no one stands out as the inevita
ble locus of successful resistance. Instead, w e have no choice
b u t to becom e involved w ith characters w hose survival is do u b t
ful and w ho, in the absence of authoritative defenders, are
throw n back onto their ow n resources. In this context the sm all
group is central as a basic u n it of defence, and it is notable that
the fam ily (or a surrogate fam ily grouping) has grow n in signifi
cance as p art of the paranoid genre's social setting, both as an
institution open to m etam orphosis or invasion and as a crum
bling bastion against outright social disorder. (216-17)
The w orld of "classic" horror films is generally m ore or less secure w hereas
the w orld of post-1968 (NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and w idespread
V ietnam anxieties) is m uch m ore paranoid. T udor then goes on to argue that
"by the eighties alm ost all horror m ovies are show ing a strong paranoid
inclination" (218).
This "paranoid inclination" is not lim ited to horror movies, how ever.
Twitchell notes a sim ilar inclination in contem porary popular literature:
A lm ost all the blockbuster w riters— Robert L udlum , Frederick
Forsyth, M ario Puzo, James Clavell, H elen M aclnnes, Stephen
King, Leon Uris, H arold Robbins, Ken Follett, Sydney Sheldon—
m anage to w eave concussive scenes into the unravelling of
national and personal paranoia. (CC 127)
The pervasive presence of this paranoid inclination poses, im plicitly at least,
an elusive question: w hy? W hy has this m ovem ent from secure to paranoid
horror taken place, and w hy is it "notable that the fam ily (or a surrogate
34
fam ily grouping) has grow n in significance as p art of the paranoid genre's
social setting"? W hat, in short, is the connection betw een an increasingly
pronounced sense of sociocultural paranoia and the fam ily? W hat, too, are
the ideological im plications of such a shift as it is m anifest both them atically
and structurally in the contem porary horror narrative? These are questions I
will begin to address m ore fully in chapter two and to w hich I will return
throughout this study. Sufficient for the m om ent is the recognition that no
single answ er can account for any one of them. All are heavily overdeter
m ined, but in posing them I hope to reach som e insights into the tensions
constituting the A m erican political unconscious.
A longside the book-length studies I have foregrounded here, a body of
essays exists that attem pts to deal w ith the depictions and the role of fam ily
in contem porary popular horror. Two essays of critical im portance are Tony
W illiam s's "H orror in the Family" and "Am erican C inem a in the '70s: Family
H orror." In the first essay W illiam s argues that in 1970s' horror films,
"w hatever supernatural explanations appear on the surface, it is A m erican
society and fam ily that are seen as the real m onsters. H ence the era of the
fam ily horror film, a period w here the genre's radical dim ensions came into
explicit realisation" (14). The essay catalogs a num ber of films that develop
in varying degrees issues of dom estic attack/m onstrosity. W illiams provides
critical synopses of films directed by Craven, Rom ero, an d Bob C lark am ong
others, b u t he cites Larry C ohen (IT'S ALIVE, IT LIVES AGAIN) as "perhaps
35
the m ost im portant talent of the decade" (17).1 7 In "Am erican C inem a in the
'70s," W illiam s explores m ore closely specific links betw een V ietnam sensibili
ties spanning popular (un)consciousness and their m anifestation in the horror
genre. M aking explicit som e of the argum ents he leaves im plicit in his earlier
article, W illiams provides in this essay m ore in-depth critical analyses of films
by C raven (LAST HOUSE O N THE LEFT, THE HILLS HAVE EYES) and Ro
m ero (MARTIN, THE CRAZIES).
W hat is m ost interesting about W illiam s's tw o articles is that they fo
cus on the w ays in w hich the fam ily is depicted as m onstrous rather than on
the fam ily's vulnerability. Unlike T udor's "crum bling bastion" argum ent,
W illiam s im plies that if dom estic vulnerability has a role in seventies horror,
it is that it breeds frustration and hostilities that eventually find outlet in
various form s of dom estic m onstrosity. Far from seeing the fam ily as a "basic
u n it of defense," W illiams points to those films that depict the fam ily as
m ounting m onstrous offenses against the forces of social order. In one of his
m ore telling quotes, he refers to a statem ent m ade by W es C raven in 1979:
"'It's not that there are violent people out there w aiting to break into our ow n
affluent circle. No. We are those people'" (123). C raven's argum ent finds its
m ost disturbing dram atization in LAST HOUSE O N THE LEFT (1972), a
grueling rape-revenge horror film in w hich two "normal" (i.e., stereotypical)
parents resort to m urder in order to avenge the rape arid m urder of their
d aughter w hen the legal apparatus proves com pletely inept.
36
A nother im portant pair of essays focusing on the horror film 's con
cerns w ith the dom estic sphere include Vivian Sobchack's "C h ild /A lien /F a
ther: Patriarchal Crisis and Generic Exchange" and that essay's "abridged
version'i--"Bringing It All Back Hom e: Fam ily Econom y an d Generic Ex
change"— in G regory W aller's American Horrors. Sobchack's project differs
from W illiam s's in that she seeks to clarify the w ays that dom estic fears like
those cited and catalogued by W illiams establish them atic bridges linking
horror w ith other popular genres. She traces a "historically-situated generic
convergence" ("C /A /F " 7) of horror, science fiction, an d fam ily m elodram a
through A m erican genre film s of the nineteen-seventies an d early -eighties:
Engaging in an urgent and dynam ic exchange w hose goal is ultim ately
conservative, together the three genres attem pt to contain, w ork out,
and in som e fashion resolve narratively the contem porary w eakening
of patriarchal authority, an d the glaring contradictions w hich exist
betw een the m ythology of fam ily relations and their actual social
practice. (10)
A pervasive am bivalence inform s a num ber of im portant films from all three
genres, signaling the presence of culturally shared anxieties that Sobchack
links to a fading patriarchal ideology.
The horror film "moves to single o u t D ad as the prim ary negative force
in the m iddle-class family" (13); thus, it "plays out the rage of a paternity
denied the econom ic and political benefits of patriarchal pow er" (14). The
"family m elodram a," on the other h an d — in films such as KRAMER VS.
KRAMER (Robert Benton 1979) and ORDINARY PEOPLE (Robert R edford
37
1980)--"plays out an uneasy acceptance of patriarchy's decline" (14).1 8
Sobchack's concern, how ever, is w ith the failure of either genre to adequately
answ er its ow n underlying fears:
Both the horror film and the fam ily m elodram a play out sce
narios w hich do not resolve the dilem m a faced by a contem po
rary patriarchy u n d er assault. The form er genre dram atizes pa
triarchal im potence and rage, the latter patriarchal w eakness and
confusion— both generated by the central and problem atic pres
ence of children. If the child is figured as pow erful at the "ex
pense" of the Father, then patriarchy is threatened; if the Father
is figured as pow erful at the "expense" of his child, then pater
nity is threatened. In both cases, the traditional and conceivable
future is threatened. . . . Once perceived as identical in bour
geois capitalist culture, patriarchy and paternity have been re
cently articulated as different and at odds— one pow erful effect
of w hite, m iddle-class fem inist discourse. This difference
em erges as a m ajor problem w hen patriarchy as a political and
econom ic pow er structure and paternity as a "personal" and
subjective relation both locate them selves in the sam e place (the
hom e) and seek to constitute the sam e object (the child). The
horror film an d the fam ily m elodram a serve to represent the
horns of this dilem m a— b u t neither is able to resolve it satisfac
torily. (16-17)
Science fiction creates by w ay of characters such as M ichael Biehn's Kyle
Reese (THE TERMINATOR, Jam es C am eron 1984) and Jeff Bridges's extrater
restrial in STARMAN (C arpenter 1984) the vision of a father w ho, although
"visually projected as visible absence, is narratively inscribed as invisible pres
ence" (30, italics in text); thus, "one dom inant strain of the contem porary
science fiction film" (17) offers the m ost satisfying resolution of this pater
n a l/ patriarchal dilem m a.
38
A lthough her concerns are prim arily w ith how science fiction fits into
the "generic exchange" equation, Sobchack's observations on the prom inence
of dom estic them es in horror film s of the last two decades w ill have im por
tant im plications for m y ow n study. G ranted, both her an d W illiam s's
studies are sim ilarly limited: Sobchack restricts herself to m ainstream (big-
budget) films w hereas W illiams lim its his project the other w ay, confining
him self prim arily to low -budget horror films. Together, how ever, these four
essays provide a solid foundation from w hich to launch a critical cultural
inquiry into dom estic them es articulated in the m odern horror film.
Each of the w orks I have cited here has in som e significant w ay im
pacted m y ow n conceptions of how ideology operates through the narrative
transaction of horror, and each w ill periodically and in various w ays play
into m y ow n argum ent(s) throughout this study. In the chapter that follows,
I w an t to look at the general state and nature of those changes that current
studies (sociological as w ell as narratological) see as inform ing the ideological
ap p aratu s of the family. This should provide sufficient grounds on w hich to
argue that fears and anxieties spanning the fictional landscapes of K ing's
novels and the film adaptations of those novels constitute one m ajor reason
King has attained and sustained the popular success he has.
39
NOTES
1. See especially chapter three of James Tw itchell's Preposterous Violence
(Oxford UP, 1989), Carol C lover's Men, Women, and Chain Saws (Princeton UP,
1992), and chapter thirteen of David J. Skal's The Monster Show (N orton,
1993). See also chapter seven (238-61, passim ) of G regory W aller's The Living
and the Undead (U of Illinois P, 1986) for an extended ideological analysis of
'Salem's Lot.
2. T hat Twitchell w as aw are of Danse Macabre is evident by the n um er
ous references he m akes to it. It is difficult to understand how , in light of
this aw areness, Twitchell can propose that "no one has ever tracked the m ajor
carriers of horror— the vam pire, the w erew olf, and the 'h u lk w ith no nam e'—
from their lairs in the subconscious, u p through folklore, into the printed text
(Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and M r. Hyde, and Frankenstein), and then out into w h at is
now a veritable jungle of cinematic m onsters" (10). King had done precisely
this four years earlier, organizing his argum ent around "the Vam pire, the
W erewolf, and the Thing W ithout a N am e" (DM 50), the "three archetypes"
(77) of m odern horror and even focusing on the sam e trilogy of novels Tw it
chell cites (DM 49-81). Perhaps m ore significantly, how ever, is the fact that
both King and Twitchell follow in the footsteps of R. H. W. Dillard, w ho at
tem pted a sim ilar project fourteen years prior to Danse Macabre and alm ost
tw enty years prior to Dreadful Pleasures. D illard cites the sam e three arche
types b u t includes am ong them "the m um m y"— thus, "the four prim ary fig
ures w ho have entered our m inds from the horror film" (73-74).
3. See W alter Evans (1973) and Carol Clover (1992).
4. A nd I am not alone. Robin W ood recounts undergoing a sim ilar ex
perience w hile "W atching [THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE] recently
w ith a large, half-stoned youth audience w ho cheered an d applauded every
one of Leatherface's outrages against their representatives on the screen . . ."
(PR 191). As for audience constitution, Carol Clover describes w hat is per
haps an even m ore telling anecdote:
O ne of the surprises of this project has been the num ber of w h at
I once thought of as unlikely people— m iddle-aged, m iddle-class
people of both sexes-w ho have "come out" to m e about their se
cret appetite for so-called exploitation horror, and I have devel
oped a great respect, through conversations not only w ith them
b u t w ith teenage fans, for the variety and richness of people's re
lationship to such texts. (M W CS 7)
5. The study that follows w ill attem pt to do this as well, although I
assum e a m uch broader audience for horror than Twitchell is w illing to, and
40
if m y study necessarily engages from time to tim e in "evaluative" literary
a n d /o r cinem atic analysis, its principal intent is to rem ain as objectively
"semiotic" as possible.
6. I have not attem pted to differentiate betw een "terror" an d "horror" in
this study prim arily because num erous attem pts to differentiate betw een
these two em otions exist, and all seem highly subjective, intended m ore to
clarify a given author's ensuing argum ents than of dem anding universal
agreem ent. A study such as H eller's, for exam ple, m ust differentiate betw een
the two before it can even state its case. M y argum ent should not stand or
fall on this particular issue; thus, to hazard yet another definition w ould sim
ply ad d to w hat is already a confusing (and, I believe, indeterm inable) de
bate. I will refer, therefore, throughout this study to those cultural artifacts
w ith w hich I am concerned as "horror" narratives. I will, how ever, address
the im portance of distinguishing betw een those horro r narratives that exhibit
closure and those that do not. Definitional approaches to the "terror/horror"
problem atic can be found (am ong others) in A nn Radcliffe's "On the Supernat
ural in Poetry" (rpt. in Dobree ix), Stephen King's Danse Macabre (16-28), Terry
H eller's The Delights of Terror (19, passim ), Jam es Tw itchell's Dreadful Pleasures
(16-22, passim ).
7. M uch has been w ritten on this subject since L aura M ulvey's now
classic essay, "Visual Pleasure and N arrative Cinem a," w here M ulvey argues
that in the cinematic narrative transaction "pleasure in looking has been split
betw een active/m ale and passive/fem ale" (19) gazes. O ne of the m ore pro
vocative m editations on this issue in the context of horror is voiced by Linda
W illiam s in "W hen the W om an Looks." W illiam s rem arks in the horror cin
em a "a surprising (and at tim es subversive) affinity betw een m onster and
w om an, the sense in w hich her look at the m onster recognizes their sim ilar
status w ithin patriarchal structures of seeing" (85). W illiam s argues that this
affinity often prom pts w om en spectators to identify m ore strongly w ith m on
sters than do their m ale counterparts because w om en share w ith m onsters a
"sim ilar status as potent threats to a vulnerable m ale pow er" (90). See also
"A fterthoughts on 'V isual Pleasure and N arrative C inem a'. . ." for M ulvey's
response to the recurring criticism that her "Visual Pleasure . . ." neglects the
fem ale spectator.
8. There are, how ever, clear-cut differences betw een big-budget horror
film s such as THE ACCUSED an d low -budget film s of the I SPIT O N YOUR
GRAVE ilk. Like other ideologically m inded critics before her, Clover ad
dresses the social an d political ram ifications attending "the fiscal conditions of
low -budget film m aking" to argue that "creativity and individual vision can
prosper there in w ays that they m ay not in m ainstream environm ents" (5).
The sam e position inform s Robin W ood's com parative analysis of THE
41
OM EN and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (PR 185-91, H fV tR 87-94)
and D. N. R odow ick's analysis of C raven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES in "The
Enem y W ithin: The Econom y of Violence in THE HILLS HAVE EYES" (PR
321-330). Rodowick argues that low -budget horror offers "an ideological al
ternative to m ainstream film practice" (321). H e then reads C raven's film as
signifying through the staging of violent confrontations betw een two families-
-one ostensibly "normal" and one m onstrous— "an ideological stalem ate w hich
m arks not the trium ph and reaffirm ation of a culture, b u t its internal disin
tegration" (330). In C lover's com parative analysis of THE ACCUSED and the
low -budget exploitation film I SPIT O N YOUR GRAVE, Clover assum es an
unorthodox (from a fem inist perspective), b u t persuasive, "friendly" position
to the latter, arguing that "it exposes the inner w orkings of THE ACCUSED
and film s like it" (151). As for the form er, "from the perspective of those in
volved in real-life m ale-on-fem ale violence, THE ACCUSED, in its im plication
that the story is over w hen the m en are sentenced, is pure Pollyanaism " (149).
9. Robin W ood's theory of basic and surplus repression can be found
in p art one of his "An Introduction to the A m erican H orror Film" in Planks of
Reason (164-200) and in chapter five of Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (70-
71). I deal m ore extensively w ith this issue in chapter four of this study.
10. "'A rt horror'," says Carroll, "nam es the em otion that the creators of
the genre have perennially sought to instill in their audiences, though they,
undoubtedly w ould be m ore disposed to call this em otion 'h o rro r' rather than
'art-horror'" (24). I have elected to follow in the tradition of "the creators of
the genre" here since, like distinctions betw een horror and terror, the distinc
tions Carroll articulates betw een horror an d art-horror will n o t prove crucial
to m y argum ent.
11. Thinner, for exam ple, generates its horror by im agining w h at w ould
h appen if an overw eight, m iddle-class h u sband and father w ere suddenly to
find him self unable to stop losing w eight. The short story "Survivor Type"
(SC 407-26) is a "Robinson Crusoe" narrative in w hich a castaw ay, m arooned
on an island w ith no food source, has only one chance for survival: am putate
various parts of his body and cannibalize him self in the hope that som eone
w ill eventually find him.
Both narratives are typical exam ples of K ing's adm ixture of event-
based horror w ith im plicit satirical social com m entary. Both can be read as
general m editations on the w hole notion of "consum erism " or as attacks on
the "thin-is-in" health trend, carrying each to its absurdly logical conclusion.
N either, how ever, em ploys the services of a m onster.
12. Robin W ood has offered a sim ilar argum ent in his "simple an d ob
vious basic form ula for the horror film: norm ality is threatened by the Mon-
42
ster" (See PR 175, H fVtR 78). Like C arroll's, W ood's form ula is tem ptingly
sim ple, but both prove inadequate prim arily because they assum e the pres
ence of a m onster as a necessary condition for the horror narrative.
13. This dilem m a is not peculiar to this study. Terry Eagleton opens
his Ideology: An Introduction w ith a recognition of just this "problem":
N obody has yet come u p w ith a single adequate definition of
ideology. . . . This is not because w orkers in the field are re
m arkable for their low intelligence, b u t because the term "ide
ology" has a w hole range of useful m eanings, not all of w hich
are com patible w ith each other. To try to com press this w ealth
of m eaning into a single com prehensive definition w ould thus
be unhelpful even if it w ere possible. (1)
14. I have already noted C arroll's reductive stipulation regarding the
definition and presence of a m onster ("any being not now believed to exist
according to reigning scientific notions" [35]). C onsistent w ith his theory
PSYCHO does not exem plify horror "because N orm an Bates is not a m onster.
H e is a schizophrenic, a type of being that science countenances" (38). James
Twitchell takes a sim ilar position in Dreadful Pleasures: "Horror m onsters are
literally m arvelous, truly fantastic. The m yth will never explain them , b u t
one thing is certain: they are not atom ic m utants, unloved children, jilted
lovers, or schizophrenics. They just are, an d alw ays have been" (21). T udor's
position, on the other hand, parallels that of C harles Derry, who proposed in
Dark Dreams that "horror-of-personality" film s com prised the "most im por
tant" of three "new subgenres" (17) of 1960s horror. The other two w ere the
"horror of A rm ageddon" (THE BIRDS, N IG H T OF THE LIVING DEAD, etc.)
and the "horror of the dem onic" (ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE EXORCIST, etc.)
T udor corroborates D erry's assessm ent of the horror-of-personality films,
finding that "over 90 per cent of films involving psychotics appear after 1960"
(the year of PSYCHO's release) and that psychotics m ake u p tw enty eight per
cent of all horror film m onsters, m ore than any other single m onster-type
(20).
15. T udor's eight categories:
1) su p e rn atu ral/ex te rn al/d e p en d e n t
2) su p ern atu ral/ex tern al/au to n o m o u s
3) su p e rn a tu ra l/in te rn a l/d e p e n d e n t
4) su p e rn atu ral/in te rn al/au to n o m o u s
5) se cu la r/e x te rn al/d ep e n d en t
6) secu lar/ex tern al/au to n o m o u s
7) se c u la r/in tern a l/d ep e n d e n t
8) secu lar/in tern al/au to n o m o u s
43
16. G regory W aller m akes a sim ilar observation in "Seeing It Through":
[M]ost horror film s released since 1968 (the year of N IG H T OF
THE LIVING DEAD and ROSEMARY'S BABY, and also the
year the M otion Picture A ssociation of A m erican [sic] instituted
its 'In d u stry C ode of Self-Regulation') insist that the m onstrous
threat cannot be destroyed once an d for all. (20)
17. C ohen's resum e includes DIAL RAT FOR TERROR (1972), BLACK
CAESAR (1973), HELL U P IN HARLEM (1973), IT'S ALIVE (1974), DEMON
(1976), THE PRIVATE FILES O F J. EDGAR HOOVER (1977), IT LIVES
AGAIN (1978). C ohen rem ained throughout the eighties one of the m ost
consistent film m akers in the horror genre. His nineteen-eighties film s include
Q (THE W INGED SERPENT) (1982), PERFECT STRANGERS (1984), SPECIAL
EFFECTS (1985), THE STUFF (1985), ISLAND OF THE ALIVE (1987), RE
TURN TO SALEM'S LOT (1987), DEADLY ILLUSION (1987), and WICKED
STEPMOTHER (1989). In 1990 C ohen w rote and directed a low -budget
"thriller" called THE AMBULANCE.
18. In "The N ew Male M elodram a," Dave Kehr suggests, on the other
hand, that the point of film s like KRAMER VS. KRAMER is that "fathers
m ake the best m others— and that, therefore, the 'liberated' w om an w ho w alks
o u t on her husband and child, as M eryl Streep's Joanna K ram er does, w on't
be m issed. . . . In the N ew M elodram a, m other and father are now repre
sented in one figure— that of the sensitive parent. (46) As I will show in
chapter four, K ubrick's THE SH INING exem plifies this fusing of parental
functions into one, although the "sensitive parent" is, in that case, the m other.
44
C h a pt e r tw o
The "Domestic" Horror Narrative
As its nam e im plies dom estic horror is set in the hom e, its narrative
concerned prim arily w ith affairs of fam ily, specifically w ith its survival. Yet
before w e can pursue even so fundam ental a definition, w e face a significant
problem : the very contem porary am biguity surrounding the term family. A ny
definition of contem porary dom estic horror m u st begin, then, by asking first,
w h at is a family? I w ant to consider this question from both a theoretical
and a practical perspective. Theoretically, the fam ily is a m icrocosm of soci-
ety, w hat Freud called in Civilization and Its Discontents "the germ -cell of
civilization" in w hich the subject7to-be first experiences "the eternal struggle
betw een the trends of love and death" (SE 21: 114, 133) inherent in the oedi-
■ ----------------- -— — ------ ,---------------——— -— -------— O f cut
pal dram a that leaves its indelible m ark on each and every individual subject
This is the sense in w hich Jam eson speaks of~the-institution-of-the fam ily as
die basic m ediation betw een the experience of the child . . . and . society at
Jlarge" (PU 43). The fam ily, for Althusser,jronstitutes^ pite^pf societyjs^elemen-
tal "Ideological State A pparatuses," perpetuating ideology through "concrete
kinship structures" and "the concrete ideological form ations in w hich the spe
45
cific functions im plied by the kinship structures (paternity, m aternity,,child-
hood) are lived" ("F&L" 217).
From a practical perspective, A m erican ..culture.has ..witnessed since
1960 significant transform ations in this m ost germ inal of ideological appara
tuses, transform ations perceived by m any as equal in intensity and reach to
those associated w ith the onset of industrialization in late-eighteenth-century
England. Sociologists Steven M intz and Susan Kellogg, for exam ple, reported
in 1988 that in the U.S. "'traditional' families consisting of a breadw inner
father, a housew ife m other, an d one or m ore d ep en d en t children accounted]
for less than 15 percent of the natio n's households," com pared to "Over 70
percent. . . in I960" (203). Such statistics are due in part, no doubt, to a
consistently rising divorce rate— w hich, according to Jonathan Rauch, "more
than doubled betw een 1960 and 1980" (31)--and a grow ing w illingness on the
p a rt of w om en to have an d raise children outside perceived constraints of
m arriage. These factors help to account for the fact th at "In 1985, 23 percent
of all fam ilies w ith children u n d er age 18 w ere m aintained by a single parent,
usually the m other" (Cherlin 5).1
O f married m o thers w ith children under age eighteen, "By 1987, about
15 m illion . . . w ere w orking or seeking w ork, accounting for 64 percent of
the m others w ith children that ag e-co m p ared w ith 30 percent two decades
earlier" (Levitan 89). As for m arried w om en in general, they num bered
tw enty-seven m illion as of 1987„ and, "com prised ^close to one^fourth of the
46
entire labor force" (Levitan 90). Thus, Judith Stacey w rites in Brave New
Families of "the rise and fall of the m o d em nuclear fam ily system in the
U nited States" (6), concluding that ''the household form that has com e closer
than any other to replacing the m odern [Stacey's designated term for 'con-
ventional nuclear'].fam ily w ith a new cultural and statistic norm consists, of„a
tw o-earner, heterosexual m arried couple w ith children" (269).
W ithin this fundam ental and ongoing reconstitution of the A m erican
\
fam ily, other, even m ore radical configurations, are becom ing increasingly
legitim ized. Philip G utis reports, for exam ple, a decision handed d ow n in
July of 1989 by N ew York State's C ourt of Appeals. The court m aintained
"that a gay couple w ho had lived together for a decade could be considered a
fam ily under N ew York C ity's rent-control regulations" (A l). G utis's article
cites four criteria designated by the court "for determ ining w hat kind of rela
tionship qualifies as a family":
"Exclusivity and longevity" of a relationship.
The "level of em otional and financial com m itm ent."
H ow a couple has "conducted their everyday lives an d held
them selves out to society."
The "reliance placed u p o n one another for daily fam ily
services." (B16)2
Perhaps the m ost glaring om ission here is blood ties.
47
The politics of defining family has thus becom e increasingly com pli
cated, em bracing issues related to fundam ental structure — a result of increases
in single-parent households (especially single m others) and hom osexual par-
enting— financial liability,,and-even .the,economics of rent-control. Regardless,
how ever, of the causes one attaches to the phenom enon, the fam ily has be
com e a social institution no longer perceived as necessarily "nuclear," nor is it
restricted to or bound by blood^ r el a tions. O n the contrary, the fam ily is an
increasingly am orphous organism , defined loosely as a nu rtu rin g institution
• - -7a, " — - • ■
com prised of people w ho care for an d su p p o rt one another econom ically,
em o tionally,v and psychologically.
The lack of a precise definition of family provides the cultural context
for the kinds of fears and anxieties the dom estic horror narrative arouses.
W e can see this best, perhaps, if w e consider the narrative tradition out of
w hich contem porary dom estic horror evolves~the tradition of gothic ro
m ance. From the earliest m anifestations of w hat m ay be said to constitute a
broadly defined "gothic" sensibility, the violation, survival, and potential tran
scendence of fam ily have been issues of central concern.3 In, for exam ple,
the novel generally recognized as in augurating the gothic genre— H orace W al
pole's The Castle of Otranto (1764)— W alpole attem pted to evoke a sense of
horror by juxtaposing the dom estic an d the supernatural. W alter Scott's In
troduction to the 1821 edition of W alpole's novel proposes that "It w as
48
[W alpole's] object to d raw such a picture of dom estic life an d m anners, d u r
ing the feudal times, as m ight actually have existed, an d to paint it chequered
and agitated by the action of supernatural m achinery" (W alpole 121). But
perhaps m ore im portantly, long before Scott proffered his argum ent, W alpole
him self (in the guise of translator) h ad pointed to the cautionary status of
Otranto, perceiving of the novel as a "moral" argum ent concerned w ith "the
sins of fathers" (W alpole 16).
A concern w ith fam ily com parable to that evidenced in Otranto re
m ains a prom inent them e in other early gothic novels as well. A nn Rad-
cliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) follows its orphaned heroine through
adoption into two diam etrically opposed households— M ontoni's and C ount
De Villefort's— as if to dem onstrate the evils of unrestricted patriarchy in the
form er in order to redeem it in the latter. The novel then presents as its
happily-ever-after an assurance of patriarchy's perpetuation via Emily and
the "m uch m isrepresented" (652) Valancourt.4 Like The Mysteries of Udolpho,
M ary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) is structured around a dom estic dram a, al
though unlike its predecessor, it ends in tragedy an d destruction.5 A m erican
gothicist C harles Brockden Brown creates in Wieland; or, The Transformation
(1798) w h at m ight be designated the first gothic novel to indulge in the "fam
ily psycho" subgenre, a strain of m odern horror that rem ains extrem ely vi
brant in w hat C harles D erry has called "horror of personality" films.6 Thus
from the earliest stages of a properly "gothic" enterprise, w e observe a n arra
49
tive strategy crucial to a full appreciation of the contem porary dom estic hor
ror narrative: the invasion of a m un d an e w orld at the point of th at w orld's
m ost germ inal social institution— the fam ily, a "com m unity" essential to the
preservation and continuance of that w o rld 's existence— by an unnatural and
m alevolent agency.
The early gothic's concerns w ith issues of dom esticity w ere d u e in part
to the anxieties surrounding received notions of fam ily in late-eighteenth
century England. W hen W alpole published Otranto in 1764, E ngland w as
coping w ith num erous social an d cultural changes resulting from the grow th
of industrialization. The fam ily w as not im m une to these changes, an d in the
peasantry the effects w ere m onum ental. Elaine and W alter G oodm an have
assessed som e of the w ays that industrialism 's transform ation of the social in
frastructure affected sm all-landow ners an d the peasantry:
N ew m achines transform ed entire econom ies. N ew industries
sprung up; new factories w ere built; an entire new w orking
class w as created. . . . The old-style fam ily of perhaps a dozen
people proved u n su ited to the changed conditions. O n the feu
dal estate, large fam ilies h ad been an advantage because every
body could w ork and there w as no shortage of living space.
But the factory could n o t guarantee w ages to every m em ber of a
family. Usually, the h u sb an d and father had to sup p o rt all the
others, and an ordinary w orker's pay w as not enough for the
upkeep of m ore than his w ife and children, if that. W hereas on
the farm every m em ber of the fam ily had been a producer, in
the city all b u t one w ere consum ers, at least until children w ere
old enough, at age ten or thereabouts, to be sent into the m ines
or mills. (53)
50
For low er-class English fam ilies— the social sector th at w o u ld becom e know n
in the early nineteenth century as the "working" class— the Industrial Revolu
tion signaled a death and rebirth of sorts. W ith the increase of m achine-pro-
duction, the established notions of dom estic industry that had characterized
agrarian preindustrial England w ere no longer practical. Capital replaced
labor as the determ inant of social stability, and those w ho could not afford
the expensive m achinery that w ent w ith establishing such capital w ere des
tined to rem ain in the position of com m odifying w h at they did have: their
labor potential. Such social and dom estic upheavals caused trem endous anxi
eties th ro u g h o u t all social strata.
Fam ilial them es continue to figure prom inently in nineteenth-century
descendants of the early gothic novel as is evidenced in w orks by Elizabeth
G askell ("The O ld N urse's Story" [1852] and "The Doom of the Griffiths"
[1858]), Em ily Bronte (Wuthering Heights [1847]), J. Sheridan Le Fanu ("Carmil-
la" [1872]). Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) posits a "family" of vam pire killers
and opposing G ood and Evil "fathers" in Van H elsing and C ount Dracula.7
Likewise, from the earliest stages of an evolving A m erican gothic, w e find the
foregrounding of fam ily as a particularly effective narrative strategy, from
B row n's Wieland (1798) through som e of the m ost en d u rin g w orks of Poe
("The Fall of the H ouse of Usher" [1839]) and H aw thorne ("Young G oodm an
Brown" [1835] an d The House of the Seven Gables [1851]), extending into the
contem porary fictions that will be of prim ary concern in the present study.
51
The confrontation of "dom estic life" w ith (som etim es only apparently) "su
pernatural m achinery" cam e early to signal w hat Jam eson has called a "deter
m inate contradiction" central to the gothic sensibility and, as we will see,
rem ains one of the m ost pow erful structural antinom ies by w hich the contem
porary dom estic horror narrative invites ideological analysis.
Like the gothic rom ance from w hich it descends, the contem porary do
m estic horror narrative em erges in a m om ent of unprecedented (and, in
m any w ays, frightening) technological an d sociological change. But contem
porary dom estic horror differs from the early gothic in several im portant
w ays. Unlike W alpole's influential novel and the tradition of "high" gothi-
cism it inaugurated, dom estic horror, as I intend this term , does not set its
narrative in a rem ote past b u t rather in the here-and-now , in the postindus
trial m ultinational technocracy of (usually) m iddle-class Am erica. In its use
of contem porary setting, it m ore closely resem bles the A m erican gothic of
Brown, H aw thorne, an d Poe, w riters w ho had perhaps realized the num bing
psychological distance that w ould have resulted had they chosen to set their
gothic tales in the kind of Anglo-Saxon feudal past that h ad no real referent
in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America. Yet, w hereas the A m erican
gothic, like its E uropean counterpart, sought to create strange settings, the
present-day popular dom estic horror narrative achieves a great deal of its ef
fect by setting its narrative in the everyday— the typical suburbia of IT'S
52
ALIVE (Cohen 1976), POLTERGEIST (H ooper 1984), or A NIGHTM ARE ON
ELM STREET (Craven 1985).
Thus, it is not unusual to find th at the underlying contradictions m oti
vating the narrative concern issues of class or social status. (W itness, for
exam ple, the clash of a van-load of m iddle-class youth w ith a working-class
fam ily of m urderers in Tobe H ooper's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
[1974].) As a narrative strategy, this lessens the psychological distance be
tw een the sym bolic environm ent of the artifact an d the extradiegetic em piri
cal environm ent w ithin w hich it circulates, intensifying thereby the horrors
expounded w ithin the narrative an d giving any sym bolic interpretation of it a
political an d ideological im m ediacy m ore accessible to a m ass audience than
those w orks that defined the early gothic.8
A second distinction lies in the presentation of the dram atis personae,
for although the foregrounding of fam ilial them es links dom estic horror to
the tradition of gothic rom ance, the form er's focus on the group distinguishes
it from that tradition. If, that is, as N orthrop Frye has argued, "rom ance
deals w ith individuality" an d "a cult of the hero" (305-306), the dom estic hor
ror narrative deals w ith collectivity an d w h at m ight be called a "cult of the
group." C onsistent, that is, w ith the fears inspired by a culturally shared
sense of am biguity associated w ith contem porary definition(s) of fam ily, do
m estic horror is not as concerned w ith the survival of individual subjects as it
is w ith the survival of the unit. Thus, w h at A ndrew T udor has proposed as
53
specific to paranoid horror, I w ould suggest applies equally to both paranoid
and secure horror w hen one enters the w orld of dom estic horror: "Everyone
is open to attack, an d no one stands out as the inevitable locus of successful
resistance" (216).
Such is not generally the case in early gothic. W hereas, for exam ple,
our fears in A nn Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho are projected onto and
filtered through the novel's heroine, Emily St. A ubert, our concerns in dom es
tic horror are w ith the fam ily u n it (or its surrogate group). Thus, in POL
TERGEIST, Carol A nne Freeling serves as a pivotal character-like Em ily St.
A ubert she is a threatened innocent— b u t she is not w h at w e could properly
call the film 's protagonist. N either is five-year-old D anny Torrance the pro
tagonist of THE SH INING ; indeed, the w hole notion of a single protagonist is
underm ined by dom estic horror. O ur fears m u st extend to the entire family.
A gain, this is n o t the case in Udolpho, w here after the early exits of
Emily St. A ubert's natural parents— their deaths occurring too early in the nar
rative to allow us any significant em otional or psychological attachm ent to
their characters— her surrogate parents inspire no such fear on the reader's
part; indeed, our desire is increasingly for the dissolution of the novel's
grotesque parody of the nuclear family. Em ily's aunt an d guardian, M adam e
C heron/M ontoni, is essentially the evil stepm other of fairy tale, a w ealthy
and selfish petty tyrant "whose inclinations led her into a life of dissipation,
w hich her am ple fortune encouraged" (98-99).9 She exhibits frequent and ob
54
vious disdain for her charge so that readers feel less regret over her death at
the hands of her grasping husb an d than a sense of ironic justice having been
served. O ur reaction to Signor M ontoni's eventual and suspicious death is
d iluted even m ore drastically by its being reported indirectly in the narrative
and w ell after the fact, reaching Emily by w ay of a m essenger from her friend
M onsieur Q uesnel, w ho h ad learned of the death in his tu rn from "a friend."
Thus, w hereas the deaths of Em ily's natural parents early in the novel serve
to assure her tem porary im prisonm ent w ithin an alien fam ilial system of op
pressive authority (her im prisonm ent in Castle U dolpho literalizing this cen
tral m etaphor), the deaths of Signor and M adam e M ontoni free her to begin a
new life (and "proper" fam ily) w ith her (appropriately sentim ental/heroic)
lover, Valancourt. In each instance, how ever, the deaths of intim ate relations
serve to m ove Radcliffe's heroine onw ard in her personal quest for her ow n
position (as wife and m other) w ithin the social fram ew ork.
N o com parable rom antic plo t energizes the typical dom estic horror n ar
rative. This absence is due in p a rt to w hat constitutes a third distinction
betw een dom estic horror an d the gothic rom ance from w hich it descends:
w hereas the prepubertal subject has virtually no place in the gothic, it often
assum es a central position in dom estic horror. This is due at least in p a rt to
the fact that the gothic rom ance usually strives tow ard the creation of "a new
fam ily w hich duplicates the virtues of the initial one" (D urant 520) w hereas
dom estic horror seeks to restabilize an already existing fam ily. In the gothic
55
rom ance, Frye's cult of the hero m ust concern itself prim arily w ith the young
adults w ho represent the future. Thus, the narrative strives tow ard an im m i
nent closure of w hich the nuptials com prise an im portant elem ent. Otranto
concludes w ith the (adm ittedly som ew hat sober) m arriage of T heodore and
Isabella. Udolpho m oves ponderously tow ard the eventual un io n of Emily
and V alancourt, Wieland tow ard that of C lara W ieland and H enry Pleyel.
In dom estic horror, how ever, the striving is alw ays for the reinstating
of an external analeptic1 0 calm w ith regard to the narrative fam ily, a calm
signified by the m undane activities w e w itness in the early portions of the
narrative (Steve Freeling's neighborhood get-together to w atch a football
gam e; Diane Freeling's m aking of the beds in the children's room s). Ro
m ance an d courtship are to be understood as events constituting an even
m ore distant analepsis, im portant prim arily for their contrast w ith the im
p en d in g narrative dilem m a and as p a rt of a pre-narrative "given"— situated
im plicitly in the larger "story" out of w hich the narrative is excised— rather
than as p a rt of the im m ediate concerns of the narrative discourse.1 1 Thus,
any nuptials inevitably occupy an assum ed m om ent preceding the opening of
the narrative proper. The dom estic horror narrative alw ays tries, then, in its
forw ard m ovem ent, to recreate in som e w ay or to som e appreciable degree a
recent an d (ostensibly at least) tranquil past.
O f course, it m ight be argued that the gothic rom ance is also an at
tem pt to retu rn to the past. Otranto's T heodore is the reincarnation of Al-
56
fonso, V alancourt of the patriarchal authority em bodied in St. A u b e rt But in
gothic rom ance, the new fam ily, the fam ily that em erges as the result of the
events recounted in the narrative proper, valorizes a longstanding (and thus)
"venerable" tradition, assuring the continuance of a revered ancestry. In do
m estic horror, on the other hand, the fam ily is often the same group of indi
vidual subjects at the conclusion of the narrative as at its beginning. The
em phasis in dom estic horror need not rest so m uch on securing the future by
valorizing tradition (although in its m ore reactionary m anifestations it w ill do
this) as by presenting an institution adaptable to progressive change in the lit
eral present.
THE EXORCIST (Bla tty .1971 /E ried k i n 1973), for exam ple, evidences a
fairly traditional reverence for fam ily b u t not for the conventional "nuclear^
one; .thus,. by..(re)defining-fam ilyjin-non-traditional ("progressive") term s as a
tw o-m em ber, m other-daughter dyad, the narrative underlines the necessity
for adaptability to change. Likewise, The Talisman (King 1984) recounts a
young boy's literal quest for the object that will restore his m other's health
and thus reinstate their dyadic family. PET SEMATARY TWO (M ary Lam
bert 1992) depicts in an early sequence the further fragm enting of a decom
posing nuclear fam ily caused by the death of the m other. The eventual ac
ceptance of her death and the bonding of father and son valorizes an all-male
father-son dyadic family.
57
To retu rn to a pre-existing state of fam ilial calm, how ever, the fam ily
' of the contem porary dom estic horror narrative m u st survive any num ber of
threats. These threats m ay com e from outside the fam ily ap p aratu s in the
form of supernatural oppression (THE AM ITYVILLE HO RROR, The Parasite
[Ramsey C am pbell 1980], A NIGHTM ARE O N ELM STREET), vam pirism
CSALEM 'S LOT, "One for the Road," Interview with the Vampire), ghosts or
spirits (The House Next Door [Anne Rivers Siddons 1978], POLTERGEIST,
BU RN T OFFERINGS [Robert M arasco 1973/D an C urtis 1976]), even outer
space (The Searing [John C oyne 1980], THE TO M M YKNO CKERS [Stephen
K ing 1987/John Pow er 1993]). It m ay originate w ithin the fam ily, taking the
form of a psychotic parent— either father (HELTER SKELTER, THE STEPFA
THER, RAISING CA IN [De Palm a 1992]) or m other (CARRIE). But m ost
often, the threat com bines this in tern al/ex tern al dichotom y, originating as
som e form of paranorm al force outside the fam ily before taking control of a
fam ily m em ber, w here the threat is then able to incubate w ithin the fam ily
structure, threatening to destroy it from w ithin.1 2 As w e w ill see, in this
situation the "m onster" is typically either a prepubertal child— in the tradition
of THE EXO RCIST or THE O M E N -o r the father h la THE SHINING an d THE
AMITYVILLE HORROR.
W hen the preadolescent subject occupies w h at A ndrew T udor has
called "the threat's practical locus of application" (10), it m ay figure as p u re
j m onster (RO SEM ARY'S BABY, IT'S ALIVE, THE OM EN) or as threatened-in-
58
nocent (THE SHINING , POLTERGEIST), even conflating at tim es both roles
(THE EXORCIST, Interview with the Vampire, FIRESTARTER [Stephen King
1980/M ark Lester 1984]). This capacity for am biguity allow s for a great
degree of em otional a n d /o r psychological m anipulation on the p a rt of the
dom estic horror narrative, effecting a very different k in d of response from
th at elicited b y the m ore post-adolescent "sexual aw akening" orientation of
gothic rom ance.
W hen the dom estic horro r narrative's th reat takes the form of w h at I
w ill call th e "m onster-father," it appropriates a m uch m ore conventional char
acter-type than the child-m onster, one that resem bles the patriarchal villain of
gothic m elodram a h la Otranto's M anfred or Udolpho's M ontoni. Yet dom estic
h o rro r's m onster-father differs from its gothic p rototype in im p o rtan t ways.
For one, the m onster-father intends the destruction of the fam ily apparatus of
w hich he is a part. In THE SH INING , Jack T orrance has one obsession: the
destruction of son D anny an d w ife W endy. In THE STEPFORD W IVES W al
ter E berhart w ilfully participates in the m u rd er of his wife, Joanna. These
acts differ if n o t in outcom e certainly at least in m otivation from those of the
quintessential gothic p atriarch /v illain . G ranted, M anfred m u rd ers his only
daughter, M atilda, b u t th at m u rd er results from a case of m istaken identity,
M anfred believing the figure he stabs to be Isabella.
Survival of the Family
I begin m y m apping of the historical developm ent of Am erican dom es
tic horror in the late sixties because the sixties inaugurated such an upheaval
in received notions of family, hom e, and w idely sanctioned notions of social
acceptability. Early developm ents in this particular strain of horror literature
and film coincided w ith a severe questioning of so-called dom estic norm s by
various sectors of the cultural community. The counterculture's initiation of
a sexual revolution under the ideological banner of "free love" reconsidered
the taboo on sex outside of m arriage. The w om en's liberation m ovem ent
found increased support from w om en and m en alike as it articulated m any of
the silent oppressions w om en experienced w ithin (and w ithout) the hom e
throughout different economic strata of American society. N ational senti
m ents regarding Am erica's presence in Southeast Asia became m ore and
m ore politically volatile, resulting in some of the m ost vicious internal vio
lence in Am erican history. But as M intz and Kellogg have pointed out, "The
challenge to older family values w as not confined to radical m em bers of the
counterculture, the N ew Left, or the w om en's liberation m ovem ent. Broad
segm ents of society w ere influenced by, and participated in, this fundam ental
shift in values" (208).
Indeed, nightly television new s ushered into cultural consciousness a
seem ingly endless fare of violence from Southeast Asia, bringing the Vietnam
6 0
conflict hom e w ith a clarity no w ar had ever had for m ainstream Americana.
This violence created a violence of its own, a backlash against the govern
m ent that h ad entangled Am erican soldiers in a w ar m aking little or no sense
to m ore and m ore viewers. This backlash took the form of protests in n u
m erous ideological apparatuses, not the least of w hich w ere the film and tele
vision industries.
Perhaps m ore than any other m edia, television sensitized the citizenry
to the degree to w hich they were being duped by the governm ent. As a
result, a heightened sense of suspicion and outrage rooted in a general fear of
censorship began to emerge. In the m idst of such a sensitive and potentially
volatile subject, the M otion Picture Association of America established its rat
ings system. As G regory W aller points out, this ratings system allowed "hor
ror films m uch m ore freedom than pre-1968 films in the explicit treatm ent of
sex, nudity, profanity, and w hat are euphem istically called 'ad u lt' them es like
incest, necrophilia, rape, and cannibalism" (AH 5-6). Thus, the sixties proved
to be very m uch a decade of ideological transition for the American family:
transition from the idyllic portraits of fam ily life left over from the fifties to a
m ore hard-edged, politically m inded culture of the seventies.
A nother of the m any determ ining factors inform ing this "fundam ental
shift in values" lay in the unwillingness of m any m iddle-class youth to accept
the sacrifice and repression that they perceived as having governed their
parents' lives. Social analyst Daniel Yankelovich describes his ow n research
experience:
W hen I studied the student revolt in the sixties I rem em ber
how struck I w as by how extensively students identified w ith
the suppressed elements in their parent's lives. Alm ost univer
sally, they w ere living their parents' fantasies, dream s the
parents had not perm itted themselves to act out. This
accounted for the awesom e intensity of parental interest in the
cam pus revolt of the period, and their ambivalence as they
w atched w ith fascinated horror as their children acted out their
ow n rejected impulses. (174)
The student riots of the sixties and early seventies erupted as dram atic
m anifestations of a kind of society-wide return of the (previous generation's)
repressed. Looked at in this w ay, it seems only natural that the horror
narrative w ould have targeted hom e and family, expressing various forms of
a culturally shared paranoia in term s of family-centered horror, a horror that
elicited m uch of its effect by dram atizing the breakdow n of the apparatus via
a grow ing ideological gap betw een parents and their offspring.
T he M onster-C hild
One of the m ost effective w ays of dram atizing familial breakdow n and
its attendant fears proved tqbe.positing^the.duld.as m onster. Ray Bradbury
______ ...................................................................................................................................................... .......................... ' J J
had explored this idea m uch earlier than the sixties in short stories such as
"The Small Assassin" (1948) and ‘ T he Veldt" (1950), and W illiam M arch's The
Bad Seed (1954) "established the pattern of the 'evil child' novel that w as to
become one of the m ost popular subgenres in contem porary dark fantasy"
(Barron 280).1 3 But it is over the last two decades that the m onster-child
evolved into arguably the m ost pervasive m ode of domestic horror. In 1967
Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby dram atized in at least two ways a w idening
fissure that threatened to destroy the family from within. The chasm
betw een parent and child is the m ost obvious, depicted in the narrative as an
unbridgeable distance defined by the essence of being— defined, that is, by the
hum anity of Rosem ary W oodhouse contrasted w ith the inhum anity of her
in the sense of each one's personal ambition (or desire). Rosem ary's vision of
her future is one of family unity, and it is significant, in ligh t of the historical
m om ent in w hich Levin's novel appeared, that a character w ith such,.a vision
is so prom inently naive, trusting, and finally acquiescent to the m alevolent
forces that have conspired .to_yiolate. not, onlyJ\er. h p d y Jju L h e r^ h i^
well. Guy W oodhouse, on the other hand, seeks only self-gratification-
aw ay not his soul but his wife's hum anity to assure the attainm ent of his
. . . "They prom ised m e you w ouldn't be hurt," he said. "And
you haven't been, really. I m ean, suppose you'd had a baby
and lost it; w ouldn't it be the same? A nd w e're getting so
m uch in return, Ro."
She p u t the handkerchief on the table and looked at him. As
hard as she could she spat at him. (213)
dem onic child
Rosem ary and her husbani A n equally great distance separates Rosem ary and her husband, Guy,
goal:
63
These kinds of them atic fissures separating p aren t from child an d spouse
from spouse signify fam ilial fragm entation that is especially destructive
because it originates within the apparatus. That Levin h ad tapped into som e
of the m ost intense unconscious fears of the A m erican po p u lar unconscious
seem s evidenced by the recognition his novel and the subsequent film
adaptation received.1 4
As Vivian Sobchack has pointed out,
the privileged figure of the child condenses and initiates a
contem porary and pressing cultural dram a. T hat dram a
em erges from the crisis experienced by A m erican bourgeois pa
triarchy since the late 1960s and is m arked by the related dis
integration an d transfiguration of the traditional A m erican
bourgeois fam ily. (AH 176)
The innocent child transform ed into an uncontrollable m onster, thus p ro v id es
a biological m etaphor of sociocultural frustrations an d anxieties regarding a
crum bling A m erican dream , and the potentially deadly confrontations taking
place in the dom estic horror narrative becom e signifiers of broader
mr-im -i - n — 'lif t W l* ^ HUr^r ' *' " 1 1 ------— n t ' l ~i ' II n * » H ' ' ■ ! > i " I 'l n ■ HI i .
sociocultural confrontations dividing the A m erican collectivity.
W illiam Peter Blatty's The Exorcist (1971) experienced even greater
com m ercial success in its first year of publication than had Rosemary's
Baby.1 5 The Exorcist becam e ”[o]ne of the m ost generally popular books of
the 1970s" (Barron 227) at least in p art because it dram atized Sobchack's
notion of "the disintegration and transfiguration of the traditional A m erican
bourgeois family," dealing w ith the horror of dom estic invasion at a m om ent
64
in w hich the narrative's reconstituted fam ily is especially vulnerable. W e are
told in the novel that Chris M acN eil an d her h usband H ow ard h ave recently
divorced and that eleven-year-old R egan M acNeil seem s to be dealing w ith
her ow n psychological-and“em dSdhal resp*6nses”t0~this riew ipaternal-vacancy
by taking on an im aginary friend, a "Captain How dy." Thus the association
is m ade betw een the absence of the father and the onset of dem onic attack on
the family:
The child h ad loved her father deeply, yet h ad never reacted
visibly to her p aren ts' divorce. A nd C hris d id n 't like it. M aybe
she cried in her room ; she d id n 't know . But Chris w as fearful
she w as repressing an d that her em otions m ight one day eru p t
in som e fearful form. A fantasy playm ate. It d id n 't sound
healthy. W hy "How dy"? For H ow ard? H er father? Pretty
close. (42-43, italics in text)
W e eventually learn that the attack on the M acNeils is orchestrated by m ore
than "a fantasy playm ate"; indeed, Regan has been possessed by "a poor
struggling dem on" (277) that calls him self Pazuzu. As a sym bolic m editation
on the com m unity of 1970s A m ericana, how ever--w here fathers w ere in
creasingly absent and m others increasingly b urdened w ith total responsibility
for the care of their children--the narrative's concern w ith an apparently
disintegrating dom estic norm m ust have intensified its popular appeal.1 6
Significantly, too, all three of the dem on's eventual victims are father
figures: Burke D ennings, as C hris M acN eil's closest m ale friend, becom es a
kind of father surrogate for Regan, an d paleontologist Lankester M errin and
psychiatrist D am ien K arras are both literally "fathers" in the Catholic priest
65
hood. The novel thus asssociates the vulnerability of the transfigured family
w ith the absence of the father— both the literal father (H ow ard) an d the sym
bolic fathers of the C hurch. (Chris M acNeil is an atheist, and Regan has no
religious upbringing.) Indeed, filled as it is w ith C hristian theology, the
novel can be read as a rejection of the "God Is Dead" ideology foregrounded
in Rosemary's Baby and so prom inent in the late sixties.1 7 In its attem pt to
reestablish the analeptic fam ilial norm , THE EXO RCIST is finally w hat King
(and W ood) w o u ld call a typically reactionary horror narrative because it
reinstates the status quo (validating the religious ideology of orthodox
Catholicism ), arguing that the affirm ation of the darkest of D ark Lords proves
the existence of a Divine O pponent.1 8 The novel's (and the film 's) closure,
the reinstitution of order, is extrem ely reassuring. H ouston and K inder note
the telling gesture: "As she prepares to drive aw ay w ith her m other, Regan,
w ho is said to rem em ber nothing, su d d en ly stares at Father D yer's collar and
reaches u p to kiss him , show ing that her unconscious know s for all tim e
w hence her help cometh" (51). Barron, too, points out that although the
novel "is very contem porary [read 'unconventional'] in its scenes of graphic
horror and obscenity,"
. . . it is very conservative, even old-fashioned, in the w orldview
that provides the context for these actions. Evil is aw esom ely
pow erful, m an is w eak, and divinity seem s am biguous, b u t in
the end, evil is vulnerable, m an [szc] finds the courage an d de
term ination needed, an d divine help is strongly im plied, if not
overtly dem onstrated. (194)
66
As Barron argues, both the novel and the film that follow ed exem plify
the reactionary horror narrative. They exam ine traditional values, b u t w here
as a m ore progressive argum ent w ould associate those values w ith obsoles
cence and antiquity, THE EXORCIST valorizes them even as it locates them
in a different, a "contem porary," cultural setting. In doing so, the narrative
subjects those values to an ostensibly radical kind of social interrogation
w hile arguing ultim ately for their tim eless w orth. But THE EXO RCIST is not
unequivocally reactionary, for although the parent-child relationship is
reaffirm ed, the notion that such a bond requires a traditional nuclear fam ily
w ithin w hich to flourish is rejected. It is, quite literally the "father" w ho
saves the day, b u t he is an alien father w ho remains alien, a father from
outside the fam ily an d one w ho, in saving the reconstituted fam ily, affirm s its
validity w ith his ow n sacrifice. Thus, THE EXORCIST suggests that the best
father is he w ho is w illing to accept his ow n expendability from the fam ily
unit. H e does not attem pt (nor does he desire) to enter the fam ily, only to re
instate its pre-narrative stability as a reconstituted ("fatherless") institution.
A nother variation of the m onster-child invested w ith supernatural
m alevolence is the child vam pire. Stephen K ing's 'Salem's Lot (1975) offers a
brief b u t harrow ing scene of paranoid horror w hen school-bus driver Charlie
R hodes is attacked by an entire bus-load of vengeful vam pire children (368-
70). In "One for the Road," Booth, the short story's narrator, recounts his
confrontation w ith new -born child-vam pire Francey Lumley:
67
. . . She w as no m ore than seven years old, an d she w as going
to be seven for an eternity of nights. H er little face w as a
ghastly corpse w hite, her eyes a red an d silver that you could
fall into. . . .
. . . I could see her m outh opening, I could see the little fangs
inside the pink ring of her lips. Som ething slipped dow n her
chin, bright and silvery, and w ith a dim , distant, faraw ay hor
ror, I realized she w as drooling. . . . (NS 311)
Such m anifestations of the m onster-child produce a significant am bivalence,
an adm ixture of sym pathy an d revulsion, because the child, although victim
ized, is now as a result of that victim ization transform ed into a m onster.
Perhaps now here in p o p u lar horror is this am bivalence m ore
pronounced than in infant-seductress C laudia of A nne Rice's Interview with
the Vampire (1976). W e encounter at C laudia's birth into vam pirism the
m utual horrors associated w ith the m onster-child an d the m onster-father in a
single scene described by Louis, the reluctant interview ee of the novel's title:
. . . "We [Louis an d his vam pire m entor, Lestat] stood there w ith
her betw een us. I w as m esm erized by her, b y her transformed,
by her every gesture. She w as not a child any longer, she w as a
vam pire child. . . .
"'You bastard!' I w hispered to [Lestat]. 'Y ou fiend!'
"'Such language in front of your daughter,' he said.
"'I'm not your daughter,' she said w ith the silvery voice. 'I'm
m y m am m a's daughter.'
"'N o dear, not a n y m o re/ he said to her. H e glanced at the
w indow , an d then he sh u t the bedroom door behind us and
turned the key in the lock. 'Y ou're our daughter, L ouis's
d aughter and m y daughter, do you see? N ow , w hom should
you sleep w ith? Louis or m e?' A nd then looking at m e, he
said, 'P erhaps you should sleep w ith Louis. After all, w hen I'm
tired . . . I'm not so kind.'" (95, italics in text)
68
The innocent C laudia is thus reborn a m onster-child, no longer her "m am m a's
daughter" b u t the offspring of two m onster-fathers. By nature of her (re)con-
ception an d initiation into a sym bolic order in w hich she is variously p ro
jected as child, lover, and m other, C laudia is doom ed to live a m onstrous
existence— m aturing m entally w hile rem aining locked inside a child's body—
and to die a violent death at the h ands of her ow n m onster kin.
But the child-m onster is not lim ited to the supernatural causes of
dem onic possession a n d /o r vam pirism . The sam e year that Blatty published
The Exorcist, Thom as Tryon published a very different k in d of horror novel in
The Other, a dom estic horror narrative w hose m onster-child em erges as a re
su lt of a "bizarre transference" (210). A m ischievous H olland Perry com m its
accidental suicide by falling dow n the fam ily w ell w hile attem pting to hang
his grandm other's cat. A lthough the event occurs analeptically (as the narra
tor's flashback), it is the key to our u n d erstan d in g of The Other. Yet Tryon
disguises its authenticity by em ploying the services of a m entally disabled
narrator w ho we discover late in the novel is H olland's "good" tw in brother,
Niles.
N iles Perry functions in the narrative transaction as w hat Seym our
C hatm an has term ed a "hom odiegetic narrator":
In other w ords, narrative discourse recognizes tw o different
narrative beings m oving u n d e r the sam e nam e ['narrator']: one,
the heterodiegetic narrator, inhabits only discourse tim e and
space; another, the hom odiegetic or character narrator, also
speaks from discourse tim e and space b u t [he or she has also]
previously inhabited story time and space" (145, m y em phasis).1 9
The heterodiegetic narrator speaks of h e /s h e /it/th e y /e tc .; the hom odiegetic
narrator speaks of "I" and "we." As hom odiegetic narrator, N iles speaks not
only from the present discourse space b u t about a kind of "discourse-space-
once-rem oved," a tim e and place he once inhabited b u t n o w m u st reconstruct
by m em ory. Once w e u n d erstan d N iles's hom odiegetic status, the effect is
one of im m ense shock an d disorientation. N iles's lucidity in m isrepresenting
actual events is directly proportional to the totality of his psychological
deterioration: the m ore insane he becom es, the m ore convincing are the false
hoods he com m unicates to the reader.
N iles, unable to accept his brother's death, introjects H olland's "dark"
self into his ow n psyche in a m ystical an d hom oerotic m arriage of inner-
selves sym bolized by N iles's kissing of his brother's corpse:
[Niles] reaches out a hand. Lifts the lid. Sees a face; that face.
"Holland?" N o reply. Yet he is there— zf is not a dream. For a
long tim e he stands staring at the face on the pillow , the satin
pillow . . . .
. . . U pon his ow n, those lips feel stiff, rubbery, unnatural. In
his nostrils a peculiar odor, m edicinal, like form aldehyde. . . .
"H olland-"
Holland. Hollandhollandholland . . .
A gain his ow n intake of breath.
"How is it?"
Is it? com es the response, is it— isit— isitisit . . . ?
It is well. H e can m ake out the pulse of a little vein
throbbing there, just under the left eye.
"Are you comfortable?"
70
Yes; quite com fortable. N iles breathes again; a satisfactory
answ er. H e looks com fortable enough, head agreeably angled
on the pillow , shoulders tilted slightly. "Good," he says and
then H olland says, "Good," and after a w hile they sm ile at each
other. In a m om ent he hears H olland's w hisper sounding quite
plainly in the h u sh ed room . . . . (216-17, italics in text)
N iles and H olland (self and other) are joined in N iles's m ind, setting him free
to act out the desires of his m ischievous tw in, desires Niles had alw ays su p
pressed w hile H olland w as alive. By acting out those kinds of m ischief of
w hich H olland had alw ays been capable (and particularly their m ost violent
m anifestation: m urder), N iles is able to disavow H olland's death. By m u r
dering various fam ily m em bers, N iles reaffirm s (to himself) H olland's pres
ence, blam ing his "resurrected" tw in w hen in need of a scapegoat. W e u n der
stand this w hen N iles's first act follow ing H olland's death is to steal the ring
from his d ead brother's hand. H olland's "whisper" echoes in N iles's distorted
im agination, dem anding he take the ring; thus, in N iles's m ind it is his de
ceased tw in w ho initiates the act and all of the subsequent "mischiefs" that
follow.
The m onster-child need not alw ays fit clearly into the supernatural
a n d /o r psychological categories I have outlined here, how ever. As I argued
earlier, the m ost potent horror narratives defy resolution, leaving their
audiences stranded forever in the uncertainty of the fantastic. In choosing
anticlosure over closure, such horror narratives continue to "haunt" their
audiences beyond the brief experience of the narrative transaction. Such
71
stories are even m ore disturbing w hen dealing w ith the child-m onster be
cause o u r ultim ate and unresolvable hesitation is intensified by an am biva
lence over the seem ing innocence a n d /o r vulnerability of the narrative's
principal threat.
In "Suffer the Little Children" (1972), Stephen King posits a third-grade
classroom of ap p aren t child-m onsters that drive their teacher to m u rd er and,
eventually, suicide. M iss Sidley— w ho, "Like G od . . . seem ed to know every
thing all at once" (465)— believes the children are "changing" w henever she
turns to w rite on the board or otherw ise shifts her field of vision. C atching
only m om entary glim pses of these changes, never any straightforw ard vision
of them , M iss Sidley grow s increasingly certain that they do take place. Fi
nally, consum ed by fear and suspicion, she ushers each child one-by-one to
the m im eograph room for a "very special Test" (473). H er first student is
Robert, the little boy she believes to be the leader:
M iss Sidley closed the do o r behind them and locked it.
"No one can hear you," she said calmly. She took the gun
from her bag. "You or the gun."
Robert sm iled innocently. "There are lots of us, though. Lots
m ore than here." H e p u t one sm all scrubbed h an d on the
paper-tray of the m im eograph m achine. "W ould you like to see
m e change, M iss Sidley?"
Before she could speak, the change began. R obert's face
began to m elt and shim m er into the grotesqueness beneath, and
M iss Sidley shot him . O nce. In the head.
H e fell back against the paper-lined shelves and slid d ow n to
the floor, a little dead boy w ith a ro u n d black hole above the
right eye.
72
She w ent back up to the room an d began to lead them dow n,
one by one. She killed twelve of them and w ould have killed
them all if M rs. C rossen h a d n 't com e dow n for a package of
com position paper. (474)
A scertaining w hether K ing's is a tale of supernatural transform ation or
psychological disintegration becom es an im possible task. The m onster-chil-
dren never "change" for anyone but Miss Sidley, w ho~follow ing a period of
psychiatric treatm ent an d a brief supposedly therapeutic confrontation w ith
another group of sm all children— com m its suicide. The narrative's final
sentence leaves us in the state of hesitation that signals the fantastic: "That
nig h t M iss Sidley cut her throat w ith a bit of broken m irror-glass, an d B uddy
Jenkins [Miss Sidley's court-appointed psychiatrist] began to w atch the
children" (475).2 0 "Suffer the Little Children" offers a clear exam ple of the
kind of paranoia inform ing so m uch of the horror of the last two decades.
The innocent child is no longer unequivocally innocent and, if not com pletely
m onstrous, he or she functions as the vehicle th rough w hich the m onster
gains access to an increasingly paranoid ad u lt w orld.
T he M onster-Parent: Fem inism an d the M onster-Father
The two decades follow ing The Other and The Exorcist saw horror in
creasingly invade the A m erican hom e as traditional notions of w hat consti
tuted the "norm al" fam ily becam e m ore an d m ore im practical and, finally, im-
73
possible to sustain. As famUv r^ a tionsM psj»£.ere.xontinuously>for(ced.^to
a d ap t to rapidly ch an g in g so cialco n d itio n s/d h o se relationships w ere,
naturally enough, subject to m yriad anxieties, anxieties that found po p u lar
expression in the dgm es tic, h orror narrative. If, how ever, the generation gap
pro v id ed a popular them e for m uch of the m ost potent dom estic horror of
this period, m uch of the fear pertaining to survival of the fam ily apparatus
stem m ed also from the im m ense challenges that an increasing fem inist aw are
ness exerted on virtually every sector of m ass culture. Even before Betty
Friedan h ad articulated "the problem th at has no nam e" in 1963, a fem inist
sensibility h ad m ade itself know n, b u t it w as not at that tim e the culture-
w ide m ovem ent that it w ould becom e in the m ilitant late sixties and seven
ties. Indeed, according to Levitan, "during the 1970s som e fem inist publicists
saw a m ale-free household as the only w ay w om en could im prove an d enrich
their lives. H ence, fem inism du rin g that decade often seem ed to be antifam i
ly" (110). Thus, the threat that fem inist ideology initially posed to received
notions of fam ilial norm ality provided Ira Levin w ith the central them e of his
second im portant novel from this period: The Stepford Wives (1972).
Like Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives creates a m ounting paranoia
by the subtle building of suspicious coincidences until the reader discovers
along w ith the narrative's victim ized w ife-and-m other, Joanna Eberhart, that
j she has been betrayed by her ow n spouse. W hen W alter E berhart joins "the
Stepford M en's Association"— ostensibly to politic for a change in its "no
74
w om en-allow ed" (18) policy— he apparently begins to have second thoughts
about his an d his w ife's progressive fem inist view s. Joanna grow s suspicious
of her h u sb an d 's increasing coolness tow ards such issues and, em barking on
som e library research, finds that all of the m en holding high positions in the
Stepford M en's A ssociation are technological geniuses specializing in such
om inous-sounding fields as "system s developm ent," "micro circuitry," "optical
sensors," an d "dyes and plastics." A ssociation president, Dale Coba, "w orked
in 'audioanim atronics', helping to create the m oving an d talking presidential
figures" in D isneyland's H all of Presidents (152-53). Joanna thus pieces to
gether a bizarre (but, unfortunately for her, accurate) theory that Stepford's
w ives are being system atically m u rd ered by their husbands an d replaced by
m indless robotic lookalikes program m ed to have literally no am bitions out
side the dom estic sphere. The novel's ultim ate paranoia is m anifest w hen Jo
an n a's ow n desperate escape attem pt fails. In his characteristically elliptical
style, Levin forgoes details of her capture an d subsequent disposal, cutting
instead to a happenstance m eeting several w eeks later in the local su p er
m arket:
"W hat are you doing then, besides your housew ork?"
R uthanne asked her.
"N othing, really," Joanna said. "H ousew ork's enough for me.
I used to feel I had to have other interests, b u t I'm m ore at ease
w ith m yself now . I'm m uch h appier too, an d so is m y family.
T hat's w hat counts, isn 't it?"
"Yes, I guess so," R uthanne said. . . . (188)
75
The novel concludes w ith R uthanne H endry, the new est inhabitant of Step
ford, destined to be the next victim of the M en's Association.
Levin's novel targeted an obviously sensitive issue in 1970s A m ericana.
Its flat, em otionless style— its bare-bones prose and the b ru tal objectivity w ith
w hich it reveals its absurdly horrifying prem ise— paradoxically intensifies its
urgency as contem porary social satire. It acknow ledged the need for w h at an
increasingly pow erful fem inist ideology w as dem anding: a reassessm ent of
w om en's and m en's roles in the fam ily and com m unity. M ore w om en
sought a greater degree of independence outside the dom estic sphere w ithin
w hich traditional m ores of fam ily h ad im prisoned them . But Levitan reports
that m uch of the m ilitant "antifam ily" liberationism of the seventies "had
nearly disappeared" by the early eighties:
The "new agenda," Betty Friedan noted in 1979, woukLbe~to
* . . v ' . — • - y ■ ■ ■ - v - . . . m s * - . . ■.■rrt*' — — :*■ *** - - ~ '
enable w om en to live in equality w ith m en u n d er the sam e roof.
M ost often this w o u ld take the.form of a husband-w ife family,
b u t living u n d er different arran gem ents than the gender-ste-
reotyped’ Tiousehold o fth e p a s t „Friedan's view s proved presci-
'~ent, as by 1987 m ost w om en's organizations w ere devoting
considerable attention to fam ilies and w ork. (110)
But w ith this reconstitution of the fam ily infrastrueture,jTtore husbands and
fathers w ere faced w ith assum ing responsibility in areas such as c h ild -c a re ,
and dom estic-upkeep. N o doubt, the exodus of m any w om en from the hom e
inspired anxieties regarding the v ulnerability^their, absence m ay occasion. If,
then, w om en w ere becom ing m ore ad ep t at com bining outside em ploym ent
w ith dom estic responsibilities, how w ere m en adjusting to their ow n chang-
76
ing roles, roles that required a greater an d m ore consistent presence in an
"alien" dom estic sphere?
F rank Furstenberg has proposed that one result of this "distinct re
alignm ent in roles" (208) has been "the good dad-bad d ad complex," a para
doxical "bifurcation of fatherhood" that finds "both m ore fathers that are
closely involved w ith their children an d m ore that are derelict" (215). The
increase in derelict fathers, coupled w ith the norm alization of dom estic ex
pectations placed on the father, laid a suitable g roundw ork for narrativizing
the m onstrous potential of the father. A long w ith the father's increased
presence in the hom e comes an intensification of d ependents' fears pertaining
to potential abandonm ent a n d /o r abuse at his hands. These fears produce
the kinds of anxieties that help to explain the em ergence in the dom estic
horror narrative of the character-type I have called the m onster-father. The
fears this m onster exploited in the m ass culture of the seventies an d eighties
w ere p o ten t largely because they w ere fears not lim ited to husbands and fa
thers w ho w atched their w ives venture into the labor force b u t w ere no
d o u b t shared in varying degrees by those w om en them selves; thus, the m on
ster-father seem s, in retrospect, a logical projection of fears and anxieties that
w ere not restricted by gender. As w e have seen, Levin's Rosemary's Baby and
The Stepford Wives both depict an ap p aren tly loving h u sband and father w ho
deceives his w ife for the specific pu rp o se of his ow n personal gain.
77
j Interest in the father as a potentially m onstrous threat to hom e and
fam ily is probably also linked in various w ays to the culture-w ide explosion
of single-parent, fem ale-headed households, w hich, by 1988, h ad "doubled
since 1960" (M intz 204). W ith such an increase in fatherless/husbandless
fam ilies, tw o view s seem probable. As a m other-child dyad, the fam ily m ay
be perceived as vulnerable, as in som e w ay fragm entary an d lacking. Sec
ond, the conventional m ale figurehead has becom e increasingly perceived as
alien (a la THE EXO RCIST), an outsider to the fam ily construct. These two
view s, w orking in tandem , suggest the im m inent "return" of the absent father
in the form of a m onstrous other; thus, a grow ing perception of paternal
alienation has m ade the father a prim e prospect for the m onstrous invader
| from outside, invading an increasingly norm alized m other-child fam ily unit.
i
I Joseph R uben's THE STEPFATHER (1987) serves as a case in point.
^ R uben's film is a dom estic horror narrative in w hich a psychotic serial killer
I
] periodically assum es n ew identities (altering his appearance and changing his
I
' nam e) an d relocates into a new com m unity by finding and m arrying into a
h u sb an d less/fath erless household. It becom es clear du rin g the course of the
; film that the killer is em barked on an im possible quest for the "ideal" fam ily,
1 a fam ily existing only in his distorted m em ory, a m em ory based prim arily on
| television depictions of fam ily life in the fifties and sixties. Stepdaughter,
Stephanie Blake, com plains to a friend that her stepfather, Jerry, has a "fan
78
tasy thing, like w e should be like the families on TV an d grin and laugh . . .
all the time. I sw ear to G od, it's like having W ard Cleaver for a dad."
The narrative m akes d e a r by w ay of num erous references to Jerry
Blake's attem pts to live in a nostalgic TV-fantasy past that any such
im m utable conception of the fam ily is not only outdated b u t indicative of
dem entia. Unable to cope w ith pressures attending the redefinition of fam ily
roles and relationships, Blake's psychosis becomes increasingly Violent as he
tries to force an antiquated patriarchal tradition onto his 1980s family. Blake
periodically retreats to his basem ent to let off steam by ranting in privacy. In
one such instance, he launches into his hysterical schizophrenic dialogue
unaw are that Stephanie is watching:
"All w e need is som e order around here! ORDER! [mimicking]
'Y our'reagoodboyhe'sagoodboyisn'theagoodboy? Y ou're d ad
dy's little angel.' . . . Just leave m e alone. Let m e out! LET ME
OUT! W e are gonna keep this fam ily together. You h ad better
believe it! [sensing Stephanie's presence an d turning, the rage
draining from his face as a w inning sm ile replaces it] Hi, Steff.
«i
Blake's dem entia becom es increasingly violent as the film progresses until, in
the ultim ate confrontation betw een m onster-father and threatened-innocent,
the m onster-father is destroyed; thus, THE STEPFATHER condudes w ith the
patriarch's death and a validation of a "new" dom estic ideology in w hich
"family" is com posed of m other and daughter alone.
THE STEPFATHER, like THE EXORCIST before it, treads the virgule
of W ood's reactionary/progressive dichotom y, reinstating the status quo, but
79 i
indicating d early that this status quo is som ehow different, transform ed: the j
♦
fam ily survives b u t only because it is able to leave an antiquated, illusory !
I
past behind, proving itself adaptable to sodological change even to the 1
l
degree of a redefinition of its fundam ental configuration. Jerry Blake is
m onstrous p red sely because he is unable to adjust psychologically an d
em otionally in the face of such change. A nd yet, in another very real sense,
this new ly configured fam ily survives because it is able to reappropriate the
past— if n ot the fantasy past of television sit-com s like "Father Know s Best" or
"Leave It to Beaver," then the psychic past in w hich a state of m other-daugh
ter intim acy valorizes the reem ergence of pre-oedipal desire. P atrid a Erens
reads THE STEPFATHER against H itchcock's PSYCHO to argue that R uben's
film reverses the oedipal logic of the earlier film:
The conflict [in THE STEPFATHER] is thus betw een pre-O e-
dipal desire as exem plified by Stephanie and post-O edipal
desire as exem plified by Jerry. R eversing PSYCHO, the pre-
O edipal w ishes of Stephanie to b o n d w ith her m other are pre
sented as healthy, w hile the post-O edipal behavior of Jerry,
usually taken as norm al, ultim ately reveals sadism and psycho
sis.
• • •
In this m anner THE STEPFATHER reveals w h at previously
film s have repressed, nam ely the desire for the m other. Unlike
PSYCHO, w here this desire leads to psychosis and destruction,
in THE STEPFATHER it is treated as natural and norm al. In
fact, it is Jerry's inability to come to term s w ith these forces
w hich lead[s] to his destruction, a n d in this film he rather than
Stephanie is the psychotic. (51-52, 54)
Erens is thus able to tu rn Robin W ood's "return of the repressed" argum ent
on its head, suggesting that such a return, as depicted in THE STEPFATHER,
80
is not necessarily indicative of m onstrosity b u t m ay m ark a potentially
healthy psychological a n d /o r sociological developm ent.
By redefining the diegetic "symbolic" fam ily, then, dom estic horro r n a r
ratives of THE STEPFATHER ilk validate their extradiegetic referents— single-
i parent, and particularly fem ale-headed, households. But the m onster-father
suggests a cultural paradox reflected in this particular m ode of dom estic hor
ror narrative: just as films like THE STEPFATHER argue th at the m onstrous
potential of the father increases in direct proportion to his alienation from the
fam ily construct (Jerry Blake goes aw ay to w ork each day), an equal possibil
ity suggests that the m onstrous potential of the father increases in direct
proportion to his centrality as a participant in dom estic affairs.
This second m anifestation of the m onster-father occurs in S tuart Rosen-
I
| berg's 1979 film adaptation of Jay A nson's The Amityville Horror (1977).
! R osenberg's film provides an interesting pre-K ubrick narrativization of the
J m onster-father as depicted in the latter's 1980 adaptation of Stephen K ing's
1 The Shining. In THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, the father, G eorge Lutz, suc
cum bs to the evil forces inhabiting his new hom e, em barking on a m u rd ero u s
quest to kill his w ife and children w ith an axe. This particular plot develop
m ent has no basis in A nson's "true story" on w hich the film is based, b u t it
1 does seem to underline w h at Vivian Sobchack has seen as a trend in the latter
i
half of the seventies aw ay from dem onic children; indeed, an equally plausi-
81
ble d ep artu re from A nson's novel m ight have been the developm ent of little
M issy's friendship w ith the dem onic pig, Jodie.
There can be little d o ubt that a significant cultural am bivalence re
m ains attached to the stigm a of in-the-hom e fathering. T h e in-hom e father is
still largely perceived as a social contradiction. Even language, the funda-
m ental signifying system of our sym bolic order, labels him as in som e w ay
unnatural: the father that "m others" his children. H e is displaced, a stranger,
an d thus a potentially dangerous other. V ictim ized by the com bined forces
of frustration and alienation— unable (or unw illing) to a d ap t him self to his
new (alien) environm ent— the m onster-father determ ines sim ply to destroy
that environm ent an d all associated w ith it.
A third reason for the father's depiction as m onster is linked, no
doubt, to increased public aw areness of dom estic violence. George E.
Dickinson an d M ichael R. Lem ing acknow ledge in Understanding Families
(1990) that
Since the early 1970s . . . m uch has been said and w ritten about
this topic. W e n o w have nationw ide task forces on dom estic
violence an d over seven h u n d re d shelters for abused w om en.
Legislation exists to protect abused children, battered spouses,
and vulnerable adults; a grow ing num ber of states also have
m arital rape, elder abuse, an d w arrantless arrest law s. (379)
Some of these developm ents attest to the phenom enal interest dom estic
violence has acquired over the last tw o decades. A lthough not all such
violence comes from husbands a n d /o r fathers, statistical evidence suggests
82
i
that m ost of it does.2 1 The num ber of w om en's shelters, for exam ple, seems
rem arkable w hen one considers that few er than ten shelters existed in the
U nited States in 1974 and only seventy-nine w ere in operation by 1979
(Shupe 13).
Reports of child abuse have increased com parably. A 1988 POV docu
m entary segm ent titled PROMISE NO T TO TELL features Dr. Richard Krug-
m an, Director U.S. A dvisory Board Child A buse an d N eglect, stating that
du rin g his training in C olorado over the three-year period of 1968-71 "there
w as no case of [child] sexual abuse reported in Colorado. . . . In 1976 there
w ere 35 cases reported. In 1986 it w as 3500. N o w . . . d id sexual abuse arise
de novo in the seventies? O bviously not." Also, the attem pts a t protecting
abused children stem , no doubt, from reports like that found in Charleston,
South C arolina's News and Courier22: "more than 2 m illion children w ere
abused an d neglected across the U nited States last year [i.e., 1987]. Three
died every day. Even m ore alarm ing, reports of child abuse have increased
by 223 percent over 10 years" (rpt. in Dickinson 382).
O ne has to w onder if an increased cultural aw areness of child abuse at
the hands of fathers an d the dom estic horror narrative's shift aw ay from the
child-m onsters of the early seventies to the m onster-fathers of the late sev
enties and the eighties are related. W hy has there not been a com parable
strain of horror narratives depicting the m onster-m other? Perhaps because in
spite of her fem inist argum ent (an argum ent that a grow ing portion of society
83
has begun to recognize as largely justified) she has not acquired the cultural
I stigm a that her m ale counterpart has.2 3 The m onster-father of contem porary
i
dom estic horror novels and film s can be seen as p art of a larger interest in
and response to several sociocultural developm ents: an increase in fam ily
, abandonm ent and divorce resulting in a grow ing num ber of fem ale-headed,
single-parent households in w hich the concept of "father" is becom ing an am
biguous one; an increased participation on the p a rt of the paternal figure in
in-hom e activities in conventional tw o-parent, dual-incom e households; and
an increase in public aw areness of dom estic violence resulting from reports of
child an d spouse abuse suffered at the hands of the paternal authority figure.
It appears that w hether one considers public concerns over the issues
pertaining to fam ily change to be conscious or unconscious, those concerns do
exist, and they exert a substantial hold on the collective psvche of contem po-
rary A m erican m ass culture. M any of these concerns an d anxieties find sym
bolic expression in the horror narrative's preoccupation w ith dom estic issues
over the last tw o decades or so. In the next chapter I w ant to p u rsu e as
"symbolic m editations" of fam ily an d com m unity the dom estic horror fictions
of Stephen King. W hy has King enjoyed a degree of com m ercial success that
genre, m any of w hom are m ore original, m ore com pelling, and, in the m inds
of m any critics, better w riters? I will argue th at one crucial determ ining
factor is K ing's consistent concentration on the dom estic sphere. A lthough
distinguishes him from so m any of his contem poraries w orking in the horror
84
n o t ail of K ing's w orks fit snugly into the parad ig m of dom estic horror I have
attem pted to articulate here, I believe a representative num ber of them will. I
w ill begin, then, by considering som e fundam ental questions underlying
i m uch of K ing's fiction: H o w does the fam ily figure as dram atic "nucleus" of
those fictions? W hat kinds of social contradictions do K ing's fictions address?
A nd to w hat degree do these fictions accord w ith Jam eson's argum ent in "re
solving" those contradictions?
N O TES
1. A lthough these (and sim ilar) studies v ary occasionally in specific
details, variation is m inim al an d overall com putations are fairly consistent.
For exam ple, consistent w ith R auch's figures, A n d rew C herlin finds that the
divorce rate "roughly doubled betw een the early 1960s an d the mid-1970s"
(5). Sar L evitan finds that "By 1973 the divorce rate h a d surpassed the highs
recorded follow ing W orld W ar II and peaked a t 22.8 divorces per 1,000 m ar
ried couples in 1979" (26).
j 2. Philip G utis, "C ourt W idens Fam ily D efinition to G ay C ouples Liv-
J ing Together," New York Times 7 July 1989: A l, B16. See also G utis's follow up
article: "W hat Is a Fam ily? T raditional Lim its A re Being Redraw n," New York
Times 31 A ug. 1989: C l, C6:
"It is the totality of the relationship as evidenced by the dedi
cation, caring and self-sacrifice of the parties w hich should, in
the final analysis, control," Judge Vito J. Titone said in the 4-to-2
decision. (C6)
I
3. See, for exam ple, Ian W att's "Time an d Fam ily in the Gothic Novel:
The Castle of Otranto,” w here W att argues that "it is surely w ithin the nucleus
of the fam ily that the basic conflicts of the G othic take place" (166). See also
W illiam Patrick D ay's In the Circles of Fear and Desire, especially pp. 75-149,
; w here Day argues that "the various 'fam ily' stories w e find in the Gothic
1 fantasy em body the links betw een the problem s of personal identity and fam
ily relationships on the one h an d and, on the other, the transform ation of
culture and society, the m ovem ent of history" (96).
85
4. O! how joyful it is to tell of happiness, such as that of
V alancourt an d Emily; to relate, that, after suffering u n
der the oppression of the vicious and the disdain of the
w eak, they w ere, at length, restored to each other— to the
beloved landscapes of their native country,— to the secur
est felicity of this life, that of aspiring to m oral and la
bouring for intellectual im provem ent~to the pleasures of
enlightened society, and to the exercise o f the benevo
lence, w hich h a d alw ays anim ated their hearts; w hile the
bow ers of La Vallee becam e, once m ore, the retreat of
goodness, w isdom and dom estic blessedness! (672)
D avid D urant perceives of this "m ythic pattern" as a recurring aspect of
Radcliffe's m ajor novels. It "contrasts a safe, hierarchical, reasonable, loving
w o rld of the fam ily w ith a chaotic, irrational, and perverse w o rld of the iso
lated. Its circular shape suggests that the only solution to the problem s of
ad u lt existence lies in returning to traditional, conservative values" (520).
5. Kate Ellis has noted in Frankenstein a them atic opposition betw een
"the m asculine sphere of discovery and the fem inine sphere of dom esticity"
(124). U rging a fem inist argum ent, Ellis reads the novel as M ary Shelley's
"critique of the insufficiency of a fam ily structure in w hich the relation be
tw een the sexes is as uneven as the relationship betw een parents and chil
dren" (125).
i
6. A lthough the horror of personality narrative need not be restricted
to the dom estic sphere, m any of its m ost effective exam ples are: PSYCHO,
SISTERS (De Palm a 1973), THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (Rosenberg 1979),
THE SH INING (Kubrick 1980), THE STEPFATHER (Ruben 1987).
i
j 7. G regory W aller has p u rsu e d the notions of "family" and "com m u-
| nity" as they figure in Dracula. See The Living and the Undead (Urbana: U of
j Indiana P, 1986) 33-48.
1
8. This is not to suggest th at early gothic novels d id n o t possess a po-
litical or ideological subtext. C arol Dole has pointed to the historical circum
stances u n d er w hich W alpole began Otranto. W alpole's cousin, H enry C on
w ay, h ad been
dism issed in A pril 1764 from his position as regim ental com
m ander and G room of the K ing's Bedcham ber. W alpole, en-
i raged . . ., w rote a p am p h let on the subject in June. . . . W alpole
; did not oppose m onarchy, but he detested a m onarch w ho over
step p ed his p o w e rs-a s G eorge III h ad just done. Therefore,
tyrants w ere very m uch on W alpole's m ind in June 1764 w hen
he conceived The Castle of Otranto. (26)
8 6
Because of his ow n position in Parliam ent, how ever, W alpole "could hardly
m odel his fictional tyrant openly on his ow n m onarch" (27) and w as thus
forced to couch his political sentim ents in the subtext of a supernatural tale.
9. This fairytale dim ension of Udolpho could be carried further. Em ily
is herself a character-type closely resem bling the universal displaced orphan,
a C inderella/A shputtle cast by circum stance into the alien and hostile w orld
of the dom ineering M adam e C heron, and ValancOurt is the quintessential
Prince C harm ing.
10. A nalepsis, as defined b y G erard G enette in Narrative Discourse, in
volves "any evocation after the fact of an event that took place earlier than
the point in the story w here w e are at any given m om ent" (40). "Flashbacks"
are perhaps the m ost com m on type of analepsis. W hen these tem poral dis
ruptions refer to previous m om ents w ithin the narrative proper, they are d e
fined as "internal." "External" analepses are those m om ents that rem ain out
side the narrative proper, and "their only function is to fill out the . . . n a rra
tive by enlightening the reader on one or another 'antecedent'" (50).
11. The distinction betw een "story" an d "narrative" (or "discourse") is
based in the older differentiation by the R ussian form alists betw een fabula
(the events them selves) and sjuzet (the m anner in w hich those events are p u t
together to form a coherent whole). Thus story relates to fabula (or content),
narrative to sjuzet (or form). See Seym our C hatm an's Story and Discourse:
Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film and G erard Genette Narrative Discourse:
A n Essay in Method.
12. A ndrew T udor sees this internal/external dichotom y as crucial to
any discussion of horror since it allow s us to pinpoint "the threat's practical
locus of application." H e also charts a historical "shift from externality to in-
tem ality" that he claim s "is central to the long-term developm ent of the
genre" (8-10).
13. V ivian Sobchack has argued that "in classic articulations of horror
an d science fiction before the 1960s . . . The Bad Seed seem s singular in not ■
only bringing horror into the dom estic sphere through a child, b u t also in
suggesting th at infants m ight be evil" (American Horrors 192n9). M arch's 1954
novel w as ad ap ted subsequently to both stage (M axwell A nderson) and film
(M ervyn Leroy 1956) and w as rem ade in the eighties as a m ade-for-television
m ovie (directed by Paul W endkos and airing on ABC: 7 February 1985).
14. Even before Rom an Polanski ad ap ted Rosemary's Baby to the screen,
the novel placed seventh in the top ten fiction bestsellers of 1967. A fter the
release of the film, the novel becam e "Dell's bestselling title of the year [1968]"
87
according to the M arch 10, 1969 issue of Publishers Weekly (33), selling an un-
; precedented 4,200,000 copies in 1968 and becom ing far an d aw ay that year's
num ber-one-selling paperback.
15. The Exorcist w as #2 on Publishers Weekly's bestseller list for 1971,
am assing sales of 153,632 copies (P W 7 Feb. 1972: 51) com pared to Rosemary's
Baby's first-year sales of 86,055 copies and a #7 ranking on the bestsellers list
(PW 10 M arch 1969: 33).
16. O f course, another reason for the novel's extensive sales can be
linked to the 1973 release of W illiam Friedkin's film adaptation.
17. D uring a philosophic dialogue Father M errin contem plates w ith
D am ien K arras the purpose of dem on possession:
"... I think the d em on's target is not the possessed; it is us . . .
the observers . . . every person in this house. A nd I think— I
think the point is to m ake u s despair; to reject our ow n hum an
ity, Dam ien: to see ourselves as ultim ately bestial; as ultim ately
vile and putrescent; w ith o u t dignity; ugly; unw orthy. A nd there
lies the h eart of it, perhaps: in unw orthiness. For I think belief
| in G od is not a m atter of reason at all; I think it finally is a m at-
' ter of love; of accepting the possibility that G od could love us.
! ..." (369)
J In "Seeing Is Believing," Beverle H ouston and M arsha K inder suggest that one
reason for the rem arkable reception of Friedkin's film lay in w h at m ight be
called a popular sentim ent of religious backlash:
O ffered as a reactionary social corrective, [the C hristian devil]
becom es in the film responsible for all m o d ern evil. Once w e
recognize this an d call on the church (and traditional m orality),
w e can cast him out an d m ake everything good again. Perhaps
the ease of this solution lies at the heart of the film 's popularity.
(45)
O f course, the catch here is that "we can cast him out," a com forting assur-
i ance w e w ere denied at the conclusion of ROSEMARY'S BABY.
18. Even in the w ake of the outrageous events constituting the novel
proper, Chris M acN eil rem ains in the epilogue "a nonbeliever," not in super-
1 n atu ral phenom ena— just in God: . . as far as G od goes, I am a nonbeliever,
i Still am . But w hen it comes to a devil— well, th at's som ething else. I could
1 buy that. I do, in fact. I do'" (400). C hris's ultim ate position, how ever, can
| only be described as am bivalent:
, For a m om ent [Father] D yer looked at her, an d then said qui
etly, "But if all of the evil in the w orld m akes you think that
88
there m ight be a devil, then how do you account for all the good
in the world?"
The thought m ade her squint as she held his gaze. T hen she
d ro p p ed her eyes. "Yeah . . . yeah," she m u rm u red softly.
"That's a point." (400)
19. G erard G enette further problem atizes the possible m anifestations of
the hom odiegetic narrator w hen he proposes in Narrative Discourse (245ff) a
distinction betw een the intra-hom odiegetic narrator and the extra-hom odiege-
tic narrator. Intra-hom odiegetic narrators are narrators such as N iles Perry,
Victor Frankenstein, Moby Dick's Ishm ael— narrators w ho recount events in
w hich they had taken part. Extra-hom odiegetic narrators, on the other hand,
are narrators such as Lord Jim's M arlow e or Joel C handler H arris's Uncle Re
m u s— narrators w ho recount events in w hich they did not take part.
20. For som e reason, K ing alters this ending in the version of this story
m ost recently published in Nightmares and Dreamscapes (95-108):
T hat night M iss Sidley cut her throat w ith a bit of broken m ir
ror-glass, an d after that B uddy Jenkins began to w atch the chil
dren m ore and m ore. In the end, he w as h ard ly able to take his
eyes off them . (108)
The new ending is intended, perhaps, to underscore the su p ern atu ral influ
ence the children have over adults. I w ould argue that this alternative end
ing seriously dilutes the m uch m ore am biguous conclusion of the earlier ver
sion, undercutting, if not erasing, the effect of the fantastic.
21. Violence originating w ith the fam ily's m ale authority figure is
actually a developm ent determ ined in p a rt by patriarchal legal tradition.
A nson Shupe et al. recount in Violent M en, Violent Couples the ethics and
legalities of wife-beating:
A ttitudes that condoned w ife beating (and sim ilar m istreatm ent
of children) entered into m ainstream A m erican culture via En
glish law. The infam ous rule of thum b, w hich perm itted a hus
ban d legally to beat his w ife w ith a rod not thicker than his
th u m b [,] w as a form al section of British C om m on Law. Ironical
ly, it w as originally intended as an exam ple of com passionate
reform to lim it how harshly m en abused their m ates. Thus
m en's right to use violence in m anaging their hom es becam e an
accepted p a rt of colonial A m erica and later the em erging U nited
States. By the early 1800s m any state suprem e courts began to
recognize this m ale prerogative. In 1824 M ississippi, soon fol
low ed by others, gave w ife beating legal protection. (11)
See also W illiam A. Stacey an d A nson Shupe The Family Secret: Domestic
Violence in America (11-12).
89
22. News and Courier [Charleston, SC] 1 M ay 1988, sec. G: 40.
23. N o t all form s of dom estic abuse flow from husbands a n d /o r fa
thers to w ives a n d /o r children. But w h at Susan Steinm etz has called "the
battered h u sb an d syndrom e" is not w ell docum ented largely because "bat
tered m en are reluctant to com e forw ard to seek help and because m ost re
searchers have been preoccupied w ith the problem of w om an battering"
(Shupe 47). As for parental abuse, Dickinson and L em ing find that "every
year about 750,000 to one m illion teenagers com m it violent acts against their
parents, and each year about 2,000 parents are killed by their children"; how
ever, "Since m any parents are asham ed of their ow n victim ization, reporting
of children abusing their parents is also very rare" (385).
90
C h apter three
Oedipal Discourse and the
Father as Agent of Destruction
In this chapter I w ant to develop further m y position that King's sus
tained commercial success is due in large part to his having tapped into a
culture-w ide ambivalence regarding the changing nature of the American
family. To this end I will undertake two tasks: to examine the role of family
in the psychosocial process of individual subject-formation and then to exam
ine how that process is explored in King's domestic horror fictions. I will
focus on a representative num ber of King's texts to dem onstrate that he con
sistently appropriates variations of Freud's oedipal m aster narrative as formal
strategies in a way that implicates the father as the principal agent of familial
destruction. By highlighting abnorm al or inappropriate behavior originating
w ith the father, King's dom estic horror narratives address a particularly dis
turbing tendency of the contem porary family and establish rhetorical subtexts
that align themselves with either of two opposing ideologies— w hat I will call
domestic security and dom estic apocalypse.
In The Subject of Semiotics, Kaja Silverm an describes the m ediatory
i
function of fam ily in the early stages of subject form ation:
I
Psychoanalysis has show n the fam ily,. ..... to.be a vital relay be-
tw een die various territories that m ake u p subjectivity an d the
larger cultural field. Both ^reud^and"O tepT pla^e^K iavjT iM n-
phasis on those events m the life of the subject w hich could be
^gr0 uped^iM W Pffi& O M i ^ l “rfibfic.XFfedd insists'that-not-only
Jhe*subjectisj>£xualiJ^,,,bjiy^
m ined by these event§. Lacan reiterates this point, translating it
m to jn o re re c o g n ^ W y ^ m io .b c jtg i^ K ^ jp ie ^ se rts th at the signr^*
ly in g activities of b oth the unconscious an d the prTconscidus^are
4B W U > ' - i _i n i* W'» ' "'J I ,* w "'*' 1 l|**>r|*'W 1 **'"""'**' nr ^ n ^ i . r 1 1 ■ -■ *— _______________ __ rx„.... _ llu _ *
centered, on.,the O edipaL experience,,ana that tiie W estern syin- ^
bolic order derives its coherence from the p h allu s,o r paternal
signifier. (130-31)
>B¥^iS55S«e^8S»
The oedipal d ram a— w hether one considers it in term s of the extradiegetic
w orld of everyday psychic experience or w ithin the realm of narrative fiction-
-has a deeply ingrained hold on the W estern im agination. If, therefore, as I
have proposed, m uch of w h at engrosses K ing's audience is g ro u n d ed in a
shared albeit largely unconscious am bivalence over changes taking place
w ithin the dom estic sphere, it w ould seem appropriate to exam ine this rela
tionship in term s of the fundam ental "psychosemiotic" construct aro u n d
w hich the W estern nuclear fam ily has been theorized: "the O edipal m aster
narrative."
I begin m y exam ination of the ideological dim ensions of K ing's fic
tions, then, by pointing to K ing's consistent appropriation of "the oedipal
m aster narrative" as a textual strategy for m otivating an d resolving (or re
fusing to resolve) the contradictions underlying his dom estic horrors. This
m aster narrative derives historically from tw o sources: Sophocles's Oedipus
Rex and F reu d 's interpretation of th at play as a dram atization (or, in Jame-
sonian term s, a "symbolic m editation") of the fundam ental psychological p ro
cesses contributing to the early stages of the ongoing process of subjectivity
(the goal of ideology). Sophocles's play tells of ho w a son com m its tw o
crimes: 1) he m u rd ers his father an d 2) m arries his m other. F reud theorized
th at children betw een the ages of three an d five experience psychological im
pulses roughly analogous to the tw o crim es of Sophocles's hero: 1) feelings of
jealousy an d hostility tow ard the p aren t of the sam e sex an d 2) an "object-
cathexis" (an investm ent of psychic energy in the form of a libidinal attrac
tion) for the p aren t of the opposite sex. This "positive" version of the
O edipus com plex has its "negative" counterpart in w hich the child's hostility
is directed at the parent of the opposite sex an d its attraction at the p aren t of
the sam e sex. The "complete" O edipus com plex partakes in varying degrees
of both positive an d negative im pulses. F reud theorized th at in norm al d e
velopm ent the O edipus com plex is resolved w hen the child recognizes (via
the form ation of the superego) the taboo n atu re of his or her libidinal im
pulses an d enters a period of post-oedipal "latency" in w hich s /h e establishes
a "conditional" identification w ith the p aren t of the sam e sex, recognizing,
that is, that certain prohibitions accom pany this identification.
In term s of ideological im pact, the oedipal d ram a and the narrative
transaction of horror both involve the individual in sim ilar psychological
m aneuverings. Both establish a psychic econom y in w hich feelings of attrac
tion and repulsion m ust be negotiated. In the oedipal d ram a, the parent of
the sam e sex as the subject-to-be inspires fear and feelings of hostility, w here
as in the horror narrative, the m onster fulfils this function for the re a d e r/
spectator as well as for that ind iv id u al's fictional surrogate(s) w ithin the
narrative. In the oedipal dram a, feelings of fear and hostility tow ards the
p aren t are tem pered by love (or at the least an aw areness of need) for that
parent. In the horror narrative, feelings of fear and hostility directed at the
m onster arouse a repulsion g ro u n d ed in o u r sense of taboo that the m onster
em bodies. O ur fear is com plicated, how ever, by a fascination w ith the very
abnorm ality represented by the "tabooed" being. This fascination has the ca
pacity if not to cancel o u t then at least to dom inate our sense of fear largely
because our fear is inevitably vicarious w hereas our fascination is not. The
sense of threat w e experience as p art of the narrative transaction is accom
p anied by the know ledge that, although w e m ay experience different levels of
involvem ent w ith the narrative, w e never shed com pletely the realization that
w e are engaged w ith a fiction.1
P art of the appeal of the horror narrative m ust lie, then, in our aw are
ness that w e are w itnessing (and even participating albeit vicariously) in a
confrontation w ith w h a t is culturally proscribed. This w hole notion of pro
scription reaches backw ard to the oedipal dram a as well, w here one p aren t
em bodies socially sanctioned prohibitions and the other the agency through
94
w hom the honoring of those prohibitions is assured.2 Thus, the dom estic
horror narrative that appropriates the paternal signifier as the agent of
m onstrosity plays on distinctly oedipal em otions and em ploys a fairly
straightforw ard "oedipal" narrative logic.3
As a form al strategy, K ing's ap p ro p riatio n of the oedipal m aster n arra
tive is certainly nothing new . But this is precisely w h y the oedipal d ram a is
im portant as an "ideological" m echanism . A p art from the question of
w hether K ing's appropriation of it is conscious or unconscious, the result is a
narrative form ula grounded in an easily recognizable dram atic paradigm .4
This paradigm provides a ready-m ade schem a for the locating of participants
in variously designated positions of social a n d cultural acceptability, clearly
valorizing som e w hile vilifying others. It also serves as a particularly potent
m echanism for com m unicating terror in th at its fam iliarity significantly short
ens the psychological distance betw een narrative an d audience. As a the
m atic strategy, the oedipal m aster narrative allow s for exploration of intim ate
fam ilial conflict (prim arily of a generational a n d /o r sexual nature) and the
broader cultural effects of such conflict. Because, then, of its form al stability
and its them atic concerns, the oedipal m aster narrative serves as an ideal d e
vice for dram atizing dom estic horror.
From a sociological standpoint, such com plications (fundam ental as
they are to fam ily situations) speak to a public in the m idst of a sociocultural
dilem m a in w hich anxieties over dom estic stability an d the negotiation of
95
"paternal" (and patriarchal) authority accom pany the disappearance of a j
clearly defined fam ilial ideal. It is K ing's recognition of an d deliberate
concentration on the am biguity of the father's role in this dilem m a that
generates m uch of his m ass appeal. In order for ideology to usher potential
subjects into subjectivity--to insert them , that is, into "appropriate" slot(s) w ith
in a preordained cultural o rd er~ th e potential subject m u st be able to concep
tualize w ith som e degree of clarity the role it is expected to fulfil. Lacan
em phasizes this point w h en he proposes that "the h u m an being has alw ays to
learn from scratch from the O ther w h at he has to do, as m an or as w om an"
(FFC 204). A m biguities atten ding those roles only contribute to the instability
of the individual in virtually every area of his or her existence.
K ing's horror narratives characteristically problem atize this process of
"role-grasping," resolving the problem (s) they raise or refusing to do so.
Either strategy, how ever, m ay be said to contribute to the narrative's specific
"ideological rhetoric."5 W hen, for exam ple, Carrie W hite (Carrie) an d Johnny
Sm ith (The Dead Zone) discover their "w ild talents," those talents m ark both
characters as social outcasts and becom e instrum ental in their deaths. Dif
ference becom es a tragic flaw , a m ark of inevitable destruction. W hen, on the
other hand, C harlie M cGee (Firestarter) and D anny T orrance (The Shining) dis
cover their ow n w ild talents, those talents becom e a source of strength for
them , enabling them to triu m p h over sociopolitical (in the form er) an d super
n atu ral (in the latter) forces that w o u ld destroy them . Difference, in these
cases, becomes a m eans of ultim ate survival, a m ark of personal transcen
dence.
But the notion of w ild talents complicates the oedipal dram a as well.
In each of these cases, psychic pow ers are given to the oedipal subject, the
child, who m ust then decide w hether to use his or her pow er to contest the
conventions of oedipal authority. In each case the child is placed in a situa
tion in which it m ust confront a potentially destructive em bodim ent of au
thority. For Carrie W hite that authority takes the dual form s of her school's
adm inistrative board and a m aniacal religious fundam entalist m other. For
Johnny Smith and Charlie McGee destructive authority is represented by a
political m achine that, either by conscious deception or unconscious inepti
tude, threatens the global comm unity. For Danny Torrance, destructive au
thority takes the form of the biological father who, because of his ow n history
of childhood victim ization and an encounter w ith supernatural malevolence,
tries to destroy the Torrance family.
A lthough King's works consistently privilege certain socially oriented
them es in order to urge their ideological rhetoric-religious fanaticism and
governm ental deception/ineptitude exemplify two such recurring them es— I
have chosen to focus on the father as agent of destruction because I believe
destructive paternity to be one of the m ost pervasive concerns of K ing's fic
tion as well as of that fiction's cultural order. The m arked prevalence in
King's works of situations in w hich the paternal signifier is depicted or im-
plicated as the agent of destruction is im p o rtan t here for at least tw o reasons:
first, destructive paternity is a subject w ith w hich K ing— a victim of paternal
deprivation an d an accom panying arrested oedipalization— is personally an d '
intim ately acquainted. The follow ing excerpt com es from a 1983 interview
conducted by Eric N orden:
M y father deserted us w hen I w as tw o . . . an d left m y m other
w ith o u t a dim e. . . . A ctually, it w as a classic desertion, not even
a note of explanation or justification left behind. H e said, liter
ally, th at he w as going out to the grocery store for a pack of cig
arettes, an d he d id n 't take any of his things w ith him . T hat w as
in 1949, a n d none of us have h eard of the b astard since. (Bare
Bones 34-35, em phasis in text)
Later in this interview , K ing claim s th at "the w o u n d [of desertion] itself has
healed” (36). O ne w onders, how ever, if the reference in the above passage to
bastardy belies such a claim; indeed, in light of K ing's consistent ap p ro p ria
tion of destructive father figures, the term bastard suggests residual hostilities
that find outlet in his fiction.6 If, too, as Freud contended, the O edipus com
plex occurs betw een the ages of three and five years of age, K ing's oedipal
ization w as never fully played out. This lends fu rth er credence to the possi
bility that K ing's continued attention to com plications in w hich father figures
are either absent or openly m alevolent is sym ptom atic of his ow n experience
w ith paternal deprivation.7
Second, K ing's preoccupation w ith destructive p atern ity accounts, I
think, for m uch of the cultural resonance of his w ork. In term s of ideological
analysis K ing's attention to paternal com plications underscores the essential
98
m etonym ic relationship linking the political unconscious of his fictions w ith
the culture in w hich they circulate an d w hich continues to ap p ro p riate them
for the fashioning of num erous alternative (com m ercial and aesthetic) arti-
facts— including not only film adaptations b u t television m iniseries, comic
books, audio tapes, even a short-lived B roadw ay m usical.8 This ongoing
process of cultural production and consum ption suggests that som e validity
does in deed lie in the view ing of K ing's dom estic horror narratives as tim ely
com m entary on a disturbing sociocultural trend. As I have already show n,
absent fathers are on the increase th roughout virtually all econom ic strata of
contem porary A m erican society, an d reports of child abuse occurring a t the
h an d s of fathers a n d / or surrogate fathers have increased m arkedly over the
last tw o decades.9 As m editations on the destiny of com m unity, then, Bang's
dom estic horror fictions evidence an obsession that is both highly m arketable
an d culturally justifiable; after all, as the num ber of fatherless households
continues to rise, such households are transform ing w h at w as largely p er
ceived d u rin g K ing's ow n father-absent childhood as a transgression of nor-
J m ality into the cultural norm itself.
j For King, then, as for various of his characters and m em bers of his au
dience, absent fathers present a p a ra dox: the, fact^of Jh e ir.a b se nce w o u ld su g-
gest ipso facto vindication of any potential culpability, yet their absence is it
self w h at constitutes that culpability. A bsent fathers are, that is, agents of de
struction because of their absence. A s w e w ill see m om entarily in analyses of
99
Carrie an d The Stand, the space left in the dom estic sphere by absent fathers
creates a psychic space that m ust be filled b y alternative paternal signifiers,
signifiers that cannot fulfil the subject's need a n d /o r desire for paternal
guidance.
The concept of physical paternal absence, how ever, m arks only one of
various kinds of destructive paternity one encounters in King. O thers include
neglect and various form s of abuse. In each instance, victim s m ay be said to
undergo paternal deprivation in that they are dep riv ed of their right to a
healthy relationship w ith the father. G ranted, the m ost obvious instances of
paternal deprivation are those in w hich the father is physically absent, but
destructive paternity m ay also be m anifest as psychological a n d /o r em otional
deprivation im pacting the father-child relationship; indeed, the m ere presence
of the father does not necessarily assure his involvem ent w ith the child. A
kind of passive deprivation m ay take place in w hich the father's ow n w ith
draw al or lack of interest m ay function actively to deprive the child. A nd
even if the father is present an d actively involved, there is no assurance that
!
involvem ent alone w ill preclude paternal deprivation. A buse m u st be consid-
; ered a m ode of paternal deprivation in that it deprives the child of its right to
I a sense of paternal love an d acceptance. V erbal abuse creates a basis for any
i
I num ber of psychological states including fear, frustration, an d despair. Phys-
! ical abuse can produce these conditions as w ell, further depriving the child
I
; by violating its right to a healthy body.
100
King's fictional landscapes are strew n w ith characters whose frustra
tions can be linked to deprivation(s) they experience in relation to their fa
thers. In m any of these narratives, the father dies before the birth of his
child. In such cases the process of subject form ation is im m ediately prob-
lem atized in that one of the key players in the oedipal dram a is absent from
the subject-to-be's earliest m om ents of cognition; thus, the paternal function
is displaced onto a surrogate figure or some alternative social apparatus.
King's first published novel, Carrie, deals w ith a female subject w ho m ust
progress through the psychosocial process of subject form ation in the face of
just such an absence.1 0 Ralph W hite's death prior to Carrie's birth leaves his
daughter open (and vulnerable) to any of the "symbolic fathers" that her im
m ediate environm ent m ay im press upon her.1 1 These symbolic fathers take
various forms, either as authoritative individuals (most prom inently M argaret
W hite, Carrie's "phallic" m other, and Rita Desjardin, Carrie's m asculinized
gym teacher) or as ideological apparatuses (Carrie's school and the adm inis
tration there).
Because, however, these m ultiple m anifestations of the symbolic father
represent different ideologies, they com m unicate little more than a profound
confusion to Carrie W hite. The absence of a biological father thus creates a
situation of am biguity in which she m ust determ ine for herself the validity of
principles (too often directly contradictory) espoused by various representa
tives of paternal authority. Such a situation breeds frequent frustration, and
101
w hen C arrie becom es the b u tt of a hum iliating practical joke, that frustration,
coupled w ith her already deeply ingrained feelings of insecurity, gives w ay to
despair. C arrie responds by indulging in an apocalyptic tem per tantrum , de
stroying her com m unity (w ith all of its authority figures) and herself. Carrie
thus offers a dram atic illustration of F reud's theory of the pathogenic poten
tial of frustration: D eprived of a father figure, Carrie m u st look to her m other
for a sense of self-validation, b u t as she com es to u n d erstan d a n d reject her
i
m other's "extreme C hristian ethic" (94), the act of rejection leaves a psychic
void that is briefly filled by her acceptance into the com m unity. W hen she
experiences rejection there (in the form of a practical joke), she responds, p re
dictably, w ith aggression. Psychological and ultim ately social conflict in Car
rie can thus be traced to the confusion occasioned in the subject by the physi
cal absence of the father and the assum ption of the paternal function by rep
resentatives of diverse (often violently opposed) ideologies.
A lthough Carrie’s foregrounding of fem ale subjectivity is a rarity in
King, the physical absence of fathers continues to m anifest itself as an im
plicit (and recurring) determ ining condition in his w orks.1 2 In The Stand, for
exam ple, three of the five m en elected to the seven-m em ber political appa-
! ratu s— organized to form ulate a new governm ent system for a devastated
I
I
j w o rld — are victim s of absent fathers. Tw o of these three h ad suffered as
; children the loss of both parents. Stu R edm an's father h a d died w hen Stu
l
j w as seven, and then "Two m onths before he h ad g rad u ated from high school,
102
[his m other] h ad died, leaving Stu w ith his brother Bryce to support" (5).
N ick A ndros, a tw enty-one-year-old deaf-m ute, had also lost his father w hen
(in a situation rem iniscent of C arrie W hite's), three m onths before N ick w as
born, a truck accident triggered a fatal heart attack. N ick's m other h a d been
killed in a m otorcycle accident w h en he w as nine (132). L arry U nderw o od's
father h ad died w hen Larry w as nine, apparently the victim of a heart attack
b ro u g h t on by a failed business and m ounting d ebt (47).
These characters have each been affected differently by paternal loss.
For R edm an and A ndros, the physical absence of their biological fathers w as
further com plicated by the d eath of their m others. The loss of both parents
w h en each boy w as very young forced on them a sense of responsibility and
social consciousness th at in som e sense p repared them for the leadership
roles they assum e. R edm an h ad gone to w ork at the age of nine, eventually
sacrificing his ow n career aspirations to w atch his younger brother surpass
him in education an d rise to a level of som e prom inence w ith IBM. A ndros
h ad been doubly alienated by his com m unication handicap. Thus, both R ed
m an an d A ndros have been shaped by childhood circum stances to function in
I ‘
I
! extrem ely adverse situations and, as becom es evident, in dem anding leader-
s
| ship roles. D eprivation has instilled in them an ability to deal effectively and
i
j responsibly w ith reality. U nderw ood does not initially share this sam e sense
i
j of responsibility, how ever. W hereas Stu R edm an h ad em braced an obligation
i
to provide for his m other an d tw o brothers after his father's d eath an d for his
103
one surviving brother after the deaths of his m other and youngest brother,
Larry U nderw ood never experienced any com parable com pulsions while
grow ing up. H aving been an only child, he had always been "'a taker',"
accuses his mother: "'It's like God left som e part of you out w hen H e built
you inside of m e'" (88). N either does he share Nick A ndros's degree of forti
tude. W hereas A ndros had been forced to come to grips w ith social ostraciza-
tion and unjustified cruelty early in his life, U nderw ood had always pos
sessed a flam boyant social ease and personal confidence due in part, at least,
to his musical talents. (U nderw ood's vocal m astery, sym bolized in his sing
ing ability, opposes him directly to A ndros's "roaring silence" [133].) But if
U nderw ood seems to possess social graces lacking in Andros, those graces
(and the society w ithin w hich they signify) are revealed to him and to the
reader as ultim ately shallow and virtually useless until reforged in the fires
of apocalypse.
For Redm an and A ndros, then, early experiences w ith deprivation pro
duce a self-confidence and an ability to confront reality that U nderw ood
lacks. Rather than confronting negative situations, U nderw ood sim ply re
treats from them by indulging heavily in drugs, a response to reality that
Melanie Klein links directly to the O edipus complex:
A t a very early age children become acquainted w ith reality
through the deprivations w hich it imposes on them. They de
fend themselves against reality by repudiating it. The funda
m ental thing, however, and the criterion of all later capacity for
adaptation to reality, is the degree in which they are able to
104
tolerate the deprivations that result from the O edipus situation.
(LGR 128-29)
U nderw ood offers, then, a case study in w hat Kleinian psychoanalysis m ight
dub "infantile repudiation." Because he did not experience the loss of his
father until age nine, U nderw ood's initial oedipalization w ould have played
itself out norm ally— certainly, at least, m uch more so than A ndros's (which
w ould have been further complicated by the latter's physical handicap). If,
however, as Freud argued in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, the oedi
pal dram a reem erges briefly at adolescence, U nderw ood's second experience
w ith oedipal im pulses w ould not have been so easily resolved. According to
Freud, at the onset of puberty,
infantile tendencies invariably emerge once m ore, but this time
w ith intensified pressure from somatic sources. Am ong these
tendencies the first place is taken w ith uniform frequency by the
child's sexual im pulses tow ards his [sic] parents, which are as a
rule already differentiated owing to the attraction of the oppo
site sex— the son being draw n tow ards his m other and the
daughter tow ards her father. A t the sam e time as these plainly
incestuous phantasies are overcome and repudiated, one of the
m ost significant, but also one of the m ost painful, psychical
achievements of the pubertal period is complete: detachm ent
from parental authority, a process that alone m akes possible the
opposition, w hich is so im portant for the progress of civilization,
betw een the new generation and the old. (SE 7: 226-27)
U nderw ood's psychic im pulses— his "being draw n tow ards his m other" and
his drive towards "detachm ent from parental authority"— w ould have created
a kind of psychic doublebind, both im pulses being directed at his mother.
C oupled w ith "intensified pressure from somatic sources," this psychic dou-
105
blebind suggests one reason that U nderw ood is initially the least stable
psychologically of these three characters.1 3
Larry U nderw ood is, then, the character w ith the m ost epiphanic po
tential in The Stand, and, indeed, he undergoes the m ost dram atic change of
these three major characters. Transform ed by the events of the narrative
from a self-centered and egotistical hedonist into a com m unity leader, he
ultim ately becomes the novel's sacrificial lamb:
. . . the old w ound in himself had finally closed, leaving him at
peace. He had felt the two people that he had been all his life—
the real one and the ideal one— m erge into one living being. His
m other w ould have liked this Larry.
I'm going to die. If there's a God— and now I believe there must be-
-that's His will. We're going to die and somehow all of this will end
as a result of our dying. (1060, italics in text)
In The Stand, then, King employs paternal deprivation as a m eans of testing
by which potentially heroic individuals m ust be understood as having been
m olded by dom estic tribulation (in the form of the absent father) in prepara
tion for the m oral and psychological conflicts they encounter as survivors of
a global holocaust. Like Carrie, these figures are heavily influenced by a reli
gious m aternal figure (although in The Stand this figure is treated positively),
and like Carrie two of the three major characters do not survive the events of
the narrative. Unlike the dom estic apocalypse of Carrie, however, The Stand's
ideological rhetoric assures, if not an ultim ate dom estic security, at least the
survival of the com m unity and the valorization of the nuclear fam ily as the
106
m ost germ inal social construct in that com m unity. In Stu R edm an's and
Frannie G oldsm ith's decision to retu rn (w ith their new son) to Frannie's
form er hom e in M aine, the narrative accom plishes a m ythic circularity that
suggests a retu rn to som e sem blance of norm ality w hile sim ultaneously signi-
i
fying the repopulating of a virtually decim ated w orld.1 4
A lthough victim s of physically absent fathers abound in King, charac
ters faced w ith psychologically a n d /o r em otionally "absent" fathers figure
even m ore prom inently.1 5 From a strategic standpoint, the m arginalizing (as
opposed to the absenting) of paternal authority figures provides King w ith a
i
m uch m ore direct m eans by w hich fathers can be w oven into his plots as de
structive agents. From the standpoint of an underlying ideological rhetoric,
m arginalized fathers provide a diegetic basis for exploring the hypothesis p u t
forth by sociologists H enry Biller an d Richard Solom on that children of "pas
sive or ineffectual father[s]" are m ore likely to display "certain types of devel
opm ental deficits" than are "father-absent children w ith com petent m others"
j (135). O ne is rem inded here of Larry U nderw ood, w ho as a father-absent
i
1 child m irrors K ing's ow n childhood an d serves as a positive illustration of
I
j
| this argum ent. The "com petency" of U nderw ood's m other as dom inant au-
j thority figure is signified in h er abrasive personality and penchant for hurling
h a rd truths at her son ab o u t him self. H er m anner often causes rifts betw een
i
: the tw o, b u t as the apocalyptic events of The Stand unfold, long after U nder-
107
w ood's m other has died, her w ords come back to him , revealing truths that
he learns to accept and by which he overcomes his self-centeredness and ir
responsibility. In U nderw ood's case, a com petent m aternal authority figure
serves as a prim ary determ inant in his transcending the potential negative
effects of physical paternal deprivation and his evolution into a responsible
CO— >
Overly quiescem fathers, on the other hand, risk inducing lasting psy
chological dam age in their children and m ay present greater destructive po-
tential than do physically absent fathers. One could trace the logic of this
I - I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - — I n mu H 1 1 1 T I ~ I . - -1 — r r — -niMU m r - r r — - V — r w h . i i w m ■ - - - - - - - ^ . rf:; i|_
argum ent to the, w estern .sym bolic,order's^deeply„ingrained^tra^tion of phal-
locentrism, in w hich the father'sjpresence implies the accom panying presence^
1,-n^rr—I'r-'ai-Vn-rt*?! r r ... > * 4 .
(and, by further im plication, the ,gx§rcising)^p£authority. W hen this authority
does not m anifest itself— does not rise up, so to speak, in its ow n defense— the
result is likely to be confusion and frustration on the part of the subject. In
Christine, the Cunningham fam ily undergoes just such a dom estic situation.
W hen seventeen-year-old A m ie purchases an old and severely beat-up 1958
Plym outh Fury w ithout first seeking parental consent, his m other seizes
im m ediate charge of the situation:
Regina held her glass out to her husband. "Make m e another
drink. There's a fresh bottle of gin in the pantry."
"Dad, stay here," Arnie said. "Please. Let's get this over."
M ichael C unningham looked at his wife; his son; at his wife
again. He saw flint in both places. H e retreated to the kitchen
clutching his wife's glass. (175)
108
A dm ittedly, this scene plays in a self-consciously comic m ode (as does m uch
of the novel), y et the com edy is offset by the cum ulative effect of M ichael
C un n in g h am 's repeated concessions of this sort.1 6 A m ie senses his father's
u n spok en approval of his actions an d resents his father's refusal to stand u p
to Regina on his son's behalf. The result is a steady increase in A m ie's ag-
gressivity tow ards both parents an d a w illingness to subm it to the m alevolent
(but consistent) su p ern atu ral authority of Christine. A rnie's rebellion and
aggression ultim ately destroy the C unningham fam ily in a clim ax of dom estic
apocalypse as thorough as Carrie's.
Even in tho,se>Jiases«where»amdominating»wife/motherJs n o t,p a rt,o f th e
d ram atic p arad igm , how ever, ineffectual fathers .can.create d isastrous, prob-
lems. The novella "Apt Pupil" offers a case in point. T odd B ow den is in
troduced as an extrem ely well adjusted an d prom ising adolescent— "an A m eri
can boy," w e are told, w ho "had been tau g h t that persistence is a virtue" (DS
112). Ironically, T odd's persistence leads him to the discovery of a notorious
j N azi w ar crim inal, K urt D ussander, hiding out in T odd's hom e tow n. A t
i
T o d d 's first confrontation w ith D ussander, the narrative sets u p an opposition1
1 betw een its tw o p rim ary authority figures— D ussander a n d T odd's father— that
becom es m ore pronounced as the narrative progresses:
j A n old m an [D ussander], hunched inside a bathrobe, stood
looking o u t through the screen. A cigarette sm ouldered be-
I tw een his fingers. T odd thought the m an looked like a cross
betw een A lbert E instein an d Boris Karloff. H is hair w as long
an d w hite b u t beginning to yellow in an u npleasant w ay that
109
w as m ore nicotine than ivory. His face w as w rinkled and
pouched and puffy w ith sleep, and T odd saw w ith som e dis
taste that he h a d n 't bothered shaving for the last couple of days.
T odd's father w as fond of saying, "A shave p u ts a shine on the
m orning." T odd's father shaved every day, w hether he h ad to
w ork or not. (DS 110-111)
O pposition and duality w ork in this p arag rap h at several levels. The com-
i
i posite of Einstein (intellectual, scientist, philosopher, a figure of positive
social im plications) w ith Karloff (the best know n of num erous cinem atic
F rankenstein's m onsters, a fictional character em blem atic of both social vic
tim ization an d destructive energy) underlines the am biguity of D ussander in
T odd's eyes. It also im plies the scientist/m onster duality associated w ith the
nam e Frankenstein, although this duality will be u n d ercu t over the course of
the narrative as the "virtuous" child assum es the role of the M onster in m a-
! n ip u latin g the vulnerable adult. The back-and-forth exchange of pow er roles
that occurs th ro u g h o u t the narrative also accentuates the irony inherent in
T o d d 's perception of a N azi w ar crim inal as sim ilar to the Jewish Einstein.
The inversion of authority in "A pt Pupil" recalls w orks referred to
i
j earlier (Carrie, Firestarter, The Dead Zone) in w hich the sym bolic father is
i
overpow ered by the "gifted" child w ith the exception that in "Apt Pupil" the
w ild talents of those earlier children are replaced by know ledge obtained by
i
; the "virtue" of persistence. The vulnerability of the authority figure is
«
i dram atized w hen T odd threatens to reveal the G erm an's identity unless D us
sander recounts in detail the horrifying events in w hich he h ad participated
i
110
as a com m andant of various concentration cam ps d u rin g W orld W ar Two.
Sensing blackm ail, D ussander com plies, and T odd becom es the focal point
betw een tw o opposed sym bolic fathers of tw o m utu ally exclusive ideologies:
D ussander, w ho "talked to T odd about the gas ovens" (131) of the G erm an
concentration cam ps an d R ichard Bow den, T o d d 's biological father, w hose
neglect surfaces in his inability
"... to tell [Todd] ab o u t how m aybe there w as som ething m ore
to life than m e being able to take all of you to H aw aii for a
m onth or being able to b uy T odd pants th at d o n 't sm ell like the
I m othballs they used to p u t in the G oodw ill box. I could never
figure o u t h o w to tell him those things. But I think m aybe he
know s. A nd it takes a load off m y m ind." (184)
R ichard B ow den's relief that "m aybe [Todd] know s" underlines the irony of
his son's learning about the "som ething m ore to life" from a N azi w ar
crim inal w hose stories of G erm an atrocities sim ultaneously fascinate and
repulse him. These divergent feelings (central, as I have argued, to the psy
chological processes at w ork in both the oedipal dram a and the narrative
transaction of horror) instill in T odd a confusion that eventually turns to
I
! hatred. H e becom es a victim of tw o destructive fathers: of D ussander's
I
; psychological dom inance an d R ichard B ow den's em otional neglect. Finally,
i
in trying to extricate him self from D ussander's grow ing pow er over him ,
T odd begins to act out his h atred by com m itting m ultiple m urders, a practice
j that eventually leads to his ow n violent death.1 7
Ill
T odd B ow den is a victim m ore of his father's psychological an d em o
tional neglect th an of physical absence, and "A pt Pupil," in dram atizing the
potential consequences of such neglect, can be read as a m editation on "the
m ost p revalent form of child m altreatm ent in o u r society" (Biller 223). Like
i
A rnie C unningham in Christine, T odd lives in a typically m iddle-class nuclear
fam ily. Like A rnie's, both of T odd's p arents are em ployed outside the hom e
an d both are secure in their jobs, their m arriage, an d their dom estic roles.
Because, how ever, both T odd Bow den and A rnie C unningham suffer from a
lack of appropriate ad u lt guidance in the home, they seek and find that
guidance outside of their respective dom estic spheres, transfering their cathec-
tic energies from appropriate father figures to inappropriate and d ead ly su r
rogates. The ideological rhetoric of dom estic horror narratives such as "Apt
Pupil" an d Christine suggests that the fath er's nonparticipation, w h en he is
physically available, lays ju st as firm (and som etim es firm er) a foundatio n for
potential disaster as does his physical absence. Both narratives dem onstrate
that such disaster is n o t lim ited to the socially isolated dom estic sphere of the
im m ediate fam ily b u t threatens the larger com m unity as well; indeed, T odd's
I
} proclivity for m u rd er escalates from hom eless derelicts to the ran d o m shoot-
; ing of passing m otorists. In both "Apt Pupil" an d Christine, King explores the
p arad o x of physical presence and em otional absence, the form er being ne-
i
1 gated ~ o r w orse, su b v erted ~ b y the latter.
112
K ing's ow n am bivalence, as it pertains to the destructive potential of
j w h a t m ight be called "passive fathering," surfaces occasionally, how ever, in
I
j w orks suggesting that w h at seem s an excessive degree of paternal detach-
i
m ent m ay signify a virtue. In The Dead Zone, for exam ple, Johnny Sm ith u n
d erstan d s his father's silence am id the continuous onslaught of Vera Sm ith's
religious vituperations. C ast in very m uch the sam e character m old as M ar
garet W hite in Carrie, Vera S m ith's religious fervor is eccentric an d offen
sive.1 8 But Johnny harbors no resentm ent for his father's quiescence because
both share a know ledge of the w ife /m o th e r's increasing senility as w ell as a
strong em otional bond w ith her an d w ith each other. In a sim ilar kind of do
m estic triangle, The Stand depicts Frannie G oldsm ith and her father, Peter, as
able to m ake allow ances for C arla G oldsm ith's constant railings, apparently ,
the result of an unnaturally prolonged bitterness over the accidental death of
F rannie's brother w hen b o th w ere very young children. Frannie actually ad
m ires her father's taciturnity, perceiving it as a signifier of his patience, itself
I a signifier of his devotion to her m other.1 9
i
These narratives suggest th at the notion of "passive or ineffectual" fa-
| .thers m u st be recognized as a com plex issue of degree an d the paternal func-
tion a constantlv„changing variable to be located and relocated along the con-
! tinua of events as differing circum stances d em an d differing responses from
1 the father. Silence need not signify psychological or em otional absence, and
I to conceive of the passive father as unequivocally destructive is to ignore the
113
virtually limitless num ber of circumstances constituting a specific incident or
series of incidents which m ay in fact valorize that passivity. Likewise, to
conceive of the "effectual" father as he w ho sim ply appropriates parental au
thority and disallows, regardless of the nature of conflict, the m other/w ife to
encroach on any designated "paternal" terrain is to buy into an equally unac-
20
ceptable and destructive dom estic patriarchy.
Distinctions, then, betw een paternal activity and passivity or betw een
effectuality and ineffectuality cannot be adequately expressed in term s of
sim ple binary oppositions. Each pair m ust be conceived of as occupying op
posite extremes of axes on which various factors m ust be plotted. King's
domestic horror fictions reflect this kind of complexity, depicting at times as
devoted and quietly effective those fathers w ho are slow to act. Often such
figures are torn betw een a conscientious sense of responsibility to both chil
dren, and spouse. W hen such responsibilities necessitate the assum ing of a
t il ... i i,
position antagonistic to one or the other, paternal quiescence often indicates
the father's ow n legitim ate ambivalence in determ ining proper action.
G ranted, this ambivalence m ay signal destructive potential, occasioning
tragic circumstances such as those in Christine and "Apt Pupil"; on the other
hand, King seems to suggest it m ay indicate a sincere desire on the part of
the paternal authority figure to balance paternal and spousal responsibilities
as efficiently as possible, as in The Dead Zone and The Stand.
114
Perhaps, how ever, the m ost troubling m anifestation of the father as
!
agent of destruction is n o t absence (in either its physical or psychological
m anifestations) b u t abuse. By engaging in verbal an d physical abuse, the fa
ther deprives the child of both self-esteem and physical well-being. A lthough
theoretically physical a n d /o r sexual abuse could occur w ithout any accom pa
nying verbal abuse, it is difficult to im agine an instance in w hich such an
event w ould actually take place. In King, verbal aggression occurs m ost
, often as the initial stage of w h at escalates into physical violence. In The
Stand, for exam ple, Brad L auder dem an d s to know if son H arold is hom osex
ual. A ccording to H aro ld 's account of the confrontation, his father's inquiry
h ad been posed in a threatening w ay, illustrating an attitu d e of b latan t and
cynical disgust: "'H e took m e aside once . . . and asked m e if I w as a queer-
boy. T hat's just how he said it'" (319). H arold can only resp o n d w ith silence
an d tears, w hich incites his father to physical and then fu rth er verbal abuse:
"'I got so scared I cried, an d he slapped m y face and told m e if I w as going
to be such a goddam ned baby all the tim e, I'd best ride rig h t o u t of tow n'"
!
; (3i9).
Verbal an d physical abuse occur frequently in K ing as a w ay of u n d e r
scoring the innocence of victim ized children w hile intensifying the m onstros-
| ity of the m onster-father. W e see this not only in The Shining, w here the
I
; m onster-father occupies the center of narrative conflict, b u t in dom estic hor-
, ror narratives that m arginalize him as w ell— narratives such as Cujo, The Dark
115
, Half, "The Langoliers," and Gerald's Game. In Cujo, for exam ple, ten-year-old
Brett C am ber and his m other C harity are both victim s of fa th e r/ h u sban d Joe
C am ber's occasional abuse. C am ber's verbal outbursts and the physical vio-
i
i
l lence that often follow s instill a fear in his w ife an d son that C am ber sees as
an effective strategy for dom ination. In typical oedipal fashion, how ever,
Brett's fear of his father is tem pered w ith an adm iration for his behavior, and
this adm iration troubles C harity C am ber m ore than does her husband's
j abuse: "She h ad heard the adm iration in B rett's voice, even if the boy him self
!
had not. Wants to be just like him. Thinks his daddy is just standing tall when he
scares someone. Oh m y God" (64, italics in text).
A lthough Joe C am ber eventually falls victim to Cujo, the "brute" m on
strous entity of th at novel, this k in d of cosmic irony is rare in King. M ore
I
often, abusive fathers serve as chosen instrum ents through w hich a su p ern at
ural an d m alevolent intelligence attem pts to achieve deliberate ends; indeed,
i
!
| the cause-effect relationship betw een an abusive paternal authority figure an d
i
! the eventual psychological dem ise of a principal character is a com m on m oti-
i
i vational strategy in K ing from Carrie onw ard. As I w ill show in chapter
i
! three, this is the determ ining condition underlying The Shining, a dom estic
i horror narrative in w hich su p ern atu ral forces "possess," m anipulate, and
I ultim ately destroy m onster-father Jack Torrance. I will argue, how ever, that
Torrance em erges a kind of tragic figure: the novel suggests that his victim i-
I
I zation as a child by an abusive father increases his vulnerability to the goad-
116
ings of the m alevolent "voices" that use him and then destroy him in their at-
j tem pt to get to his son.
J A m uch less sym pathetic rendering of the abusive father occurs in It,
| w here concerns are less w ith the prehistory of the abusers than w ith the ef-
i
fects of their abuse on their victim s. The novel's tem poral setting oscillates
betw een tw o tim e fram es, 1958 and 1985, depicting its principal characters as
i
both children an d adults. This form al strategy allow s us to w itness abusive
situations "directly" in the narrative present of 1958 (rather than in a m ore re
m oved analeptic past) as w ell as to see the long-term effects of those situa
tions in the alternate present of 1985. In It, tw o m ajor characters experience
physical m altreatm ent at the hands of abusive fathers. Like Brett C am ber in
Cujo, H enry Bowers is confused by am bivalent feelings for his abusive father.
A victim of constant verbal an d physical attack, H enry is "frightened of his
father and felt a terrible hate for him som etim es, b u t he also loved him" (633).
Like H arold L auder in The Stand, H enry is irredeem ably scarred by the m al
treatm ent he receives at the h an d s of his father, an d like L auder, he becom es
I a central instrum ent in the m alevolent m achinations of the m onster. W hen,
in one of the 1985 segm ents of the narrative, M ike H anlon confronts a thirty-
nine-year-old H enry Bowers just escaped from a facility for the crim inally
insane, the form er notes the
tired bew ildered look of the badly used child w ho has been set
on a poisonous path for som e unknow n purpose. H enry h ad
grow n up w ithin the contam inated rad iu s of Butch Bowers's
117
m ind; surely he had belonged to It even before he suspected It
existed. (882)
E m ploying the sam e ideological rhetoric as The Stand, It im plies a
causal link betw een the abused child and its susceptibility to m anipulation by
i
I
j m alevolent forces.2 1 But if Butch B ow ers's abuse of his son m akes H enry
j
susceptible to the psychological m anipulations of It, then the father can be
seen, ironically, as a victim of his ow n m onstrosity, for H enry's psychological
m alleability occasions Butch Bow ers's ow n violent death. In one of the
novel's 1958 segm ents, H enry sneaks u p to his sleeping father's bedside w ith
a new ly acquired sw itchblade, a gift from "MR. ROBERT GRAY" (one of It's
appellations):
. . . There w as a click inside the knife as the suicide-spring let
go, and six inches of steel drove through Butch Bow ers's neck.
. . . The tip of the blade p o p p ed out on the other side, dripping,
j B utch's eyes flew open. H e stared at the ceiling. H is m outh
dro p p ed open. Blood ran from the corners of it and d ow n his
cheeks tow ard the lobes of his ears. H e began to gurgle. A
large blood-bubble form ed betw een his slack lips and popped.
O ne of his h ands crept to H en ry 's knee an d squeezed convul
sively. H enry d id n 't m ind. Presently the han d fell aw ay. The
gurgling noises stopped a m om ent later. Butch Bowers w as
dead. (908)
I
A lthough Butch Bowers never progresses beyond the status of m arginal char-
; acter, his influence on his son provides a principal source of m otivation for
i
, H enry's psychological dom ination by It. This association is m ade explicit
j w hen the n arrato r tells us that at a very early age, "H enry Bowers, either
118
because of his constant association with his father or because of som ething
else— some interior thing— w as indeed slowly but surely going crazy" (637).
Like H enry Bowers, Beverly M arsh suffers frequent abuse at the hands
of her father. A1 M arsh's physical abuse is clothed, how ever, in the verbal
guise of parental concern:
"I w orry about you," A1 M arsh said. . . .
His hand suddenly sw ung and spatted painfully against her
buttocks. She uttered a cry, her eyes fixed on his. . . .
"I w orry a lot," he said, and hit her again, harder, on the arm
above the elbow. That arm cried out and then seem ed to go to
sleep. She w ould have a spreading yellow ish-purple bruise
there the next day.
"An awful lot," he said, and punched her in the stomach. He
pulled the punch at the last second, and Beverly lost only half
of her air. She doubled over, gasping, tears starting in her eyes.
H er father looked at her impassively. He shoved his bloody
hands in the pockets of his trousers.
"You got to grow up, Beverly," he said, and now his voice
was kind and forgiving. "Isn't that so?"
She nodded. . . . (380)
Because her m other does not interfere, Beverly accepts her father's abuse as a
norm al part of her upbringing, but the novel suggests that Beverly's accep
tance of her father's abusive behavior is just as erroneous a reaction as is
H enry Bowers's m urder of his father.
H er early acceptance of an abusive domestic situation suggests itself as
one of the determ ining factors underlying Beverly M arsh's eventual m a rria g e
into an abusive relationship. She has associated her m onster-father (her fa-
ther-as-perpetrator-of-physical-abuse) w ith her sym bolic-father (her father-as-
protector-and-provider); thus, the two imagoes are fused for her in such a
119
w ay as to incline her tow ards the m an— "Tom [Rogan], so like her father
w hen he took off his shirt and stood slightly slum ped in front of the bath
room m irror to shave" (382)— w hom she believes can offer her security and
com panionship.
Like all of King's adult survivors of child abuse, Beverly's distorted
vision of dom estic propriety reaches backw ard into her childhood, and only
w hen she finally breaks w ith Rogan— recognizing his (and finally her father's)
abuse for w hat it w as— and reestablishes an em otional relationship w ith her
childhood adm irer and fellow-m em ber of "The Losers Club," Ben H anscom ,
does she find the true security and com panionship she has desired. Like
Carrie W hite, Todd Bowden, and Arnie C unningham , Beverly M arsh is
forced to look to the com m unity for w hat she cannot find in the m ore inti
m ate dom estic arena of her home. Unlike these others, however, who find
only further rejection and death in their comm unities, Beverly finds accep
tance and transcendence in the support she receives there.
In It, child abuse assures the eventual destruction of one character and
the transcendence of another, m aking this novel one of King's m ost them ati
cally balanced (but ultim ately ambivalent) explorations of destructive pater
nity. The ideological rhetoric of It stops short of asserting that the m otivation
behind A1 M arsh's physical abuse of his daughter is rooted in an incestuous
sexual desire, although in one of the adult-Beverly's more terrifying confron
tations w ith It, the m onster assures her that such had indeed been the case.
120
N ot until Gerald's Game and, subsequently, Dolores Claiborne does King
venture beyond suggestion to graphically explore the lasting problem s that
[ sexual child abuse can effect on the fam ily. Both novels posit that sexual
r
i
abuse not only terrorizes its victim s b u t confuses them to such a degree that
I
' it inhibits their im m ediate and long-term abilities to react appropriately to
questionable social behavior. In Gerald's Game, a ten-year-old Jessie M ahout
tries to u n d erstan d an d justify her father's actions:
■ The h an d on her thigh now m oved betw een her legs, slid up
until it w as stopped by her crotch, and cu p p ed her firm ly there.
H e sh o u ld n 't be doing that she thought. It w as the w rong place
for his hand. U nless—
He's goosing you, a voice inside su d d en ly spoke up.
In later years that voice . . . frequently filled her w ith
exasperation; it w as som etim es the voice of caution, often the
voice of blam e, and alm ost alw ays the voice of denial. U npleas
an t things, dem eaning things, painful things
. . . they w o u ld all go aw ay eventually if you ignored them
enthusiastically enough. > . . It w as a voice apt to stubbornly
insist that even the m ost obvious w rongs w ere actually rights.
It's just a goose, that's all it is, Jessie. (216-17)
Even as a child, Jessie realizes that som ething inappropriate has taken place,
\ b u t like Beverly M arsh before her, she d o esn 't know w here to place the
, blam e. Because this single incident involves only her and her father, w hom
■ she trusts com pletely, she assum es the blam e is hers, an d her greatest fear is
( that her m other w ill find out:
1
i
I
W hat if he decided he h ad to tell M om about w hat had h ap
pened? The possibility w as so horrifying that Jessie b u rst into
tears.
121
I'm sorry, Daddy, she w ept throw ing her arm s around him and
pressing her face into the hollow of his neck. . . . If I did some
thing wrong, I'm really, really, really sorry. (220, italics in text)
In Dolores Claiborne, Dolores's daughter, Selena, has very m uch the sam e reac
tion to her father's increasingly blatant attem pts at seduction. She eventually
tells her m other w hat has happened, however, and Dolores responds accord
ingly: "'I d o n 't know w hat's going to happen', I said, 'b u t I'll tell you two
things, Selena: none of this is your fault, and his days of paw in and pesterin
you are over. . . /" (106).
Both novels stress that the father's sexual advances are outw ard m ani
festations of a m ore insidious drive to exploit the child's vulnerable position
in the father-child relationship--to invoke paternal authority as sufficient jus
tification for the dem and that children subm it to their fathers' desires, re
gardless of the perversity of those desires. In both novels the father appro
priates his culturally ordained authority to destroy both the individual and
the family, and his destruction is psychological as well as physical. A t one
point during her lengthy narration/confession, Dolores Claiborne asks her
diegetic narratees if they "understand w hat I need you to understand. . . . Do
you see that [Joe] was w orkin as hard to get into her mind as he was into her
pants?" (100-101, italics in text).
This kind of child abuse rarely occurs in strict isolation from other
forms, how ever, and together they adversely affect not just the obvious vic
tim but other m em bers of the im m ediate fam ily as well— especially other sib
122
lings. Joe Junior, for exam ple, "had m ore'n half an idear of w h at w as up"
(100):
. . . H e w as tw elve in 1962, a prim e age for a boy, b u t you
w o u ld n 't know it lookin at him . H e h ard ly ever sm iled or
laughed, an d it really w asn 't any w onder. H e 'd no m ore'n
come into the room an d his D ad'd be on him like a w easel on a
chicken, tellin him to tuck in his shirt, to com b his hair, to quit
slouchin, to grow up, stop actin like a goddam sissy w ith his
nose alw ays stuck in a book, to be a m an. W hen Joe Junior
d id n 't m ake the Little League All-Star team the sum m er before I
found out w h a t w as w ro n g w ith Selena, you w ould have
thought, listenin to his father, that h e 'd been kicked off the
O lym pic track team for takin pep-pills. A d d to th at w hatever
h e 'd seen his father gettin u p to w ith his big sister, and you got
a real m ess on yo u r hands, Sunny Jim. I'd som etim es look at
Joe Junior lookin at his father and see real hate in that boy's
face— hate, p u re and sim ple. (119-20)
A nd D olores's fears for "Little Pete" recall those of C harity C am ber in Cujo.
Just as C harity h ad feared B rett's adm iration of his fath er's behavior m ore
than she h ad feared the father him self, Dolores fears for her youngest son:
. . . By the tim e he w as four, h e 'd go sw aggerin aro u n d right be
hind Joe, w ith the w aist of his pants pulled u p like Joe w ore his,
an d h e 'd pull at the en d of his nose an d his ears, just like Joe
did.
. . . H e looked just like his old m an. Selena w as scared of her
father, Joe Junior h ated him , b u t in som e w ays it w as Little Pete
w ho scared m e the m ost, because Little Pete w anted to grow up
to be just like him . (120)
As Dolores begins to register the effect her h u sb a n d 's advances on
their dau g h ter are having on the entire fam ily, she resolves to kill him. H er
act is ironic in that it is m otivated by her desire to preserve w hat rem ains of
her fam ily's dom estic security by rem oving the father from the equation. She
123
justifies her decision to herself and her interrogators by citing m aternal love
as her m otivation and by arguing that her children
are successful beyond w h at anyone on Little Tall w o u ld 'v e ex
pected w hen they w ere babies, an d successful beyond w h at they
m aybe could've been if their no-good father h a d n 't h ad him self
an accident on the afternoon of July 20th, 1963. . . . But listen to
m e, all three of you, n hear this if you d o n 't hear nothing else:
everything I did, I did for love . . . the love a natural m other
feels for her children. T hat's the strongest love there is in the
w orld, an d it's the deadliest. T here's no bitch on earth like a
m other frightened for her kids. (298)
The juxtaposition of love and death em phasizes the com plexity an d am biva
lence underlying Dolores C laiborne's act of m u rd er as w ell as the reader's
response to that act. H er argum ent offers one of those particularly overt
dialogic passages in w hich w e hear the author speaking through his charac
ter, for she voices m any of the sam e sentim ents K ing has often attributed to
his m other, N ellie R uth King. In his interview w ith Eric N orden, for exam
ple, K ing describes his m other in term s that evoke an im age strikingly sim ilar
to Dolores Claiborne:
She w as a w onderful lady, a very brave lady in that old-fash
ioned sense, and w en t to w ork to su p p o rt us, generally at m e
nial jobs because of her lack of any professional training. . . .
J T hanks to m y m other, the one thing that w as never in short
supply, corny as it m ay so u n d to say it, w as love. A nd in that
| sense I w as a hell of a lot less dep riv ed than countless children
j of m iddle-class or w ealthy fam ilies, w hose parents have tim e for
j everything b u t their kids. (Bare Bones 34)
124
In this chapter, I have attem pted to exam ine the w ays in w hich the
process of subject form ation is explored in K ing's dom estic horror fictions. I
have tried to touch on a representative num ber of his fictions, ranging from
earliest to m ost recent, to dem onstrate th at his w ork is consistently inform ed
by a concern w ith issues related to fathers and notions of fathering. This
concern can be exam ined by w ay of the oedipal m aster narrative, w hich func
tions ideologically in King by providing an easily recognizable paradigm
w ithin w hich the form ation of individual identity can be explored, problem a-
tized by w ay of fam ilial com plications in a setting depicting the violation of
an im plicitly agreed-upon notion of "social norm ality." T he oedipal m aster
narrative provides one possible fram ew ork from w ithin w hich to theorize
w hy K ing's w riting has acquired the social prom inence it has— w hy, in spite
of its p o p u lar labeling as "horror" fiction, K ing's w ork has found and con
tinues to m aintain an appeal to a sizable portion of the m ainstream reading
public.
In the chapters th at follow , I w an t to n arro w the potential narrative
terrain of this stu d y by focusing m y exam ination of this process of subject-
t
j form ation on particular w orks. In chapter four I turn to THE SHINING,
w here I w ill address in greater detail the notion of dom estic security that I
touched on in m y opening chapter. C hapter five will then focus on dom estic
i
j security's d ark O ther— dom estic apocalypse. Together, these chapters should
i
clarify the contradictions occupying the two ideological extrem es of K ing's
125
oeuvre. Also, by perform ing m ore in-depth analyses of these narratives, I
hope to clarify w hy p o p u lar novels (and novellas) such as Carrie, The Stand,
"Apt Pupil," It, and other w orks I have exam ined in brief here— w orks th at fall
som ew here betw een these two extrem es— offer w orthw hile insights into con
tem porary A m erica's dom estic culture. Their status as "popular horror"
should not obscure the fact th at their concern w ith various kinds of dom estic
ru p tu res occurring betw een parents a n d offspring says som ething w orth
m editating on about the dom estic issues that h au n t our society at this his
torical m om ent.
N O TES
1. H eller addresses this issue u n d e r the rubric of "aesthetic distance":
. . . [A] w ork of art seem s best w hen it involves readers in it as
com pletely as possible w ith o u t their forgetting that it is a w ork
of art an d interacting w ith it as if it w ere reality. The person
w ho flees the theater unable to endure the terrors of PSYCHO
an d the person w ho . . . p u lls out his [sic] pistol to shoot a film
villain on the screen have both lost aesthetic distance. A sophis
ticated reader w ho declines to finish a bad novel m ay have
found that the author is unable to reduce the aesthetic distance
enough to involve him in the book. (3)
2. In The Elementary Structures of Kinship, C laude Levi-Strauss points to
"the prohibition of incest" as the universal law distinguishing "culture" from
"nature." It is, he argues,
the fundam ental step because of which, by w hich, b u t above all
in w hich, the transition from nature to culture is accom plished.
. . . Before it, culture is still non-existent; w ith it, n atu re's sov
ereignty over m an is ended. The prohibition of incest is w here
nature transcends itself. It sparks the form ation of a new and
m ore com plex type of structure. . . . It brings about an d is in it
self the advent of a new order. (24-25, em phasis added)
126
3. I use Lacan's term paternal signifier here instead of the m ore p ro b
lem atic father because, consistent w ith Lacan, I in ten d to argue that the p a
ternal p aren t is that figure that enforces the law of culture and assures the
honoring of various taboos. Such a figure em bodies "the father" regardless of
its anatom ical sex. (See also note #11 below .)
By "oedipal" narrative logic I m ean those underlying structuring as
sum ptions that the narrative appropriates. L aura M ulvey has argued the cen
tral im portance of the oedipal d ram a as a structural schem a that dem on
strates first and forem ost an attem pt
to transform achievem ent through action into self-discovery.
This evolution takes the O edipus m odel out of a prim ary em
phasis on its im m ediate content, patricide an d incest, an d raises
formal questions about the w ay that the signifier of narration af
fects a story's signified. (188, em phasis added)
See also Teresa De Lauretis--Alice Doesn't (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984) 79,
125— for a discussion of h o w oedipal logic inform s narrative.
4. There is, of course, no reason to reduce the possibilities here to an
e ith e r/o r opposition. As I w ill show , there is evidence that King ap p ro p ri
ates oedipal issues both consciously and unconsciously.
5. The term is Seym our C hatm an's, b u t the concept of an "ideological
rhetoric" of narrative w ould seem to be self-evident as w ell as universal. The
notion of im plicit argum ent is, at any rate, fundam ental to any theory of
ideological analysis. C hatm an points out in Coming to Terms (184-203) that
the overall "suasive" potential of narrative (its "rhetoric") involves both an
"aesthetic" and an "ideological" dim ension. The aesthetic rhetoric of fiction is
restricted to the diegesis; it "suades us of som ething interior to the text" (197).
A esthetic rhetoric is concerned prim arily w ith the propriety or ultim ate effec
tiveness of a chosen form. W hy, for exam ple, is analepsis the chosen m eans
by w hich King recreates a sense of a determ ining p ast in The Shining? A nd is
this the m ost effective m eans by w hich he could have done so? Ideological
rhetoric, on the other hand, "suades us of som ething outside the text, som e-
; thing about the w orld at large" (197). All fiction, C hatm an argues, "radiates
| ideology" (197).
i 6. Elsew here in the sam e interview K ing offers further evidence that
such is the case:
W riting is necessary for m y sanity. As a w riter, I can external
ize m y fears an d insecurities an d n ight terrors on paper, w hich
! is w h at people pay shrinks a sm all fortune to do. In m y case,
I they pay m e for psychoanalyzing m yself in print. A nd in the
| process, I'm able to "write m yself sane," as that fine poet A nne
i Sexton p u t it. It's an old technique of therapists, you know : get
127
the p atien t to w rite out his dem ons. A F reudian exorcism. . . .
All the rage an d hate an d frustration, all th at's dangerous and
sick an d foul w ithin m e, I'm able to spew into m y w ork. There
are guys in p ad d ed cells all aro u n d the w o rld w ho a re n 't so
lucky. (44)
7. A lthough it is not m y purpose to engage in in-depth psychobio-
I graphy, I think it w orthw hile to note that these elem ents of K ing's ow n early
stages of subject form ation raise questions about other recurring them es in
his w orks: M ight the notion of arrested oedipalization help in som e w ay to
account for K ing's sym pathetic and nostalgic infatuation w ith childhood an d
the significance (and often the fear) of "m em ory" th at pervades his w ork?
M ight a hypothesis of arrested oedipalization help, paradoxically, to explain
the m ultiplicity of strong father figures in King? T hat is, do fathers such as
D avid D rayton ("The Mist"), H al Shelbum ("The M onkey") and John Delevan
("The Sun Dog") em body K ing's ow n fantasy of w h at constitutes the "good"
father?
8. Carrie: The Musical opened on B roadw ay at the V irginia Theater on
M ay 12, 1988 b u t closed on M ay 15 after only five perform ances. It has the
d ubious distinction of being the m ost expensive B roadw ay failure in history.
9. See above (p. 75). F urstenberg points o u t in "G ood D ads— Bad Dads"
that
Fam ily desertion has alw ays occurred an d appeared to be com
m on d u rin g the D epression. T hen and now , a disproportionate
share of the role rejectors are d raw n from the ranks of the
econom ically disadvantaged. W hat m ay be new is the num ber
of m iddle-class m en w ho are reneging on their paternal obliga
tions— m en w ho presum ably have the resources b u t not the com-
| m itm ent to perform their fatherly responsibilities. (204-205)
I
10. In K ing's novel Ralph W hite died in a construction accident seven
m onths before C arrie's birth. In De Palm a's film adaptation, how ever, W hite
j is rep u ted to have deserted his fam ily. The different determ inants underly-
I ing the father's absence here m ay seem m inim al, b u t the im plications are
| w orth considering. If R alph W hite deserted his fam ily (a la De Palm a's nar-
! rative), w e m u st consider the possibility that his desertion w as pro m p ted by
his w ife's religious m ania. This suggests that R alph W hite, h ad he been pres
ent, m ay have exerted a positive effect on C arrie's form ative years, repre
senting an alternative social and religious ideology to that of her eccentric
m other. The novel does not su p p o rt such an assum ption, how ever, depicting
R alph W hite as equal in his religious fanaticism to his wife; thus, K ing's nar-
| rative suggests that h ad R alph W hite lived, he w o u ld probably have only fur-
128
ther com plicated C arrie's already substantial social problem s. T hus, this ap
p aren t m inor alteration of K ing's narrative in its adaptation to the screen
reveals tw o m utually exclusive ideological rhetorics. In King, R alph W hite is
depicted as a religious fanatic w ho cannot, how ever, be blam ed for his deser
tion of fam ily. In De Palm a, W hite is im plicated in his w ilful desertion an d
yet this desertion is com plicated by w h at m any w ould perceive as its justifi
cation: his w ife's religious fanaticism .
11. The sym bolic father is essentially an abstraction, w h at Lacan theo
rizes as a "function." It cannot therefore be lim ited to or com pletely defined
by any individual or social apparatus. These, how ever, m ay represent the
sym bolic father (or "paternal function") w hen they fulfil an authoritative func
tion in the life of the subject. Lacan explains this difficult concept this w ay:
Even w hen in fact it is represented by a single person, the p a
ternal function [or sym bolic father] concentrates in itself both
im aginary an d real relations alw ays m ore or less inadequate to
the sym bolic relation that constitutes it. (Ecrits 67)
W hat is im p o rtan t here is that the sym bolic father be understood as an ab
stractio n -in tan g ib le and sexless. It is essentially raw authority. Kaja Silver
m an fu rth er clarifies this point: "M oreover, no m atter w ho actually assum es
responsibility for operating the m achine [i.e., the sym bolic order], that per
so n -e v e n if it is the m other— w ill alw ays represent the phallus [i.e., the
sym bolic father]" (185). O ne can trace a sim ilar argum ent through the F reud
of the late tw enties and early thirties. In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety
(1926) F reud associates the superego w ith the paternal function w h en he ar
gues that "the father . . . become[s] depersonalized in the shape of the su p e r
ego" (SE 20: 128). H e then speaks of a "cultural super-ego" (SE 21: 142) in
Civilization and Its Discontents (1929). F reud m ost clearly anticipates both
Lacan's "sym bolic father" an d A lthusser's "ideological state apparatuses"
w hen he proposes in "The Dissection of the Psychical Personality" (1932) that
"In the course of [Oedipal] developm ent the super-ego also takes on the influ
ences of those w ho have stepped into the place of parents— educators, teach
ers, people chosen as ideal m odels" (SE 22: 64).
i
• 12. See, e.g., The Stand, The Talisman, It (Eddie K aspbrak, Ben
H anscom ), "Gramm a" (SC 464-94), Pet Sematary (opening paragraph), an d
■ SLEEPWALKERS.
t
!
i 13. A sim ilar scenario is played out in The Talisman, a m uch m ore sub-
j versive novel in that its conclusion im plies heavily that the m ale adolescent
actually realizes his oedipal fantasies.
14. D ouglas W inter has noted the sym bolic im plications of R edm an's
j .
129
nam e, observing that "as [Redm an's] last nam e suggests, he is the new native
A m erican" (65).
15. See, e.g., The Stand (Peter an d Frannie G oldsm ith), Christine
(M ichael an d A m ie C unningham ), The Talisman (M organ and Richard Sloat),
Cycle of the Werewolf (H erm an an d M arty Coslaw ), It (Bill D enbrough's rela
tionship w ith both parents follow ing his brother G eorge's m urder), an d Pet
Sematary (the Louis-Ellie relationship follow ing G age's accidental death).
16. D ouglas W inter, K ing's biographer and one of his m ore astute
critics, has called Christine K ing's "m ost hum orous" novel (135). But as
W inter's critical analysis of the novel im plies, King em ploys hum or as a
m eans of social satire:
In Christine, the m etaphor for dehum anization coexists w ith
an older, m ore prim eval fear— that of internal evil: the upsurge
of the anim al, the repressed unconscious, the m onster from the
id; or, in this case, the m onster from the fifties. In the placid
sub u rb an setting for C hristine, D ennis G u ild er's perfect fifties
sit-com fam ily, an d the high school hoods that torm ent A m ie,
w e find a haunting sense of dejd vu— of a fifties m entality in
habiting a m odern setting. A nd in A rnie's transform ation— fif
ties rebel anim ating seventies w im p ~ w e find grim echoes of the
blatantly allegorical A m erican International exploitation film, I
WAS A TEENAGE W EREWOLF (1957). K ing nam ed his m ain
character (in full, A rnold R ichard C unningham ) specifically after
the nostalgic seventies television glorification of the naive as
pects of the fifties, "H appy Days," w hose lead character, played
by Ron H ow ard, w as n am ed Richie C unningham , and w hose
principal setting w as the local h angout "A rnold's." (139)
The destruction of the C unningham fam ily in Christine can be seen as a delib
erate rejection of the rom antic dom estic ideology perm eating such fifties-nos-
talgia as "H appy Days" and AM ERICAN GRAFFITI. T hat the C unningham s'
destruction com es via a h au n ted "machine" suggests the increasingly "m on
strous" role of 1950s technology in 1980s Am erica.
17. T odd's victim s are carefully chosen, ap p aren tly object-substitutes
for D ussander on w hich the form er can vent his increasing frustrations and
aggressions. Early in the story, T odd thinks that "w hat [D ussander] looked
like m ore than anything else w as one of the seedy old w inos that h u n g
I a ro u n d dow n by the railroad yard" (111); consequently, the boy goes there to
J com m it the first of w h at develops into a string of m urders.
j 18. Like ineffectual fathers, religious fanatics are a favorite character-
i type of King's. H e usually em ploys them as a m eans of unm asking a n d /o r
130
criticizing religious bigotry. Besides M argaret W hite (Carrie) and Vera Smith
(The Dead Zone), religious extremists include the "Children of the Corn," Mrs.
Carm ody ("The Mist"), and Sunlight G ardener (The Talisman). In 'Salem's Lot,
the ineffectual father and religious zealot are fused in the ultim ately im potent
Catholic priest, Father Callahan. Religion and the "community" m onster-fa-
ther coalesce in Cycle of the Werewolf, w here "The Beast is the Reverend Lester
Lowe, of the Grace Baptist Church" (100). In The Stand, M other Abagail is
one of the few positive religious characters in King. Both she and the vil
lainous Sunlight G ardener of The Talisman are highly rem iniscent of (m od
elled after?) well know n fictional predecessors: the form er recalls Eudora
W elty's Phoenix Jackson ("The W orn Path"), the latter Sinclair Lewis's Elmer
Gantry.
19. Frannie eventually nam es her son Peter.
20. "Destructive" for the children involved. W hen the father is sole
practitioner of discipline, such an arrangem ent can only perpetuate in the
child's eyes an association of "normality" w ith "patriarchy." In m ore egalitar
ian family structures, children learn to recognize and accept early that author
ity is not inherently sexually determ ined.
21. This is an extremely common narrative logic of King's. As we will
see in the following chapter, it is a crucial determ inate condition in The Shin
ing. The same them e is also at w ork in "The Langoliers" in the character of
Craig Toomy, a w ould-be skyjacker. Toomy epitom izes the goal-oriented
businessm an determ ined to fulfil the job he has undertaken no m atter how
inconsequential that job m ay become in the course of unforeseen events.
Toomy is haunted by the stories his father had told him as a child about "lan
goliers," little creatures of "hair and teeth and fast little legs— their little legs
were fast, [Toomy's father] said, so they could catch up w ith bad boys and
girls no m atter how quickly they scampered" (FPM 126). The stories had
been told to Toomy to discourage laziness, b u t the langoliers (em bodim ents
of his father's imagination?) become (inexplicably) real, enacting a torturous
death on the adult Craig Toomy:
"No!" he screamed. "No, Daddy! No! I'll be good! Please make
them go away! I'll be good, I SWEAR I'LL BE GOOD FROM
NOW ON IF YOU'LL JUST MAKE THEM GO AW— "
Then they rushed at him again, gibbering yam m ering buzzing
whining, and he saw the frozen m achine blur of their gnashing
teeth and felt the hot bellows of their frantic, blind vitality in
the half-instant before they began to cut him apart in random
chunks.
His last thought was: How can their little legs be fast? They
have no le (186)
131
The m aterialization of psychic p h enom ena allow ing T oom y's pac-m an-like
aggressors to em erge from his m em ory as tangible entities recalls D avid
C ronenberg's notion of "psycho-plastics." In his dom estic horror film , THE
BROOD, "children of rage" are b o m as physical m anifestations of their
m o th er's repressed anger, a plo t m otif that literalizes the m onster as a retu rn
of the (fem inine) repressed.
i
C h a pter fo u r
The Father as A gent of Destruction and the
Ideology of Domestic Security: THE SHINING
". . . in The Shining, I think I discovered about halfw ay
through that I w asn 't w riting a haunted-house story, that
I w as w riting about a fam ily com ing apart. It w as like a
revelation" (U nderw ood 105).
In The Shining the oedipal m aster narrative provides both a them atic
and form al basis for ideological analysis. The sym bolic resolution of family
conflict is m anifested in two ways: the insertion into the sym bolic order of
the subject-to-be and the reinstatem ent of a tem porarily displaced paternal
authority figure. As I will show , these tw o events serve to reinforce funda
m ental aspects of w hat R aym ond W illiams has called a "residual" dom estic
ideology.1 This ideology naturalizes and valorizes Stacey's "modern" nuclear
family: "an intact nuclear household unit com posed of a m ale breadw inner,
his full-time hom em aker wife, and their dependent children" (5).2 King's
novel, in foregrounding this dom estic paradigm , is sym ptom atic of a nos
talgic desire for a vanishing dom estic ideology th at perceives of dom estic se
133
curity as a condition in which a conventional nuclear unit represents the cul
tural norm. After exam ining King's novel, I will turn to Stanley Kubrick's
THE SHINING to argue that the film problem atizes such a vision of domestic
security by suggesting a m uch m ore progressive representation of familial
"normality." I will m aintain that, like the novel, the film im plies in its penul
tim ate sequence that the family survives, but the latter's is a fam ily irrevoc
ably "castrated" by the loss of both bad and good fathers; thus, to interrogate
the notion of dom estic security in the film will require accounting for the ab
sence of any paternal authority figure in the subject form ation of the m ale
child.
A lthough Bung's novel posits a clearly supernatural threat to the fam
ily, I w ant to argue that the ideological "crack" in the narrative— the implicit
provision through which that threat becomes a major source of destructive
potential— is the Torrances' history of extraordinarily brutal generational con
flict. The characters become functional agencies through w hich the fiction
can posit and w ork out an ideological rhetoric concerned w ith the issue of
destructive paternity in its m ost violent manifestation: physical abuse.3 The
novel's evoking of Jack Torrance's childhood and the abusive M ark Torrance
creates a historical prem ise on which certain inferences about events in the
narrative present can be based. One of the m ost significant of these infer
ences involves the role of w hat sociologist Anson Shupe has term ed "genera
tional transfer":
G enerational transfer is the general proposition that the prob
lem s and lim itations of one generation are frequently passed on
to its descendants, w ho then experience these same problem s.
. . . [Ajbusive parents produce psychological traum as, or em o
tional scars, in their children, w hich stay w ith them w hen they
grow up and become parents.
This generational transfer of a proclivity for violence w as
frequently the case in the backgrounds of the m en w e encoun
tered. The lo v e/ h u rt/ra g e reactions that helpless young boys
felt tow ard their abusive, pow erful parents (for w hom the boys
nevertheless felt affection) w ere replayed by these m en in their
ow n m arriages. In other w ords, their ow n experiences of callous
or even cruel treatm ent as children could be seen as an unfor
tunate legacy they carried w ith them into adulthood, often on a
level below their ow n aw areness. (35)
The Shining postulates that this process of generational transfer m otivates
various form s of destructive paternity ranging from the physical absence of
the father to physical abuse at his hands. Each of the prim ary characters
occupying their respective corners of the oedipal triangle— W endy Torrance
(m other), Jack Torrance (father), and D anny Torrance (son)-is exposed to and
in some sense m ust be understood as a product of one or m ore form s of this
destructive paternity.
W endy Torrance suffers from feelings of m aternal inadequacy, the re
sult of em otional and psychological abuse she experienced at the hands of a
resentful m other after both had been deserted by W endy's father. Thus, both
m aternal and paternal deprivation figure into W endy's form ative years. Like
C arrie W hite (Carrie) and Frannie G oldsm ith (The Stand), W endy Torrance is
the product of a phallic (and castrating) m other, a m other w ho had eventu
ally rejected her com pletely, placing on her daughter all blam e for the deser
135
tion of the father/husband and driving W endy from home. W endy's subse
quent m arriage to Jack Torrance had gone unattended by her m other, but
D anny's birth had brought about a reconciliation. This reconciliation re
m ained, however, "tense and never happy":
. . . her m other always rem ade D anny's diapers, frow ned over
his formula, could alw ays spot the accusatory first signs of a
rash on the baby's bottom or privates. H er m other never said
anything overtly, but the message came through anyway: the
price [Wendy] had begun to pay (and m aybe alw ays w ould) for
the reconciliation w as the feeling that she w as an inadequate
m other. It was her m other's w ay of keeping the thum bscrews
handy. (47)
A lthough W endy's parents rem ain m arginal (their characterization lim ited to
W endy's point of view in flashbacks), the novel argues implicitly but force
fully that her father deserted his fam ily because of his wife's overbearing and
devouring tem peram ent: "'She had hounded him to his grave'" W endy re
flects at one point; "'by the time he divorced her it was too late'" (245).4
This sam e tem peram ent had, of course, alienated W endy as well, and
she is haunted throughout the novel by a feeling of "helpless finality" (245)
that, in spite of her deliberate efforts to the contrary, she is destined to
become just like her m other-destroying her ow n m arriage and forever alien
ating her son.5 Indeed, the scars of W endy's childhood m anifest them selves
in her tendency to overcom pensate by continually deferring to her husband
even w hen she fears (often rightfully so) that his decisions a n d /o r actions are
endangering their family. Thus, for W endy, transcending the effects of her
136
abusive childhood necessitates a kind of psychological juggling act: she is
forced to balance a strong intuitive sense of m aternal duty w ith deeply in
grained feelings of inadequacy instilled in her by her m other and com plicated
by her ow n feelings of guilt associated w ith the desertion of her father.
Jack Torrance, the novel's loving-father-turned-m onster, is also a victim
of a destructive father-child relationship, though of a different, and outw ardly
m ore violent, m anifestation. H e occupies the center of the novel's patriarchal
m atrix com prised of M ark Torrance (Jack's father), Jack himself, and Danny.
The three generations of Torrance m ales offer a clearly defined chronological
syntagm of p a st/p re se n t/fu tu re in w hich the present (and its role in the de
term ination of the future) occupies the central concern of the novel. As is the
case w ith W endy's parents, w hat w e learn of M ark Torrance is restricted to
his son's occasional flashbacks and dream sequences. In the form er Jack re
calls various events lodged close to the surface of his m em ory while in the
latter his consciousness is invaded by repressed m em ory traces of m ore pain
ful events. Depicting Jack in the m idst of one such dream , The Shining
reveals crucial inform ation regarding his childhood relationship w ith his
father, M ark Torrance:
His relationship w ith his father had been like the unfurling of
som e flower of beautiful potential, w hich, w hen w holly opened,
turned out to be blighted inside. U ntil he had been seven he
had loved the tall, big-bellied m an uncritically and strongly in
spite of the spankings, the black-and-blues, the occasional black
eye. . . .
137
Love began to curdle at nine, w hen his father p u t his m other
into the hospital w ith his cane. . . . He had beaten their m other
for no good reason at all, suddenly and w ithout warning. They
had been at the supper table. . . . (222-24)
Like W endy, Jack Torrance is haunted by childhood m em ories because of the
abuse he had witnessed and suffered at his father's hands and because of his
own sense of helplessness as a child to in any w ay change his or his family's
situation. M emory thus constitutes a painful process for the adult-Jack and
repression his logical (though deadly) m ode of psychic defense.
Five-year-old Danny Torrance, like Jack before him, suffers physical
abuse at the hands of his ow n father. In fact, the breaking of D anny's arm
serves as the pivotal incident of abuse in the novel: -
[Jack] had w hirled Danny around to spank him, his big adult
fingers digging into the scant m eat of the boy's forearm , m eet
ing around it in a closed fist, and the snap of the breaking bone
had not been loud . . . it had been very loud, HUGE . . . A clean
sound w ith the past on one side of it and all the future on the
other, a sound like a breaking pencil lead of a sm all piece of
kindling w hen you brought it dow n over your knee . . . [Jack
had heard] his ow n voice, weak and drunk, slurry, trying to %
take it all back, to find a way around that not too loud sound of
bone cracking and into the past . . . saying: Danny, are you all
right? Danny's answ ering shriek, then W endy's shocked gasp
as she came around them and saw the peculiar angle D anny's
forearm had to his elbow; no arm was m eant to hang quite that
way in a w orld of norm al families. . . . (17, italics in text)6
That we witness this event through the "psychic filter" of Jack's m em ory
heightens its inherent irony. W hat Jack had begun to realize as a child of
nine— that physical abuse is in some w ay a violation of norm al family rela-
tions-com es back to him w ith a vengeance in "W endy's shocked gasp" and
138
his reading of her outw ard expression as signifying her unstated condem na
tion: "no arm w as m eant to hang quite that w ay in a w orld of normal fam i
lies.”
The repeated use of analeptic passages such as those cited here u n der
scores the novel's im plicit stance that both the fam ily's present and future are
determ ined in large p art by its ow n unique history and can only be properly
understood and assessed w hen located along a historical continuum . O nly
by confronting their ow n pasts an d recognizing the injustices practiced on
their persons as children at the hands of their ow n parents can W endy and
Jack hope to overcom e the potential of generational transfer to scar their
im m ediate fam ily as it had scarred their childhood ones. Danny thus be
comes the site at w hich W endy's and Jack's m utual fears of reincarnating
their abusive parents are played out.
W endy's overw helm ing fear that she will become like her m other
keeps the possibility of such a developm ent upperm ost in her m ind, appar
ently providing an adequate defense against that very event. Jack, on the
other hand, is not so resolved. H is resentm ent of his father's abusive be
havior is accom panied by a genuine love for him; thus, Jack's em otional ties
I
j to his abusive father provide a basis for a classic case of unresolved oedipal
am bivalence.7 As I have m entioned, his painful childhood m otivates an un-
i conscious psychic strategy of repression. But repression is precisely the
m echanism through w hich generational transfer operates ("on a level below
139
[the subject's] ow n awareness")- Jack's repression produces a kind of
"psychic blind spot" through w hich the supernatural forces of the Overlook
access his unconscious, distort the m nem ic im ages there, and, in doing so, are
able to set in m otion a process of psychological deterioration that will even
tually progress to a state of severe psychosis.
The process of the hotel's psychic dom ination begins w hen Jack has a
nightm are in w hich the hotel urges him to kill his wife an d son because
"they'll always be conspiring against you, trying to hold you back and drag
you dow n." W hat traum atizes Jack into waking, how ever, is the fact that the
voice in his dream is his father's voice:
"— kill him. You have to kill him, Jacky, and her, too. Because
a real artist m ust suffer. Because each m an kills the thing he
loves. . . . You have to kill him, Jacky, an d her, too. . . ."
"No!" he scream ed back. "You're dead, you're in your grave,
you're not in me at all!" Because he had cut all the father out of
him and it w as not right that he should com e back. . . . (227,
italics in text)8
Jack's denial that any rem nant of his father survives in him self m arks a futile
defensive gesture, how ever, signaling the progression of his degeneration
from a state of neurotic repression into psychotic disavowal.
The two events recounted here— the breaking of D anny's arm and
Jack's nightm are at the O verlook— define a character that elicits a significant
am bivalence from the reader. Few w ould deny that the breaking of D anny's
arm constitutes a reprehensible act, but num erous references to Jack's tor-
140
tured rem orse soften the reader's condem nation and suggest that Jack Tor
rance is not yet beyond redem ption. Jack's victim ization as a child of abuse
further complicates the reader's em otional response to him as a father and as
a troubled hum an being. As the incident of his dream indicates, Jack is
haunted as m uch by m em ories of his father as by the restless spirits of the
O verlook Hotel. This particular dim ension of The Shirting's plot effectively
reduces psychic distance betw een character and reader by draw ing the latter
into a sym pathetic relationship w ith the form er. Furtherm ore, any am biva
lence the novel occasions in the reader is constantly rekindled as Jack fluctua
tes betw een conflicting poles of loving father and potential m onster. M ost
im portant, how ever, the reader's am bivalence m irrors precisely the am biva
lence child-Jack had felt for his father, forcing the reader into an identifica-
tory role w ith the eventual m onster-father. This is at once an uncom fortable
and unavoidable position for the reader, w hose only m ode of escape is to
close the book and w alk away. Even then, how ever, the reader's ow n m em
ory traces preclude any im m ediate "escape" from the sense of terror com m u
nicated during the narrative transaction.
As Jack sinks deeper into psychosis, the intensity of the hotel's control
over him becom es increasingly evident. He begins to rationalize his ow n
[ hostile behavior by justifying that of his abusive father:
i
>
H e could begin to sym pathize w ith his father.
141
H e rem em bered the Sunday dinner w hen his father h ad caned
his m other at the table . . . how horrified he and the others had
been. N ow he could see how necessary that had been, how his
father had only been feigning drunkenness, how his w its had
been sharp and alive underneath all along, w atching for the
slightest sign of disrespect. (379-80)
A long w ith his increasingly pronounced incapacity for rational judgem ent,
Jack's ability to m aintain a sense of short-term recall begins to slip. One of
the responsibilities he begins to forget is checking the pressure gage on the
hotel's boiler. We learn early in the novel that the boiler has "no autom atic
shutdow n" (20) and therefore m ust be tended regularly to relieve the buildup
of potentially explosive pressure. The boiler thus becomes a m etaphor by
w hich we can gauge Jack's m ounting psychic pressure occasioned by his re
pression. As the Overlook continually assaults his consciousness w ith m em
ory traces of his violent childhood, the energy Jack's psychic censor m ust
exert to keep those m em ories repressed becomes greater and greater and his
m ental stability becomes a virtual time bomb, threatening to erupt in an in
evitably explosive return of surplus repression.9
The link betw een Jack's increasing volatility and the hotel boiler is fur
ther clarified w hen, on one of his trips into the basem ent "to knock the press
dow n on the boiler" (152), Jack discovers-am ong num erous boxes and crates
of old new spapers, ledgers, and invoices~a scrapbook containing an historical
account of the Overlook. If the boiler stands as a sym bol of Jack's potentially
explosive psyche, then these old records further solidify the m etaphor, serv
142
ing m etonym ically as the memories housed there. A collection of grisly
events— suicides, prostitution, mafia m urders and m utilations— these records
fascinate Jack, perhaps because, like his own unconscious, they contain a past
that is not im m ediately accessible: "There was history here, all right, and not
just in new spaper headlines. It was buried betw een the entries in these led
gers and account books and room-service chits w here you couldn't quite see
it" (154), buried, that is, in the Overlook H otel's ow n unconscious.1 0
The brutality of the hotel's past establishes, then, a psychic bond be
tween Jack and the Overlook. The boiler room and the old "forgotten" rec
ords housed there can be seen as an outw ard physical m anifestation of Jack's
inw ard psychical apparatus. As if to reconfirm, however, w hat Shupe's
theory of generational transfer posits and w hat the incident of Danny's
broken arm has already suggested— that Jack is unable to learn the lesson(s)
that history (and specifically his own father's abusive behavior) w ould teach
him — Jack's fascination w ith the hotel's past is sym ptom atic of a displacem ent
of psychic intensity m otivated by surplus repression: he wants to confront his
ow n past, but he cannot. Jack's intense interest in the Overlook's history is
triggered in part by this psychic conflict. He is able to allow images of ex
treme violence into his own consciousness because those images do not di
rectly involve him. Thus, his unconscious desire to reconfront his own trau
matic and repressed past and his psychic censor's determ ination to avoid that
reconfrontation cause a trem endous psychic strain, part of which is relieved
143
w hen his unconscious redirects his desire tow ards a different object. This
redirection acts as a psychic "pressure wheel," relieving some of the tension
by providing Jack w ith a kind of alternative object-relationship in which he
experiences satisfaction by looking into the m uch darker past of the Overlook
Hotel.
The intensity of Jack's fascination w ith the hotel's past is, then, directly
proportional to the intensity of his fear at looking into his own, and a dis
placem ent of cathexis acts, in the short term, as a m ethod for releasing excess
psychic energy. In the long run, however, this displacem ent of psychic
energy becomes a dangerous enterprise, for it encourages Jack's denial of his
own painful history, substituting a series of hallucinations that lead ulti
m ately to complete "disillusionm ent and unpleasure" (Silverman 67) in the
form of psychosis. This psychosis eventually consum es him , and under the
sway of the Overlook, he evolves into the quintessential m onster-father of
oedipal fantasy— a m urderous threat to both m other and son. But, as is the
case w ith all psychic phenom ena, Jack's evolution into the m onster-father is
overdeterm ined: although the supernatural forces of the Overlook m ay pro
vide the precipitating cause in his demise, they cannot be considered (even
collectively) as sufficient in themselves. The novel's num erous references to
Jack's childhood experience w ith his abusive father strongly suggest that the
ghostly inhabitants of the Overlook could not have exerted the psychological
hold on Jack that they eventually m anage had it not been for his unresolved
144
traum atic relationship with his now -dead father, whose voice still invades his
nightm ares. The Overlook Hotel preys on Jack's unresolved ambivalence— his
m ixed feelings of love and resentm ent for his father— and his feelings of guilt
and rem orse over the breaking of his son's arm to possess and control him
for its ow n m alevolent ends.
The psychically gifted Danny realizes the existence of both the super
natural and psychological sources effecting his father's degeneration because,
like Jack, Danny is attem pting to w ard off the very real supernatural forces of
the hotel as well as to resolve his own psychological dilem m a concerning his
father. Because of D anny's m uch stronger psychic abilities (his "shining"), he
is a m ore appealing but also a m ore difficult subject for the hotel to dom i
nate. He tries to use his own telepathic ability to sum m on fellow telepath
Dick Hallorann, but while in the trance-like state that his attem pt at contact
induces, Danny envisions w ith terrifying clarity his ow n greatest fear— the
heretofore alien evil forces of the hotel em bodied in the fam iliar figure of his
own now-possessed father:
. . . in the darkness behind [Danny's] eyes the thing that
chased him dow n the Overlook's dark halls in his dream s was
there, right there, a huge creature dressed in white, its prehistoric
club raised over its head:
"I'll make you stop it! You goddam puppy! I'll make you stop it
because I am your FATHER!" (335, italics in text)
Here, then, w e have O edipus and Laius at the crossroads, and although the
scene takes place at this point only in Danny's m ind, it foreshadow s the ac-
145
tual event that transpires a scant few pages later. In that confrontation, the
oedipal struggle is fittingly resolved by w ay of w hat has proven to be the fa
ther's tragic flaw throughout the novel: his inability to confront his ow n pain
ful past. In the chapter titled significantly "That W hich W as Forgotten,"
D anny recalls that the boiler has been neglected for too long and, calling this
fact to his now fully-possessed m onster-father's rem em brance, forces Jack to
rush to the basem ent in a last-ditch effort to relieve the m ounting pressure.
W hen the m onster-father rushes aw ay to attend the boiler, Danny, W endy,
and H allorann m ake good their escape, and the physical shell that had been
Jack Torrance is destroyed along w ith the hotel w hen the boiler explodes.
It is significant, I think, to any oedipal reading of the novel to recog
nize that Danny does not actually deliver the death blow to his m onster-fa
ther; indeed, D anny's efforts in the closing m om ents of Jack Torrance's exis
tence are directed tow ards a reconciliation, signified w hen Danny "took one
of his father's bloody hands and kissed it" (428). In D anny's gesture the
novel reaffirm s its ideological boundaries, validating rather than condem ning
the actions of its O edipus by averting the cultural taboo of the son's m ur
dering his father. The father is a victim of his ow n separate fate— w hich m ay
or m ay not be considered "tragic," depending on the pow er and inevitability
one ascribes to the process of generational transfer— and the child rem ains a
thoroughly sym pathetic innocent.
146
But to leave Danny Torrance w ithout a father w ould subvert the ideol
ogy of dom estic security I have claimed the novel epitom izes. Thus, even
though m onster-father Jack Torrance has been destroyed— leaving behind a
fragm ented family in danger of experiencing sim ply another form of destruc
tive paternity in the physical absence of the father— he is neatly replaced by
"good-father" surrogate Dick H allorann, who councils Danny w ith "fatherly"
wisdom :
"The w orld's a hard place, Danny. It d o n 't care. It d o n 't hate
you and me, b u t it d o n 't love us, either. Terrible things happen
in the w orld, and they're things no one can explain. Good peo
ple die in bad, painful w ays and leave the folks that love them
all alone. . . . The w orld don't love you, b u t your m om m a does
and so do I. You're a good boy. You grieve for your daddy.
. . . T hat's w hat a good son has to do. But see that you get on.
T hat's your job in this hard w orld, to keep your love alive and
see that you get on, no m atter what." (446)
H allorann's juxtaposition of himself w ith D anny's m other— "your m om m a
[loves you] and so do I"— coupled w ith his advice for "w hat a good son has to
do" position him as the new father in a reconstituted nuclear family. His
philosophical declam ation to "get on, no m atter what" places him in direct
ideological opposition to Jack Torrance and his longing for (but inability to
find) a w ay into the past.1 1 H allorann thus fills the tem porary paternal gap
left by the death of Jack Torrance, assuring in the novel's conclusion a rein
statem ent of the nuclear familial paradigm .
Thus, foregrounding of oedipal complications in The Shining allows for
a specific ideological effect: the oedipal paradigm provides a them atic basis
147
for the symbolic resolution of familial conflict while narrative closure pro
vides the com plem entary structural basis for a kind of psychic closure— a rein
statem ent of basic repression h la "secure" horror~in the reader. The reader's
brief, forced identification w ith the m onster-father is exploded along w ith the
boiler, allowing in the death of the m onster a freeing of the im plied reader,
w ho is then "resurrected" in a m ore acceptable surrogate, Dick Hallorann.
The m onster-father's m isuse of paternal authority is corrected, and the name-
of-the-father is reasserted, reinscribed in The Shirting's symbolic order in this
"new father." Five-year-old Danny Torrance's acquisition of a good father
breaks the spell of generational transfer, and he reclaims his rightful position
as the central figure in the family unit depicted in the visual im agery of the
novel's closing tableau vivant: "[Hallorann] put an arm around D anny's shoul
ders. . . . W endy sat dow n on Danny's other side and the three of them sat
on the end of the dock in the afternoon sun" (447). In this re-im aging of an
earlier "family portrait," The Shining reasserts the present and future validity
of the nuclear familial construct, fram ing and centering the figure of the child
as privileged signifier that both represents and em bodies the fam ily's fu
ture.1 2
Yet there is a complication here as well. H ow are w e to account for
the interracial quality of the relationship that I have argued constitutes an
essential element of the "residual ideology" inform ing the novel's conclusion?
Does the fact that the new father of this otherwise typically w hite m iddle-
148
class family is black undercut such a position? First, the issue of race need
not affect in any w ay the concept of "the nuclear family" because the adjective
designates a structural configuration, not a description of or prescription for
its individual parts. The nuclear fam ily is that family com prised of father,
m other, and child(ren). Second, the question of race has no relevance in the
conceptualization of any character as a functional agency. Vladim ir Propp
elaborates:
Just as the characteristics and functions of deities are transferred
from one to another, and, finally, are even carried over to Chris
tian saints, the functions of certain tale personages are likewise
transferred to other personages. . . . [D]efinition should in no case
depend on the personage who carries out the function. Definition of
a function will m ost often be given in the form of a noun ex
pressing an action (interdiction, interrogation, flight, etc.). (20-
21, em phasis added)
Theoretically, then, it makes no difference w hether the new father is Anglo or
N egro (or, for that m atter, w hether he is hum an or divine): H allorann's desig
nation as the good father is based first and forem ost on his actions: his re
sponse to Daxmy's call for help, his rescue of Danny and W endy, and his ac
ceptance of the role of m entor for Danny thereafter.
Even, however, if one were to insist that racial difference m ust be
figured into the overall sociological equation of the novel's residual ideology,
the solidification of the new family m ight be argued in terms of a shared his
tory of oppression. H allorann can be view ed as the symbolic representative
of a historically oppressed race in the same w ay that W endy Torrance can be
149
view ed as symbolic representative of a historically oppressed sex. W here the
relationship betw een Jack and W endy had been based on a tradition of male
dom ination, the new relationship betw een W endy and H allorann is based on
m utual respect and the sharing of a similar history of m oral and political in
justice.
In its reinstatem ent, then, of w hat Terry Eagleton has called "the sealed
w orld of ideological stability" (196-97), The Shining posits a clear definition of
domestic security, valorizing a residual vision of familial propriety while
dram atizing the im portance of family in the form ation of social subjectivity.
Interestingly however, this idealized vision of dom estic security is not dupli
cated in the film adaptation, which, I w ant to argue now , opts for a m uch
m ore em ergent domestic ideology.
As I suggested at the opening of this chapter, the m ost im portant ideo
logical distinction to be m ade between the two versions of THE SHINING
concerns the film 's alignm ent w ith a more "emergent" ideological rhetoric
than that of the novel.1 3 W hereas the novel envisions the nuclear unit as an
essential signifier of dom estic stability, the film adopts, by w ay of the ambi
guities attending its closure, a more "open" stance.1 4 As in the novel, the
oedipal fantasy is realized in the destruction of the m onster-father, w ho is
outw itted and destroyed by his son; however, in one of the m ore significant
departures from King's original story, conventional norm ality is not rein
150
scribed. The narrative's would-be surrogate-father is also killed, obviating
the possibility for any reconstruction of the oedipal triangle and leaving the
surviving members of the Torrance family to confront their im m ediate future
as a m other-son dyad. This situation suggests at least two possible readings:
either domestic security is destroyed w ith the deaths of both good and bad fa
thers or the physical presence of the father as a necessary condition for that
security is called into question. I will argue for the latter. Granted, the film 's
"pseudoclosure”1 5 precludes any definitive Jam esonian "solution" to this di
lemma, but the narrative suggests by w ay of its ultim ate ambivalence that do
mestic security m ay exist in the absence of the father.
Danny Torrance is, in fact, only one in a line of oedipal archetypes
populating Kubrick's oeuvre who have benefitted from the absence or re
moval of the father. As early as KILLER'S KISS (1955), Kubrick's w ork evi
dences an interest in this particular theme: a young fighter, Davey Gordon,
falls in love w ith Gloria Price, an enigm atic w om an occupying a neighboring
apartm ent. Gloria is entangled in a relationship w ith a small-time gangster
nam ed Vincent Rapallo, a m an she loathes but who wields pow er over her be
cause he owns the dance hall w here she works. The father-daughter incest
theme is pow erfully evoked w hen the camera focuses on a portrait of Gloria's
father as she begins to tell G ordon of her childhood: the photograph reveals a
striking resemblance betw een Gloria's father and Rapallo. Gordon and Ra
pallo eventually engage in a life-and-death confrontation over Gloria. G or
151
don kills the gangster/father, and he and Gloria leave the noir w orld of New
York urban crime for pastoral Seattle.
Kubrick dealt even more overtly w ith father-daughter incest in LO
LITA (1962), although the designation of H um bert's and Lolita's relationship
as "incestuous" is open to dispute since no blood ties exist betw een them .1 6
Their kinship status is based solely on H um bert's m arriage to Lolita's m other,
Charlotte, a m arriage the form er endures because it provides the only prac
tical means by which he can rem ain near the object of his true desire, "the
nym phet" Lolita. W hen Charlotte discovers H um bert's diary and his true
feelings for her and her daughter, she rushes from the house and into the
street, w here she is killed by a passing car, proving that "chance," as H um
bert has just philosophized "can bring about the perfect m urder." H um bert
retains his role as "father" but is driven slowly to despair and finally death
by his desire for Lolita, who ultim ately deserts him. Both KILLER'S KISS and
LOLITA contextualize the death of the father in an oedipal rhetoric. Each
narrative dem onstrates that the death of the individual carrying out the
paternal function may, under the right circumstances, pave the w ay for the
social, psychological, and emotional stability of the child. In both films the
father is replaced by a proper male substitute.
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) implicates a weak, tim id father in
its exam ination of a young hood's nightly forays into violence and sex. Alex
DeLarge terrorizes his parents as well as society, and only by undergoing re
152
m oval from his hom e and subjection to repressive state apparatuses (the
courts, prison, and finally governm ent-funded scientific experim entation) can
he hope to be "cured."1 7 A kind of oedipal displacem ent occurs, how ever,
w hen a reform ed Alex returns hom e (a "m odel citizen") after tw o years in
prison to find his place in the fam ily constellation u su rp ed by "Joe," a
stranger w ho tells Alex that the D eLarges have "let m e be m ore like a son to
them than like a lodger." O stracized, Alex finds him self hom eless a n d par-
entless. The final irony of A CLOCKW ORK ORANGE resides in the fact that
follow ing A lex's bout w ith despair an d attem p ted suicide, his biological fa
ther reclaim s him , accepting partial blam e for A lex's w ayw ard p ast.1 8 As
subsequent psychological testing suggests an d as the closing shot and voice
over further corroborate, how ever, the A lex that the father reclaim s is not the
reform ed Alex b u t one w hose pre-prison libido has been fully restored.
Perhaps m ost notable am ong K ubrick's oedipal characters before
D anny Torrance, how ever, is L ord B ullingdon in BARRY LYNDON (1975),
w ho, as a child, perceives his step-father, Barry, to be "little m ore than a com
m on opportunist" and, as an adult, succeeds in banishing him forever from
the L yndon estate. Like D anny in K ing's novel, Bullingdon finds him self in
an extrem ely vulnerable position w h en he a n d L yndon face off in a duel: the
form er's pistol m isfires. L yndon, how ever, cannot bring him self to h arm his
step-son and fires his ow n pistol into the ground. But just as in K ing's novel
i
| D anny takes advantage of his father's inability to harm him , so B ullingdon
153
takes advantage of Barry L yndon's decision not to shoot him . Perform ing in
true oedipal fashion, Bullingdon fires his second ro u n d fully intending to kill
his step-father. He m isses, how ever, w ou n d in g L yndon in the leg, p erm a
nently m aim in g /castratin g him ; thus, although the film 's O edipus does not
kill his father, he effectively displaces him , regaining his ow n position as heir
of the L yndon estate an d sole claim ant to the object of both m en's desire: Bul-
lingdon's m other, L ady Lyndon.
I have gone into som e detail about these film s for several reasons.
First, w ith the exception of KILLER'S KISS, each is an adaptation of a
previously published novel in w hich oedipal tensions figure prom inently.
Second, each, w ith the exception of A CLOCKW ORK ORANGE, dem on
strates a tendency in K ubrick's w ork to appropriate conventions of closure to
suggest the future w ell being of its O edipus. But finally, an d perhaps m ost
im portant, w ith the exception of THE SH IN IN G 's im m ediate predecessor,
BARRY LYNDON, each im plies the validity an d resilience of the nuclear fam
ily. Davey G ordon an d G loria leave the gam bling-and-dance-hall w orld of
the oppressive city for the natural dom esticity an d freedom of "my uncle
[G eorgej's horse ranch." A pregnant Lolita an d h u sb an d Dick set out for
A laska, "an opportunity," Dick assures H um bert, "for a guy like m e to get in
on the g ro u n d floor" an d "a great place for kids." A n d even if A CLOCK
W ORK ORANGE leaves the future of the DeLarge fam ily very m uch in the
balance, it assures us that for the m om ent, at least, Alex has regained his
154
position as son there. Both BARRY LYNDON an d THE SHINING, on the
other hand, m ay be said (if not to em brace) to acknow ledge an alternative
dom estic ideology.
But none of its predecessors undercuts the general notion of patriarchal
authority as pow erfully as does THE SHINING. It underm ines the novel's re
sidual ideology by de-em phasizing the father's role in the fam ily, a de-em pha
sis inherent in the film 's com plete elision of any im plication that generational
transfer bears on the events of the narrative present. W hereas the novel
strongly im plicates Jack T orrance's fam ily history— specifically his exposure to
abuse (both as victim an d then as perpetrator)— as a contributing cause in his
present fam ily's unfolding ordeal, such a prem ise has no place in the film .1 9
N o doubt, the lack of concern w ith historical determ inants underlying the
phenom enon of destructive p aternity w as m otivated at least in p a rt by
d em ands of narrative econom y: one can only pack so m uch story into one
h u n d re d forty four m inutes of narrative tim e (and Jack T orrance's dem ise is
adequately m otivated). But the om ission of any im plication of generational
transfer as a contributing cause in the father's psychological deterioration af-
i
J fects the narrative transaction at a fundam ental level: it inhibits the specta-
i
tor's im pulse to engage in w h at C hristian M etz has called "secondary cine
m atic identification" w ith the narrative-father and, in doing so, positions the
spectator in direct psychological opposition to that character.2 0 The film ,
that is, in m aking no allusions to Jack's childhood or to his abusive father,
155
severs the historical father from the m etatext (a "castration" the film narrative
eventually doubles in the deaths of Jack T orrance and Dick H allorann), de-em
phasizing the w hole notion of the father as a critical elem ent in the fam ily
construct.
This severing is consistent w ith the film 's ultim ate depiction of the fa
ther as expendable, b u t it denies the spectator the luxury of sym pathetic pre
dilections tow ards Jack Torrance (Jack N icholson) based on the k in d of victim
ization his novelistic counterpart u n d erw en t as a child. Instead, w e, like
W endy (Shelley Duvall) and D anny (D anny Lloyd), can only regard Jack w ith
the sam e reserve w e w ould accord any potentially threatening entity. O ur
reaction to him is thus very different from o u r reaction to the Jack Torrance
of K ing's novel: w hereas the novel repeatedly heightens audience am biva
lence by oscillating betw een depictions of Jack Torrance as a figure to be
feared and Jack Torrance as a father to be pitied, the film arouses no such
am bivalence, depicting rather the steady decline of an already detached and
ill-tem pered h u sb a n d /fa th e r as he degenerates into the axe-w ielding m onster
of the clim actic sequence. W hereas, then, in the novel, the audience's sym pa
thies p en d u lu m in response to T orrance's im m ediate condition, in the film
those sym pathies slide steadily aw ay from him , inevitably resting m ore and
m ore w ith W endy and her son.2 1
O f course, any fear the film 's Jack Torrance elicits from the spectator is
itself heavily overdeterm ined, but one contributing factor involves the inter-
156
textual potency of w hat Jam eson has aptly referred to as "the sem iotic content
of 'Jack N icholson'" (SV 93). This "semiotic content" consists of several ele
m ents, perhaps the m ost obvious of w hich is N icholson's star persona— an u n
avoidable elem ent of signification that m akes it difficult for the m ajority of
the film 's audience (assum ing a reasonable degree of "cineliteracy" inform s
that audience) to observe him w ith the sam e degree of objectivity we afford
the character in K ing's novel. The latter is a com plete unknow n outside the
confines of the novel's diegesis an d thus is not bu rd en ed by any extratextual
associations that m ay im pinge on our expectations of his character, w hereas
the form er is (perhaps too?) w ell know n for his ability to p o rtray characters
that are prone to anger or that suffer from various kinds a n d levels of de
m entia; thus, from the m om ent he appears on screen w e m ake certain as
sum ptions about the m ental stability of his character. A problem arises, then,
w hen our assum ptions regarding (w hat w e already know about) Jack Tor
rance— either by hearsay or from having read K ing's novel— and those at
tached to (w hat w e already know about) Jack N icholson converge. These as
sum ptions get stirred into the sam e cognitive stew , so to speak, producing a
(largely involuntary) coalescing of previous im ages an d current narrative ex
pectations that inevitably d isturbs (if indeed it does not destroy) any u n
biased feelings w e m ay have about N icholson's Jack Torrance. G ranted, this
I
m ental process of "schem atization" m ay enhance our perception of the N ichol
so n /T o rran ce "signifier" as m onster-father, b u t it also underm ines our capac
157
ity to accept him in the role of loving father; consequently, it also underm ines
the potential for em otional im pact attending his destruction. Thus w hereas
K ing strives to establish a k in d of "em otional bonding" betw een audience and
the narrative-father, K ubrick strives to establish an d then to m aintain
em otional distance betw een audience and the narrative-father.
This process of em otional distancing begins quite early in the film. It
is first initiated not by w ay of plot, how ever, b u t m ise-en-scene. In the open
ing sho t of the film 's second segm ent, "Closing Day," com position and ex
trem ely tight fram ing create the visual effect of an exceedingly cram ped die-
getic space, a space in w hich Jack T orrance appears physically (and, w e sus
pect, psychologically) trapped. H e is literally "squeezed" into the low er right
foreground of the fram e, so m uch so that he appears virtually uncontainable
by the diegesis. A long w ith an "angry" yellow blazer, he w ears an expression
of m ild irritation an d deliberate distraction. H is concentration on off-screen
phenom ena (m otivated ostensibly by the w inding road an d increasingly
treacherous w eather conditions) suggests an inexplicable aw areness of the n u
m erous boundaries that confine him : he seem s aw are not only of the confines
of diegetic space and of the suffocating banality of conversation into w hich he
is relentlessly draw n (first by W endy an d then, m ore successfully, by Danny),
b u t of the cinem atic fram e itself, an d he wants to explode these constraints.2 2
By placing N icholson in the forem ost plane of diegetic space, K ubrick
creates, even in this early shot, a paradoxical an d unnerving illusion: the film
158
appears to force T orrance on us spatially at the sam e tim e that it distances
him from us psychologically an d em otionally. But to distance us from the fa
ther is not to destroy o u r em otional ties but to deflect them — both sym pathetic
an d em pathetic— onto m other an d son, encouraging us to identify w ith tw o
characters of m uch less interest. Freud w rites in Group Psychology and the
Analysis of the Ego that the process of identification "m ay arise w ith any new
perception of a com m on quality shared w ith som e other person. . . . The
m ore im p o rtan t this com m on quality is, the m ore successful m ay this partial
identification becom e" (SE 18: 108). O ver the course of the film, w e in
creasingly regard Jack Torrance as W endy an d D anny regard him , thus en
gaging in the sharing of such a "com m on quality," although that quality is
not, as m ay be erroneously assum ed, W endy's an d D anny's "terror"; rath er
w e share in their "internal un d erstan d in g of the situation" (Carroll 9S).2 3 O r
p u t another way: as spectators, w e do engage fully in secondary identification
w ith W endy a n d /o r D anny~not, how ever, because w e share their fear b u t be
cause w e understand it. This distinction suggests one reason for the complaint-
voiced am ong m any of his critics that K ubrick's highly stylized visual design
brings a degree of intelligence to the narrative that actually takes aw ay from
the film 's potential em otional im pact— that technical virtuosity has, in a sense,
u p stag ed them e a n d /o r content, creating a film that is all form and little sub
stance.2 4
159
Because, then, the film does not allow us to see Jack as in any w ay a
victim , our im pulse to identify leads us into an alternative object-relationship,
a relationship in w hich D anny and W endy serve as the objects of our second
ary identification. D anny is an especially potent object of identification in
that he em bodies the m ost prom inent "com m on quality" th at w e share w ith
any of the film 's dram atis personae: "the shining."2 5 Like Danny, w e are
subjected to a bom bardm ent of im ages w hose origins and m eanings are u n
know n to us. A nd yet, also like him , w e w an t to know w h a t these visions
signify, w hat kind of inform ation they carry. Like D anny Torrance, then, w e
are caught betw een fear a n d desire.2 6 W e m u st subm it to a kind of visual
an d auditory a ssa u lt-e n d u rin g im ages of blood pouring forth from elevators
and of bloody child-corpses— if w e w an t to u n derstand the pow erful forces at
w ork here, yet our p u rsu it of u n d erstan d in g necessitates accepting a degree
of threat. Far from a "gift" of m ental em pow erm ent— in the tradition of Carrie
W hite, C harlie M cGee, or even Johnny Sm ith— "shining" seem s in K ubrick's
film to serve prim arily as a m eans of visual victim ization. It does not in any
w ay protect the subject (D a n n y /th e spectator) b u t serves rather as a m eans
by w hich an outside agency (the O v e rlo o k /th e film m aker) is able to m an ip u
late and perhaps even traum atize. K ubrick, one could argue, assum es in
THE SH IN IN G the persona of Dr. B rodsky (A CLOCKW ORK ORANGE),
' w hile D anny Torrance and the audience becom e very m uch "brothers and sis-
1 ters" of Alex DeLarge, u ndergoing a sim ilar kind of "Ludovico treatm ent."2 7
O ur identification w ith both Danny and W endy is strengthened further
because, in David Bordwell's words, they are "personified as not only sharing
but representing our attitude to the situation" (MM 167, italics in text). W en
dy's desire to get Danny out of the hotel and back to civilization expresses
the spectator's parallel desire, while Jack's refusal to acquiesce to those de
sires further incrim inates him, intensifying our condem nation of him as m on
ster and accentuating his detachm ent from W endy and D anny as well as
from us. Thus, unlike the novel, which entices the reader into an ideology
valorizing the name-of-the-father— preparing the reader, thereby, to experi
ence pleasure when the good father ultim ately trium phs— the film encourages
viewers to identify with m other and son, preparing those view ers— through
both de-em phasizing the father's role and underscoring the alienation of the
character inhabiting that role— for a sim ilar sense of pleasure w hen W endy
and Danny escape.
But the m ost overt w ay in which the film underm ines the novel's re
sidual ideology— "indicting," w e m ight say, the Law of the Father— is by
elim inating along w ith the m onster-father the potential good father as well.
Unlike King's novel, the film leaves Danny Torrance w ith no H allorann to in
struct him in "what a good son has to do." In depriving its O edipus of any
paternal authority figure w hatsoever, Kubrick and Johnson effectively dram a
tize the realization of the m ale child's oedipal fantasy: rem oval of the father
and total possession of the m other. This, then, is precisely w here the subver
161
sive aspects of THE SH IN IN G 's conclusion em erge m ost pow erfully, since
un der the law of the father the realization of the oedipal fantasy m u st be con
sidered culturally transgressive, a potential factor of dom estic (and, subse
quently, societal) apocalypse. It significantly com plicates (if indeed it does
not exclude) the possibility of successful oedipalization of the m ale subject
(signified in his acceptance of the law -of-the-father).
This particular plot developm ent is further problem atized by the fact
that the film "em asculates" the fam ily (dram atizing the deaths of both fathers)
in a narrative context that otherw ise subscribes to classical conventions of
closure in the m ainstream horror film: the m onster is destroyed, and hero
and heroine escape to live "happily ever after." The film thus offers its
audience a narrative that is form ally closed b u t ideologically open. In this
parad o x THE SH IN IN G appropriates a fundam ental convention of genre to
question im plicitly the assum ption th at the father's presence constitutes a
necessary condition for dom estic security. I am arguing, then, that the
ideological significance of the K ubrick/Johnson adaptation of K ing's novel
does not derive from any solution w e m ay im pose on this dilem m a b u t in
heres in the film 's recognition an d dram atic articulation of the dilem m a itself.
The film 's D anny Torrance finds him self in very m uch the sam e posi
tion as an increasing num ber of children in post-1970s America: a m ale child
w hose form ative years w ill be m arked by destructive paternity in its m ost
typical form — a physically absent father. A n d yet, although few w ould deny
162
that the rem oval (the physical "lack") of a father figure provides for any
num ber of negative consequences in the life of the subject, such consequences
are not necessarily foreordained (at least not, as w e have seen, in K ubrick's
w ork). It w ould be difficult to d ispute that the absence of a physically
abusive father is preferable to such a father's presence; in such a case, ab
sence (or lack) w ould seem the desirable situation. Sociologists H enry Biller
an d R ichard Solom on go one step further, suggesting that u n d er certain cir
cum stances,
. . . the loss of a father m ay actually have favorable effects on
the child's developm ent. A p aren t involved in an u n h ap p y
m arriage w ho is released through a spouse's death m ay conse
quently have m ore tim e, energy, an d resources to devote to his
or her child. The loss of a p aren t w ho has been sexually or
physically abusive, rejecting, or m erely uninterested, m ay have
positive ram ifications for the child's self-concept and em otional
adjustm ent. (186)
Still, D anny T orrance's future social an d psychological w elfare m ay w ell de
pend on his m other's ability to fulfil parental responsibilities traditionally
divided betw een father an d m other. W endy T orrance's ability to protect her
son in extrem e, even bizarre, circum stances has certainly been tested, yet the
fact rem ains that the narrative w ill not allow us to assum e her ability to raise
him on her ow n once they retu rn to the m undane dom esticity that the film
im plies they do. A fter all, it w as D anny w ho engineered the death of the
m onster, and but for H allorann's tim ely arrival, W endy's m u rd er w as appar
ently im m inent.2 8 O n the other hand, it is W endy's ability to operate the
163
snow cat that allows both her and her son to escape from the Overlook. In
the final analysis, then, Danny Torrance's fate as a child of destructive
paternity rem ains— like the fates of his extradiegetic sociocultural counter-
par ts— 1 'unres o lv a b le '
I do not m ean to im ply that the film 's rejection of w hat I have called
the novel's "residual" ideology provides incontrovertible evidence of a con
scious "political" response to these cultural developm ents. It does seem more
than coincidental, however, that both THE SHINING and its im m ediate pre
decessor, BARRY LYNDON— films released in 1980 and 1975 respectively—
conclude w ith a m other-son relationship whose future stability is heavily
implied. Both films accentuate a broad-based, culturally shared uncertainty
tem pered w ith cautious optim ism over notions of familial stability and
"normality" concurrent with their initial release. In 1980, fem ale-headed
households accounted for nearly fifteen per cent of all Am erican families, a
num ber reflecting a nearly fifty-per-cent increase over the 10.7 per cent of ten
years earlier (Levitan 112).2 9 By 1985 fem ale-headed households w ould ac
count for twenty-two per cent of American families, m ore than double w hat
they had been only fifteen years before (Levitan 111, 115). These figures
indicate that in 1980 fatherless households w ere an increasingly "emergent"
alternative to Stacey's "'m odern' family of sociological theory and historical
convention."
164
In light of these figures, then, THE SHINING's final ambiguity--its
■ pointed refusal to accede to the dem ands of a dom estic ideology that today is
generally recognized as never having been so "dominant" as it once w as per
ceived to have been— is not so surprising after all.3 0 N either is it unduly sur
prising that the film fails to provide any definitive "imaginary or formal 'solu
tions'" for the oedipal complications inherent in its text; indeed, this lack is
consistent w ith the latent anxieties inform ing the film 's political unconscious.
Its pseudoclosure actually seems m ore "ideologically aware" than the novel's
"picture-perfect" reinscription of nuclear norm ality.
One could argue, of course, that this awareness w ould have been m ore
pronounced had the unconventional interracial family survived. I have al
ready noted how, on the contrary, this particular plot resolution contributes
to the residual nature of King's novel. A persistent opposition m ight pro
pose, however, that by killing off Hallorann, Kubrick and Johnson subscribe
to their own brand of residuality: w ithout the black father, a conservative
WASP ideology rem ains m ore or less intact. This line of argum ent is valid as
far as it goes, but it misses a m uch larger point: H allorann's death does not
gain its greatest im portance from the fact that it obviates any possibility for
the creation of an interracial fam ily but because it dislodges the m uch more
globally pervasive ideology of m ale dom ination, an ideology concerned pri
m arily w ith a politics of gender and only secondarily w ith race, ethnicity,
theology, or geography. In displacing the paternal function onto the m aternal
165
figure, K ubrick and Johnson force their audience to confront the symbolic (and
therefore sexless) nature of that function.
A nd yet novel and film do share a com m on optim ism . The novel— p er
haps too neatly closed, ideologically reactionary— offers a clear exam ple of
"safe" horror— a thinly veiled argum ent that security resides in the fantasy and
illusion of an idyllic past. Its horrors are easily forgotten, easily shelved,
easily allocated by w ay of basic repression to the m nem ic w asteland of the
unconscious. The film — plagued w ith "unresolvable social contradictions,"
ideologically progressive (em ergent if not, in fact, subversive)— effects in its
pseudoclosure a m ore sobering "m editation on the destiny of com m unity."
A lthough its horrors (regardless of their visual nature) are som ehow less ex
cessive than the novel's, they rem ain closer to the surface of m em ory largely
because of their final am biguity. Just as the reaffirm ation of the nam e-of-the-
father in K ing's novel suggests a retu rn to a conservative m ode of social nor
m ality, so the m otif of escape in the film suggests a m ovem ent tow ards a "dif
ferent" (and perhaps better) norm ality.
Both narratives also m ap the triu m p h of the prepubertal subject, w ho
m u st ascend to the sym bolic o rder by traversing an oedipal landscape in
w hich fears generally attributed to pre-oedipal fantasies are literalized in the
figure of the m onster-father, w ho inevitably falls victim to his ow n oedipal
fate. In King, especially, the m onster-father serves the needs of the oedipal
m aster narrative, providing the n arrativ e's oedipus w ith a tangible em bodi-
166
m erit through w hich those fears m ay be confronted and overcom e. As I will
argue in the follow ing chapter, how ever, such optim ism does not alw ays in
form the political unconscious of K ing's fictions. If w e can find in dom estic
horror narratives such as THE SHINING the possibility of fam ily security (in
spite of destructive paternity), w e m u st attend, as well, to the possibility of
that security's dark other: w h at I w ill call dom estic apocalypse— the notion
that the fam ily as social institution is doom ed. C onceptualization of the fa
ther as agent of destruction rem ains a crucial strategy in this alternative de
piction of dom estic crisis as w ell and thus w ill provide the rhetorical fram e
w ork for an exam ination of perhaps K ing's m ost pessim istic dom estic horror
tale to date: Pet Sematary.
N O TES
1. In Marxism and Literature W illiam s distinguishes betw een the "resid
ual" and the "em ergent" as tw o types of alternative to any so-called "dom i
nant" ideology (122-27). The distinction betw een these two w ill signal the
fundam ental difference betw een the ideological stances of K ing's novel and
the Stanley K ubrick/D iane Johnson film adaptation. W illiam s designates as
"residual" ideology that w hich "has been effectively form ed in the past, b u t
. . . is still active in the cultural process, n o t only . . . as an elem ent of the
past, b u t as an effective elem ent of the present" (122).
2. As Stacey observes, how ever, this "'m o d em ' fam ily of sociological
theory and historical convention designates a form no longer prevalent in the
U nited States" (5). Stacey uses the term modern in its sense of that-w hich-pre-
cedes-the-postm odem of the present; thus, the m o d em is aligned paradoxi
cally w ith the traditional, the outd ated — w h at W illiam s has designated the re
sidual as opposed to the em ergent. Stacey's notion of the "postm odern" fam i
ly, on the other h an d , attem pts to recognize "the contested, am bivalent, an d
undecided character of contem porary gender an d kinship arrangem ents" (17).
167
3. The notion of characters as "functions" w ithin an overall dram atic
schem a derives from V ladim ir Propp. In Morphology of the Folktale, P ro p p d e
fines function as "an act of a character, defined from the p oint of view of its
significance for the course of the action" (21, em phasis added). A lthough
P ropp's stu d y is lim ited to R ussian folktales, its im plications extend far be
yond that sphere. Just as characters w ithin a particular narrative sy ste m -
designated as "folktales"— can be defined by the functions they perform , so
can the characters in the oedipal dram a be sim ilarly defined. Thus, P ropp's
concept of functions anticipates the Lacanian notion of the "paternal func
tion," w hich perceives of "the Father" as that agency through w hich the law
of culture is perpetuated.
4. A lthough both aesthetic an d ideological rhetorics are at w ork in all
narrative, W endy's flashbacks offer a concrete exam ple of the form er. W e are
encouraged to accept the probability of their validity based on other aspects
of her character. W e do not, that is, question the validity of her m em ory as
w e do N iles P erry's in Try on's The Other an d as w e eventually do in Jack Tor
rance's case.
5. "Som eday her child w o u ld be a stranger to her, an d she w o u ld be
strange to him . . . b u t not as strange as her ow n m other h ad becom e to her.
Please d o n 't let it be that w ay, God. Let him grow u p an d still love his
m other" (123).
6. The film alters this pivotal event: W endy tells a doctor that Jack had
accidentally "dislocated [D anny's] shoulder." It seem s a m inim al alteration,
but, in fact, it creates significant repercussions: first, it dim inishes the im pact
(the "horror") of the event. Second, and m ore im portant, it m inim izes Jack's
sense of rem orse that, in the novel, acts as a pow erful strategy for "hum aniz
ing" him.
A fter com pleting The Shining, King w ent back an d w rote a 5-part his
tory of events p red atin g those of the narrative proper. H e titled this history
"Before the Play" and h ad in ten d ed it to serve as "Prologue" to the novel. It
did not m ake it into the novel for econom ic reasons. A ccording to King, "The
feeling of m y editor at D oubleday w as that both the prologue an d m ost of
the epilogue could be cut, w ith the result that we could offer the book for
sale at a dollar less than if w e included them" (Spignesi 490). P art 4 of that
history is of som e interest here, how ever: it records that "Mr. Torrance" (Jack
T orrance's father) h ad broken Jack's arm in the sum m er of 1953, m aking the
subject of generational transfer even m ore suggestive as one of The Shining's
ideological concerns. (See Spignesi 494, "Torrance, Mr.")
7. This am bivalence is perhaps m ost pronounced in Jack's contem pla
tion of his father's tom bstone: "The stone read Mark Anthony Torrance, Loving
168
Father. To that Jack w ould have ad d ed one line: He Knew How to Play Eleva
tor" (226, italics in text). Jack's m em ories of the elevator gam e are dubious at
best:
H is father w ould sw eep [Jack] into his arm s an d Jacky w ould
be propelled deliriously u p w ard , so fast it seem ed he could feel
air pressure settling against his skull like a cap m ade out of
lead, up an d up, both of them crying "Elevator! Elevator!"; and
there h ad been nights w hen his father in his drunkenness h a d
n ot stopped the u p w a rd lift of his slabm uscled arm s soon
enough and Jacky h ad gone right over his father's flattopped
head like a hum an projectile to crash-land on the hall floor be
hind his dad. But on other nights his father w o u ld only sw eep
him into a giggling ecstasy, through the zone of air w here beer
h u n g around his father's face like a m ist of raindrops, to be
tw isted an d turned an d shaken like a laughing rag, an d finally
to be set d ow n on his feet, hiccupping w ith reaction. (223)
8. The dream m otif of the father that kills his fam ily is fam iliar in
King. See, e.g., T had B eaum ont's sim ilar nightm are in The Dark Half (34).
9. In "An Introduction to the A m erican H orror Film," Robin W ood dis
tinguishes betw een "basic" and "surplus" repression:
Basic repression is universal, necessary an d inescapable. . . .; it
is bound u p w ith the ability to accept the postponem ent of grat
ification, w ith the developm ent of our thought an d m em ory pro
cesses, of our capacity for self-control, of our recognition of and
consideration for other people. Surplus repression, on the other
hand, is specific to a particular culture and is the process w here
by people are conditioned from ealriest [sic] infancy to take on
predeterm ined roles w ith that culture. . . . [B]asic repression
m akes us distinctively hum an, capable of directing our ow n
lives an d co-existing w ith others, surplus repression m akes u s (if
it w orks) into m onogam ous, heterosexual, bourgeois, patriarchal
capitalists. . . . If it w orks; if it doesn't, the result is either a
neurotic or a revolutionary (or both). (165)
10. K ubrick m ay have originally intended to p u rsu e this plot-line but,
perhaps because of narrative com plexities or tim e constraints, d id not. In the
film, how ever, one can see on Jack's typing table a large scrapbook beside his
typew riter. The spectator is left to infer w h at this book signifies because
j K ubrick and Johnson develop neither the boiler m etaphor nor the scrapbook
! as a m otivational device. W ith the novel in m ind, Thom as A llen N elson
| d raw s sim ilar inferences from K ubrick's m ise-en-scene, inferences w hich
I could not be m ade from the film alone:
169
In the film, the hotel scrapbook~a critical and totally explained
property in the novel— becomes not only a subtle narrative de
vice but a significant visual motif: Jack . . . starts to write his
"book" only after the scrapbook appears on the table next to his
typewriter; the scrapbook is seen briefly in the foreground of a
w ide-angle shot as he becomes angry w ith W endy for interrupt
ing his w ork . . thus im plying that his obsessive and lonely
typing . . his bursts of violent tem per, and his trancelike states
are connected w ith his discovery and exploration of the Over
look's secret past in the scrapbook. (204-05)
11. H allorann's folk philosophy is a familiar motif, recurring through
out King7 s work. See, e.g., Cujo, where Vic Trenton consoles his wife follow
ing the death of their son: "'We'H just have to get along. That's w hat people
do, you know? They just get along. A nd try to help each other'" (301).
12. Earlier in the novel, w hen the Torrances stand (literally and figura
tively) on the threshold of the dom estic horror dram a yet to unfold, the narra
tive describes them as they bid Jack's employer, Stuart Ullman, farewell:
The Torrance family stood together on the long front porch of
the Overlook Hotel as if posing for a family portrait. Danny in
the m iddle, zippered into last year's fall jacket which was now
too small and starting to come out at the elbow, W endy behind
him w ith one hand on his shoulder, and Jack to his left, his own
hand resting lightly on his son's head. (100)
13. (See note #1 above.) In differentiating betw een residual and em er
gent alternative ideologies, Williams defines the latter as those "new m ean
ings and values, new practices, new relationships and kinds of relationship
[that] are continually being created" (123). Fundam ental to m y argum ent,
however, is the assum ption that the m ost difficult ideology to define is
neither the residual nor the em ergent but the dominant. In term s of W il
liam s's distinctions, the dom inant ideology occupies a m ediatory position be
tween the two alternatives. If King's novel subscribes to an ideology natural
izing and valorizing a residual nuclear norm and the K ubrick/Johnson adap
tation to the emerging prom inence of fem ale-headed households, then w hat is
the "dominant" domestic ideology? Perhaps Judith Stacey offers the m ost sat
isfying response to this inquiry w ith her deliberately am biguous "postm od
ern" family: "Americans today have crafted a multiplicity of family and
household arrangem ents that we inhabit uneasily and reconstitute frequently
in response to changing personal and occupational circumstances" (17).
14. The fact that Kubrick collaborated on the screenplay for THE
SHINING w ith Diane Johnson, a feminist and noted novelist in her own
170
right, strongly suggests one reason for this stance. Johnson's novels often
deal w ith female protagonists who are in some w ay pushed into situations
that force them to rise above their estim ations of their ow n potentialities.
15. The term is David Bordwell's. Bordwell suggests it to designate
those narrative endings in which "the strain of resolved and unresolved is
sues seems strong" (NFF 159). W hat is significant about THE SHINING's
pseudoclosure is that this "strain" is so directly related to questions of ide
ology: how will a single m other w ith no apparent job skills survive in the
m ale-dom inated w orld to which she returns? H ow will the absence of the fa
ther affect the process of subject form ation in the m ale child? These are ques
tions that rem ain unansw ered by the film.
16. Alexander W alker has m ade a similar com plaint though for differ
ent reasons. W alker argues that H um bert's "incestuous" desire
. . . is not really conclusive enough. N o sooner is H um bert
H um bert's m ore than ordinary interest in Lolita established than
certain aspects of the film throw doubt on its being a profane
passion. The insistently lush "Lolita theme" m usic smacks of
love, not lust. A nd the m usic "leads" some scenes. The shot of
H um bert H um bert burying his face in the pillow on the
nym phet's deserted bed after her m other has packed her off to
sum m er cam p loses its desperate pathos in a backwash of m elo
diousness. (77)
Even if W alker assigns an arguable w eight to the film 's m usical soundtrack,
his point regarding the inconclusive nature of the Hum bert-Lolita relationship
is well taken. One can't help but w onder, too, if the am biguity accom pany
ing the taboo nature of that relationship is not m ore m arked for audiences
who see this film in the wake of the W oody A llen/M ia Farrow domestic
scandal of 1992/93 than it w ould have been for audiences in 1962.
17. Alternative (symbolic) father-figures in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
are num erous, but some of the m ost prom inent include the chief prison
guard, the w arden, the prison chaplain, the M inister of the Interior, and Dr.
Brodsky.
18. Alex's parents visit him in the hospital as he recovers from his
suicide attem pt. "Dad" m akes the following speech:
You w ere in the papers again son. It said they had done great
w rong to you. It said how the governm ent drove you to try
and do yourself in. A nd w hen you think about it son, m aybe it
w as our fault, too, in a way. Your hom e's your hom e, w hen
all's said and done, son.
171
19. This is not to argue, how ever, that history (or H istory) is a non-is
sue, only that potentially crucial events of an ancestral or "family" past are.
For a discussion of H istory in THE SHINING, see Fredric Jam eson's M arxist
interpretation, "Historicism in THE SHINING," in Signatures of the Visible (82-
98). Jam eson argues that "The nostalgia of THE SH INING , the longing for
collectivity, takes the peculiar form of an obsession w ith the last period [the
nineteen-tw enties] in w hich class consciousness is out in the open" (95).
20. M etz defines secondary cinem atic identification as the process
w hereby spectators engage in "identifications w ith characters, w ith their ow n
different levels (out-of-fram e character etc.), . . . ; taken as a w hole in opposi
tion to the identification of the spectator w ith his [sic] ow n look, they consti
tute secondary cinem atic identification in the singular" (56). This im pulse to
identify is crucial to any ideological approach to fictional narrative. In Group
Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, F reud described identification sim ply as
an "em otional tie w ith an object" (S£ 18: 107). L aplanche and Pontalis point
out, how ever, that over the years,
In F reud's w ork the concept of identification comes little by lit
tle to have the central im portance w hich m akes it, n o t sim ply
one psychical m echanism am ong others, b u t the operation itself
w hereby the h u m an subject is constituted. (206)
From a F reudian/L acanian perspective, identification is apparently a direct
effect of the repetition com pulsion as it applies to p rim ary identification in
the original m irror stage. As cinem atic spectators, w e re-experience (through
w h at M etz designates secondary cinem atic identification) a fraction of the ex
hilaration that accom panied the initial (m is)recognition of our ow n chaotic
"self" em bodied in the (apparent) coherence and unity of an idealized other.
21. This particular response is effected prim arily, I think, by w h at is
either a critical m isreading of King on K ubrick's p a rt or an intentional altera
tion of an essential elem ent of the novel: Jack's love for his family. In an in
terview w ith M ichel C im ent, K ubrick describes his perception of Jack Tor
rance as a m an "m arried to a w om an for w hom he has only contem pt. H e
hates his son. In the hotel, at the m ercy of its pow erful evil, he is quickly
ready to fulfil his dark role" (C im ent 194). As I have been arguing, it is Jack's
resistance to the forces of the hotel that gives his character its decidedly
h u m an an d perh ap s even tragic appeal in K ing's novel. K ubrick's rem arks
indicate that his Jack T orrance is, from the beginning, a decidedly different
character from the "tortured" Jack Torrance of K ing's novel.
; 22. This early suggestion of T orrance's "extra-natural" aw areness is
j validated in a scene that takes place thirty-nine m inutes into the film. Jack
stands over a table-m odel of the O verlook's hedge-m aze, and as he studies
the m odel, w e assum e his "omniscient" optical perspective. The cam era
172
begins to descend in a slow zoom that sharpens and intensifies the detail of
the m odel. Suddenly, how ever, w e note two tiny figures m oving in the cen
ter of the m odel. W e then hear W endy's and D anny's voices just before a
violent cut refram es them in a conventionally objective m edium long shot.
They are actually outside the hotel in the center of the m aze, and Jack has
apparen tly been "shining."
23. To "share" W endy's an d D anny's terror is an im possibility once w e
have accepted Terry H eller's definition of this term . It m ay be recalled that
H eller defines terror as "the fear that h arm w ill come to oneself" (DT 19, see
chapter tw o above). This sam e problem is addressed by N oel C arroll in
slightly different terms:
. . . the audience's em otional response is rooted in entertaining
thoughts, w hile the character's responses originate in beliefs. The
character, it seem s reasonable to suppose, is horrified [Heller
w o u ld say 'terrified'], w hile the audience m em ber is art-horri
fied [Heller w ould say sim ply 'horrified']. A nd to com pound
m atters, the audience's response to the protagonist will be in
volved w ith concern for another person (or person-type) w hile the
protagonist beset by a m onster is concerned for him self [sic].
(91, em phases added)
24. See, for exam ple, M orris Dickstein, w ho com plains that "every shot
in THE SH IN IN G seem s too perfect, too calculated" (65) and that the film,
for all its brilliance of execution, com es to grief on the problem
of m otivation. K ubrick de-em phasizes the them e of the "evil
house" w hich linked Stephen K ing's novel to the gothic tradi
tion. Instead, THE SH IN IN G becom es the first horror film
w hich blam es it all on w riter's block. (75-76)
M uch p o p u lar criticism concurred. G eorge Romero:
M y first take on the film version w as that I d id n 't think it
w orked at all. N ow , . . . after I've . . . w atched it a few tim es, I
can appreciate a lot of w h at K ubick d id w ith it. A t first, I just
rem em ber being really d isappointed because it w asn 't Steve. It
w as som ething else. (D oherty 38)
K ing sum m ed u p his disappointm ent in the Eric N o rd en interview :
[T]he film has no center and no heart, despite its brilliantly u n
nerving cam era angles an d dazzling use of the steadicam .
W hat's basically w rong w ith K ubrick's version of The Shining is
that it's a film by a m an w ho thinks too m uch and feels too lit
tle; and that's w hy, for all its virtuoso effects, it never gets you
by the throat and hangs on the w ay real horror should. (U nder
w ood 29).
173
Jeff Conner is perhaps kindest: "Style over content, form over function, intel
lect over belief; w hatever the case, m ost will agree that Kubrick's film is the
m ost beautiful and stylish of the King adaptations" (29).
N ot all critical assessments are negative, however. Gregory W aller
places THE SHINING "among the m ost notew orthy recent exam inations of
the role and the representation of violence in Am erican culture" (AH 7), and
Thomas Allen N elson calls it one of Kubrick's m ost "rem arkable films" (4),
arguing that it "challenges both an audience's expectations and its conceptual
understanding of narrative events in ways King's novel rarely does" (204).
25. Danny describes shining to H allorann in the following way: "It's
like I go to sleep, and [Tony] shows me things. But w hen I w ake up, I can't
rem em ber everything." D anny's "imaginary friend," Tony, is an obvious sur
rogate for the filmmaker, while the notion of sleeping and dream ing is a
common analogy for the film-viewing experience.
26. This entrapm ent recalls a m ore com pressed representation in LO
LITA w hen H um bert attends a drive-in w ith Charlotte and Lolita. All three
experience a m om ent of shock at the appearance of C hristopher Lee's
Frankenstein's m onster on the screen. This m om entary fear allows H um bert,
strategically flanked by both w om en, to rem ove his hand from his left thigh,
where it has been underneath Charlotte's (the w om an w ho represents H um
bert's fear of com m itm ent and m arriage), and to place it on Lolita's hand (the
wom an who embodies H um bert's desire and to w hom he is totally commit
ted) on his right thigh, smiling in an apparent ecstasy of sexual exhilaration.
27. In A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Dr. Brodsky is the scientist who
heads the Ludovico experiments. In these experim ents, Alex is placed direct
ly in "the line of fire" of films depicting various kinds of graphic violence.
Small metal brackets are attached to his upper and lower eyelids, forcing his
eyes to rem ain open while he is barraged by images of physical and sexual
brutality. Brodsky's theory is that by robbing Alex of his ability to shut out
these images, the Ludovico treatm ent will create in Alex a deeply ingrained
aversion to violence in general, causing him severe nausea and vom iting if he
even considers engaging in any kind of violent behavior.
28. Danny's resourcefulness in draw ing Jack into the m aze and then
backtracking to elude him is a m ark of ingenuity, not extrasensory psychic
ability. W hat is im portant here, however, is that this sequence reaffirms
D anny's successful passage through the oedipal dram a and his ascension to
the role of properly "gendered" survivor of that dram a. I refer here to a point
m ade by Carol Clover in Men, Women, and Chain Saws regarding the gender
ing of characters: "those w ho save themselves are male, and those who are
saved by others are female" (59). Looked at in this w ay, Kubrick's film is
174
ideologically m ore secure than King's novel, w here D anny and W endy are
both gendered feminine in that they are saved by Hallorann.
I find it quite interesting, too, that an early treatm ent of King's novel
resolves this whole issue quite differently, casting H allorann as m onster and
W endy as D anny's savior (see A ppendix B). Such a resolution w ould have
valorized W endy as a variation on w hat Clover calls the "Final Girl" m otif of
contem porary slasher films, but it w ould also have p u t into question D anny's
successful passage through the oedipal dram a, leaving him gendered (in
term s of narrative function at least) as female.
29. The 1970 percentage of fem ale-headed households had seen little
change since 1940 (when such households constituted 10.8 per cent of Am eri
can families).
30. In Embattled Paradise, psychologist Arlene Skolnick finds it ironic
that "the era that stands for stable, traditional family patterns was unlike that
of any earlier time. Studies by dem ographers and others have led to a sur
prising conclusion: far from being the last era of family norm ality from which
current trends are a deviation, it is the fam ily patterns of the 1950s that are
deviant" (51-52).
175
C h a pt e r five
The Father as A gent of Destruction and the
Ideology of Domestic Apocalypse: PET SEMATARY
N orden: . . . W hat's your darkest fear?
King: I guess that one of m y children
will die. I d o n 't think I could
handle that. (U nderw ood 42-43)
Like THE SH INING , PET SE M A T A R Y is heavily m arked by anxieties
traceable to oedipal overdeterm ination, an d like the earlier narrative, this
"darkest" of K ing's dom estic horror tales casts the father as agent of potential
destruction. Unlike Jack Torrance, how ever, Dr. Louis C reed does not intend
the destruction of his family; indeed, the p red o m in an t irony of PET SEM A
T A R Y lies in the fact that L ouis's pathetic attem pt to preserve "the m agic cir
cle of the family" (Pet Sematary 121) brings about its ultim ate dem ise. In this
chapter, I w an t to argue that em bedded deep w ithin the narrative's aesthetic
and ideological rhetorics lies a knot of oedipal com plications that converge in
the character of Louis C reed and through him effect the C reed fam ily's do-
jmestic apocalypse. I will also show how the novel an d the film attem pt (with
176
varying degrees of success) to d raw their audiences into the narrative transac
tion, creating in the rea d er/sp e c ta to r a sense of psychic vulnerability b y tap
ping into anxieties fundam ental to a m editation on death.
From the opening p arag rap h of the novel, Louis C reed is positioned as
the narrative agency through w hich the reader gam s entry into the diegesis:
Louis C reed, w ho h ad lost his father at three an d w ho h ad
never know n a grandfather, never expected to find a father as
he entered his m iddle age, b u t that w as exactly w h at hap p en ed
. . . although he called this m an a friend, as a g row n m an m ust
do w h en he finds the m an w ho should have been his father rel
atively late in life. H e m et this m an on the evening he an d his
w ife an d his tw o children m oved into the big w hite fram e house
in L udlow . (15)
L ouis's "dom ination" of the novel's opening paragraph an d the privileged
biographical inform ation shared w ith the reader establish a com plicity that, as
w e will see, becom es increasingly pow erful and increasingly uncom fortable as
the narrative unfolds. The critical p o in t to be recognized at the outset,
how ever, is that Louis is initially described in negative term s, in term s of
w h a t he has "lost," w h at he has "never know n" or "expected.”
This description by w ay of negations gives im m ediate w ay, how ever,
to a k in d of plenitude— L ouis's status as father, w ith "wife," "children," "big
. . . house." Before reaching the en d of the first paragraph of Pet Sematary,
the read er already apprehend s Louis C reed as a subject constructed o u t of
; contradiction, a m an w hose present plenitude is built on a history of loss and
■ longing. This polarity of plenitude an d loss is m ediated by "the m an w ho
177
should have been [Louis's] father." L ouis's m eeting of this m an bridges the
conceptual chasm , reconciling the contradictions inherent in Louis's character
w hile m aintaining a degree of qualification ("should" being the key signifier
of that qualification).
W e learn of L ouis's ow n status as father only after w e learn of his
paternal deprivation an d his m eeting of the m an w ho should have been his
father. In leading the reader through this abbreviated history, then, the
opening p arag rap h intim ates a m ovem ent from loss to plenitude, from ab
sence to presence, from despair to hope. It is a teasing seduction how ever,
enticing the reader into a deceptive optim ism that the novel w ill ultim ately
undo. The notion of absence a n d /o r loss, how ever, will rem ain one of the
narrative's fundam ental conceptual (them atic an d structural) devices, fore
gro u n d ed m ost pow erfully in the ultim ate im age of loss: death.
The central issue on w hich PET SE M A T A R Y m editates, and by w hich
it unites both the aesthetic and ideological dim ensions of its rhetorical
infrastructure, is, then, death: w h at is it, and w h at constitutes a proper re
sponse to it? Each of the m ajor characters assum es a position in this m edita
tion: each has a perception of w h at death is, an d each is forced, over the
course of events, to re-exam ine th at perception. As a m edical practitioner,
"Dr." Louis C reed is a pragm atist: "For m ost of his adult life— since college
days, he su p p o sed ~ h e h ad believed that death w as the end. H e had been
p resent at m any deathbeds and h ad never felt a soul bullet past him on its
178
w ay to . . . w herever" (200). L ouis's seeing-is-believing m entality casts him in
a role typically indicative in K ing's fiction of vulnerability a n d /o r ignorance.
H e is an everym an w ith a surplus of know ledge an d a corresponding lack of
w isdom . A long w ith his pragm atism , how ever, Louis possesses a degree of
w h at appears to be professional objectivity: "as a doctor, he knew that death
w as, except perhaps for childbirth, the m ost natural thing in the w orld" (56).
For the other inhabitants of L ouis's w orld, how ever, death is not so
easily understood or accepted. For Rachel C reed, L ouis's wife, the prospect
of im perm anence occupies a d ark corner of her unconscious, w here it has fes
tered since her traum atic childhood experience w ith the death of her sister,
Zelda. For Rachel, d eath is "a secret, a terror . . . to be kept from the children
. . . the w ay that V ictorian ladies and gentlem en h ad believed the nasty, grot
ty tru th about sexual relations m u st be kept from the children" (193-94). For
Ellie C reed, Louis's and R achel's five-year-old d aughter, "Death w as a vague
idea" (51) that begins to take on a terrible concreteness, first by w ay of her in
troduction to the Pet Sem atary and, subsequently, in the deaths of virtually
everyone close to her. A nd finally, for eighty-three-year-old Jud C randall, the
designated sage of PET SE M A T A R Y, death represents a potential state of per
petual peace, "where the p ain stops an d the good m em ories begin. N ot the
end of life b u t the end of pain" (167). T hus PET SE M A T A R Y dram atizes, by
I
j w ay of characters ranging in age from five to eighty-three years old, a w ide-
179
I
ranging spectrum of potential responses to death: L ouis's positivism , Rachel's |
phobic terror, Ellie's childish curiosity, and Jud's seasoned acceptance.
Each of these responses w ill be called into question w hen tw o-year-old
G age C reed is killed in a freakish an d gruesom e traffic accident. Too young
to share his sister's curiosity about death (m uch less to have form ed any
philosophical notions about it), G age C reed em bodies one of the narrative's
fundam ental ironies: although he is the only character w ith o u t an y conscious
know ledge or aw areness of the concept of death, he is the first to becom e
intim ately acquainted w ith it. G age thus serves essentially as a catalyst, the
deciding factor that m otivates Louis C reed's violation of the law of the father
as p ro p o u n d ed to him by Jud C randall.
Jud, as the only m ajor character in the narrative that is n o t a m em ber
of the C reed's nuclear fam ily, serves nonetheless as the n arrativ e's preem i
nent paternal authority figure. H e m akes his entrance just after the C reeds
arrive at their new hom e:
[Louis] tu rn ed and saw an old m an of perhaps seventy— a hale
and healthy seventy— standing there on the grass. H e w ore a
biballs over a blue cham bray shirt that show ed his thickly
folded an d w rinkled neck. H is face w as su n burned, an d he w as
sm oking an unfiltered cigarette. As Louis looked at him , the old
m an pinched the cigarette o u t betw een his thum b an d forefinger
and pocketed it neatly. H e h eld out his h ands an d sm iled crook
edly . . . a sm ile Louis liked at once— an d he w as not a m an w ho
"took" to people.
. . . A nd that w as how Louis m et Judson C randall, the m an
w ho should have been his father. (20)
180
>
As the "m an w ho should have been [Louis's] father," Jud is a venerable (if ex
traneous) patriarch w ho em bodies fundam ental oppositions to Louis: he is
age opposed to L ouis's youth, country opposed to the latter's city, stability
opposed to transience:
"U prooted and transplanted," C randall said, suddenly beside
him , and Louis jum ped a little.
"You sound like you know the feeling," he said.
"No, actually I don't." C randall lit a cigarette— pop/ w ent the
m atch, flaring brightly in the first early evening shadow s. "My 1
d a d bu ilt that house across the w ay. Brought his wife there,
an d she w as taken w ith child there, and that child w as m e, born
in the very year 1900.
. . . [T]here's a lot m ore m oving a ro u n d than there used to be
w hen I w as a boy; then you picked a place out and stuck to it.
(23, 28)
But m ost im portant, Jud is a kind of folk philosopher w hose practical "wis
dom "— the result of life-long experience rather than extended study in form al
education— is opposed to L ouis's "knowledge." H e exem plifies w h at H einz
K ohut has called a "m ature personality" (123), one w ho has traversed the cog
nitive terrain that begins w ith the acquisition of inform ation, progresses
through the assim ilating of inform ation into know ledge, an d arrives at the
transform ing of know ledge into w isdom .
H e voices w h at Jam eson w ould call the "determ inate contradiction" of
the narrative w hen he suggests to Louis that "som etim es dead is better" (166).
Jud m akes his statem ent follow ing the accidental d eath of Ellie's cat, C hurch.
The cat is killed by one of the m any tankers that frequent the highw ay ru n
181
ning in front of the C reed hom e. Ellie an d the rest of the C reed fam ily are
o u t of tow n at the tim e, how ever, an d Jud takes advantage of their absence.
H e takes Louis to an old Indian burial g ro u n d in the w oods behind the Pet
Sem atary and instructs him in a ritualized interm ent of C hurch's body. As
Louis digs the cat's grave, com m ending him self for patiently appeasing an
old m an 's eccentricity, Jud indulges in casual conversation: "'The Micmacs be
lieved this hill w as a m agic place', he said. 'B elieved this w hole forest, from
the sw am p on n o rth an d east w as m agic'" (137). The follow ing day, "Church
cam e back like the cat in the nursery rhym e" (150), and L ouis's attitude
changes considerably. But he notices that som ething is terribly w rong:
C hurch stared at him a m om ent longer— G od, his eyes w ere
different, som ehow they w ere different— an d then leaped dow n
from the toilet seat. H e lan d ed w ith none of the uncanny grace
cats usually display. H e staggered aw kw ardly, haunches th u d
ding against the tub, an d then he w as gone.
It, Louis thought. Not he; it. (153, italics in text)
Louis goes to Jud for an explanation. "It w o n 't tu rn vicious, or bite, or
anything like that," Jud assures him . (Indeed, C hurch rem ains little m ore than
an eerie m anifestation of the supernatural, an occasional rem inder for Louis
an d the reader that som e paranorm al forces are at w ork.) "[Ellie] will go on
loving i t . . . b u t she'll d raw her ow n conclusions . . . an d she'll breathe a
sigh of relief w hen it finally dies" (167).
O ne of the conclusions that Ellie w ill draw , Jud assum es, is that "some
tim es d ead is better." But as events unfold, the reader recognizes that Louis,
182
not Ellie, is the one w ho m u st grapple m ost desperately w ith this notion.
From an ideological and rhetorical perspective, Jud's claim perform s tw o crit
ical tasks: it situates Louis w ithin a school of m edical ethics th at assum es
w ith o u t reservation the desirability of life over death, a n d it calls this as
sum ption into question. Once Ju d 's claim has been voiced, grounds have
been laid for an ethical dialogue betw een the text and the culture of w hich it
becom es a part. In our capacity as readers a n d /o r spectators, w e are invited
to participate in this exchange by m editating on the text an d by posing the
obvious follow -up question: If "som etim es dead is better," when m ight this be
the case? The answ er offered at the surface level of the narrative w ill be
m ade all too clear: dead is better w hen the alternative results in m onsters and
social chaos. The sym bolic answ er, how ever— the answ er that ratifies PET
SE M A T A R Y as a socially significant a c t-m u s t bridge the "sem antic horizons"
(Jam eson 76) of text and social order, of diegesis and extradiegesis.
Perhaps at a m ore sym bolic level, then, d ead is better w h en the quality
of one's life is at stake. This argum ent inheres throughout PET SE M A T A R Y—
m ost overtly, as w e w ill see shortly, in the retu rn of Gage C reed, b u t also
w henever Ellie's reanim ated cat occupies the stage. Exam ples m ore histori
cally rem oved include Jud's narrative asides: the story of his dog Spot ("'It
w as like . . . like w ashing m eat"' [163]), of Lester M organ's prize bull H anrat-
ty ("'That bull tu rn ed m ean, really m ean'" [167]), and of W orld W ar Two
casualty Tim m y Baterm an:
183
"He even walked w rong, Louis. . . . H e 'd p u t one foot high u p
and then bring it d o w n an d then kind of shuffle and then lift
the other one. It w as like w atching a crab walk. . . . A nd he
stank of the grave. It w as a black sm ell, like everything inside
him w as just lying there, spoiled. . . . The stench w as just awful.
You alm ost expected to see grave m aggots squirm ing a ro u n d in
his hair— "
"Stop," Louis said hoarsely. "I've h eard enough." (270)
Perhaps, the narrative im plies, d ead is better w h en the cost to the com m unity
outw eighs the psychological and em otional benefits of the individual. As w e
will see m om entarily, the them e of exchange value arises w ith Ellie C reed's
response to the d eath of N orm a C randall. This them e runs throughout both
novel an d film, m ost prom inently in Ju d 's recurring m axim : "The soil of a
m an's heart is stonier, Louis. A m an grow s w h at he can, and he tends it.
'C ause w h at you b uy is w h at you ow n, an d w h at you ow n alw ays comes
hom e to you.1 But ultim ately, PET SE M A T A R Y suggests that dead is better
w hen the alternative effects the devastation of the fam ily (if not the literal
devastation w e w ill see depicted in the novel an d film, then a lingering
em otional one).
Each of these rum inations is im plied at various points in the narrative,
but the p oint to be m ade here is th at each is highly arguable, in fact unresolv-
able in any definitive sense, and it is precisely this unresolvability that m akes
them a n d the dom estic horror narrative w ithin w hich they are dram atized
w orthy of m editation.
184
For Rachel C reed, how ever, any such m editation on death is inconceiv
able. Rachel suffers from a "death phobia" (84), the psychic residue of her
childhood experience w ith an only sister, Zelda, w ho d ied a protracted death,
the result of spinal m eningitis. Rachel is haunted by excessive guilt over her
childhood w ish that Zelda w ould die, a w ish that, although rooted originally
in norm al desires attributable to sibling rivalry, h ad intensified w ith the pro
gressive physical and em otional deform ation of her older sister: "'. . . [Zelda]
w as starting to look like a m onster/" she confides to Louis, "'and she w as
starting to be a m onster'" (203, italics in text). R achel's childhood guilt is pre
dictably com pounded by her sister's eventual death, and, in a typical defen
sive strategy, Rachel has repressed this guilt. M elanie K lein has noted the
trem endous psychological toll this kind of repression can exact on the ad u lt
subject:
. . . [S]ince the objects [the child] hates [i.e., its siblings] are at
the sam e tim e objects of its love, the conflicts w hich arise be
come very soon unbearably burdensom e to the w eak ego; the
only escape is flight through repression, an d the whole conflicting
situation, w hich is thus never cleared u p , remains active in the
unconscious m ind. (LGR 173, em phasis added)
R achel's unconscious guilt is m anifest as a severe anxiety that surfaces som at
ically w henever she is forced to confront the actuality of death:
She had never attended a funeral w ith [Louis], he realized— not
even that of A1 Locke, a fellow m ed stu d en t w ho h ad been
killed w hen his m otorcycle h ad collided w ith a city bus. A1 had
been a regular visitor at their apartm ent, a n d Rachel h ad alw ays
liked him. Yet she had not gone to his funeral.
185
She was sick that day, Louis rem em bered suddenly. Got the flu
or something. Looked serious. But the next day she was okay again.
A fter the funeral she was all right again, he corrected himself.
(203, italics in text)
Because of her traum atic experience at Z elda's death (Rachel h ad been eight
years old and alone w ith Zelda w hen the latter died) and her subsequent
death phobia, Rachel cannot share Jud C randall's contention that "som etim es
dead is better" or his belief that the Pet Sem atary is "som ethin' good."2 Jud
reasons that the cem etery offers children an opportunity to "learn about
death" in a w ay that is less traum atic than confronting the death of a hum an
loved one. W hen considered in the context of Rachel's history, Ju d 's logic
acquires a suasive potency for the read er/sp ectato r that it cannot for Rachel
Creed. A ny place that forces Rachel to confront thoughts of death a n d /o r
dying is for her a place of anxiety an d potential traum a. Because, too, Rachel
realizes that the roots of her phobia extend into her ow n distant childhood,
she voices strong disapproval at L ouis's frank discussions of death w ith Ellie,
fearing the subject will becom e for her daughter as traum atizing as it rem ains
for her.
Ellie's aw akening to the prospect of m ortality begins w ith her trip to
the Pet Sem atary. A fter their first visit there, Ellie tearfully confides to Louis
her fear that her cat, C hurch, will die. In response,
[Louis] held her and rocked her, believing, rightly or w rongly,
that Ellie w ep t for the very intractability of death, its im pervi
ousness to argum ent or to a little girl's tears; that she w ep t over
186
its cruel unpredictability; . . . If all those anim als had d ied and
been buried, then C hurch could die
(any time!)
and be buried; an d if that could h ap p en to Church, it could
happen to her m other, her father, her baby brother. To herself.
D eath w as a vague idea; the Pet Sem atary w as real. . . . (51)
W hether Ellie is m aking all of the connections ascribed ("rightly or wrongly")
to her by Louis is indeed open to question. O ne is rem in d ed of F reud's con
tention that for children of Ellie C reed's age, death is often synonym ous w ith
"absence" and that w hat m ay appear to signify a lack of appropriate grief
w hen the child is confronted w ith the actual situation of a loved one's death
is actually indicative of an inability to conceptualize the notion of m ortality.3
In expressing her fears for C hurch, Ellie indicates that she has m oved
beyond the stage to w hich F reud refers, yet later in the novel, her response to
the death of N orm a C randall show s that Ellie has not arrived at a full com
prehension of death: "'N o m ore cookies', Ellie sobbed. 'She m ade the best
oatm eal cookies I ever ate'" (215). G ranted, Ellie's sorrow is essentially
narcissistic here, b u t there is no evidence to suggest that it stem s from w hat
Louis presum es is Ellie's recognition of her ow n m ortality. It is sim ply a
response to the intrusion of an unforeseen absence into her im m ediate w orld.
Once N orm a C randall's "exchange value" has been reestablished, Ellie's sor
row evaporates:
. . . W hen [Louis an d Ellie] got hom e [from N orm a's funeral]
she w ent to her m other and . . . asked her if she knew ho w to
m ake oatm eal cookies, an d Rachel p u t aw ay the piece of knit
ting sh e'd been doing and rose at once, as if she had been w ait-
187
ing for this or som ething like it. "Yes," she said. "W ant to m ake
a batch?"
"Yay!" Ellie shouted. "Can w e really, M om?" (216)
O ne suspects that L ouis's philosophic reflections on the fears Ellie voices fol
low ing their initial trek to the Pet Sem atary are m ore indicative of his ow n
unconscious fears than those of his five-year-old daughter.
T hat Louis is m otivated by such fears becom es clearer the deeper w e
delve into his character. Beginning w ith the fact of the loss of his biological
father at a crucial m om ent of L ouis's psychosexual developm ent, w e can as
sum e an intensification of the confusion and anxiety accom panying his pas
sage through the O edipus an d castration complexes. G ranted, the physical
absence of L ouis's father, as ongoing condition, w o u ld have relieved any threat
em anating directly from that figure as the agent of potential castration, b u t
the loss of the father, as event, w ould have validated the general fear of loss
that accom panies the m ale child's progression through the castration com
plex. The result for three-year-old Louis w ould have been a com pounding of
the psychological traum a occasioned by castration anxiety. This paradox
w o u ld have created tensions as the result of am bivalent feelings stem m ing
from relief an d anxiety. For the ad u lt Louis, the psychological tug-of-w ar be
tw een these tw o em otions has been relegated, unresolved, to his unconscious
w here, like R achel's fear of death, it has rem ained a source of am bivalence
and repressed psychic tension.
188
I do not w ant to turn the fictional Louis Creed into an actual case
study here, but I believe the narrative supplies ample support for the im por
tance I am assigning to w hat N orm an Holland w ould call Louis's "non-exis
tent childhood" (269).4 We first see evidence of Louis's unconscious castra
tion fears in his response to the prospect of having Church neutered:
. . . there had been som e trouble over that back in Chicago.
Rachel had w anted to get Church spayed, had even m ade the
appointm ent w ith the vet. Louis canceled it. Even now he
w asn't really sure why. It w asn't anything as sim ple or as
stupid as equating his m asculinity w ith that of his daughter's
tom, nor even his resentm ent at the idea that Church w ould
have to be castrated so the fat housewife next door w ouldn't
need to be troubled w ith twisting dow n the lids of her plastic
garbage cans—those things had been part of it, but m ost of it
had been a vague but strong feeling that it w ould destroy some
thing in Church that he himself valued. . . . (29)
The self-contradictory nature of Louis's reasoning suggests that he is, indeed,
"equating his masculinity w ith that of his daughter's tom." W hat Louis
values but cannot name consciously is rooted firmly in an ideological associa
tion of biological sex w ith gender, of "presence" w ith masculinity. This pres
ence/m asculinity association is firmly entrenched in Louis's unconscious,
m anifesting itself in his conscious thought as a kind of "empty" signifier~a
"vague . . . something" whose access to consciousness depends (as a strategy
of psychic censorship) on its deliberate ambiguity. The term something serves
a dual function, sim ultaneously creating and filling a symbolic "gap," allow
ing Louis's psychic apparatus to side-step the contradiction of m asculinity/
absence that threatens— by bringing a traum atic fear of loss (back) into con
sciousness— to d isru p t psychic constancy.5 It is easier to deny such fears™
labeling them outw ardly "as sim ple or as stupid"--than to provoke an alterna
tive retu rn of the repressed. L ouis's fear for C hurch is, then, sym ptom atic of
his latent fear of absence as a signifier of the not-m asculine, an o u tw ard ex
pression of an inner horror he holds for w h at he perceives as the "m utilation"
inherent in the absence/fem inine dichotom y.
L ouis's choice of vocation suggests further evidence of unresolved cas
tration anxiety. As a doctor, Louis has deliberate opportunity to save life, to
restore health, in short, to confront and com bat the paradoxical "presence of
absence" inherent in the concept of castration. This desire to prevent the
general occurrence of loss— the desire to "save" an d "restore"— im plies that
L ouis's perception of death as "the m ost n atu ral thing in the w orld" is a con
venient veneer, superficial an d fragile. H is ostensibly w illing acceptance of
such loss is at best highly restrictive, pertaining only to those deaths he can
rationalize (in accordance w ith his logical positivism ) as resulting from n at
ural causation (such as N orm a C randall's old age or Z elda G oldm an's spinal
m eningitis). But for Louis, as a doctor, the naivete of such a lim ited
epistem ology suggests th at it constitutes only one m ore outw ard m anifesta
tion of the inw ard depths to w hich his psychic apparatus has plunged the
fear of loss, any loss. L ouis's fragile professional objectivity cannot account
for suffering, nor can it absorb the violent clashes w ith reality that take form
as accidental deaths that— beginning w ith a young stu d en t and concluding w ith
190
his two-year-old son~draw closer and closer to his psychological and
emotional center.6 W ith each encounter, the traum a of loss intensifies the re
pressed fears harking back to three-year-old Louis's loss of his father.
W hat begins to emerge, then, as the dynam ic force that drives PET
SEM ATARY— that propels the father tow ards the domestic destruction he
eventually initiates— is an unresolved castration (or "annihilation") anxiety.
We find in Freud an association of the m ale child's earliest fears of death
w ith such anxiety. In Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety (1926) Freud pro
fessed adherence "to the view that the fear of death should be regarded as
analogous to the fear of castration and that the [danger] situation to which the
ego is reacting is one of being abandoned by the protecting super-ego" (SE 20:
130, em phasis added). Keeping in m ind that in Freudian psychoanalysis the
superego am ounts to an internalization of the paternal authority figure, we
can discern the paradoxical nature of Freud's argum ent: the fear of death, it
seems, can be linked to anxieties triggered by paternal presence (the fear of
castration) and absence (the fear of abandonm ent). Because Louis has al
ready experienced "being abandoned" by his father (whether due to death or
simple desertion is not revealed in the novel), his anxiety over the possibility
of such abandonm ent occurring again (an anxiety both instigated and allayed
by the paternal role assum ed by his Uncle Carl) w ould be intensified.
Klein attem pted to qualify Freud's argum ent, associating the fear of
death not w ith a fear of literal castration but rather w ith the fear of "annihila
191
tion," arguing that this "prim ary anxiety" results not from a fear of abandon
m ent by the superego but of that agency's potentially destructive pow er.7
She concludes in "The Theory of A nxiety an d Guilt" (1948) that "the fear of
death enters into and reinforces castration fear an d is not 'analogous' to it"
(EG 30). K lein's replacem ent of castration w ith annihilation constitutes an ef
fective strategic m aneuver in that the latter term tactfully side-steps the m ost
obvious flaw in F reud's ow n argum ent: its failure to account for the different
psychological responses of biologically different subjects to anxieties stem
m ing from a fear of "castration." By em ploying the sexually neutral term ,
K lein's argum ent ranges m ore easily across a universal audience.8 W e can
also assum e th at L ouis's unconscious fears, triggered by the authoritative
presence of his Uncle Carl, w ould have been com plicated by associations the
child w o u ld intuit betw een the m an and his vocation: U ncle Carl w as an u n
dertaker.
Like its K leinian counterpart, Lacanian psychoanalysis assigns to the
notion of castration a m uch m ore sym bolic status than F reud h ad been w ill
ing to concede. For Lacan, castration evokes an overw helm ing sense of "loss"
endem ic to, even constitutive of, the h u m an condition. To be hum an is to
exist in a state of perpetual "lack" (regardless of one's biological sex). To
achieve subjectivity is to acquire aw areness of this lack. M uch like F reud's
oedipal fem ale, the Lacanian subject "slips along the line of a sym bolic equa
tion" ("Dissolution of the O edipus Com plex" 178-79), b u t for Lacan, this slip
192
page is never-ending, a result of the dom ination an d futility of desire. The
Lacanian subject, then, is em barked on an endless quest to rectify its innate
sense of loss, driven by the urge to erase an im m anent lack; yet the inevitabil
ity of ultim ate failure is, at som e level of psychological aw areness, recognized
from the outset (the m om ent of initial sym bolic aw areness). This is how de
sire is m anifested~as an endless slippage along a chain of displacem ents and
disavow als. Lacan's association of castration anxiety w ith the scopic drive
has given his argum ents a particular appeal in cinem a theory and criticism
an d will inform m y exam ination of M ary L am bert's film ic rendering of the
narrative's pivotal scene (below), b u t sufficient for the present is the recogni
tion of the sym bolic quality Lacan ascribes to the term castration.
In the character of Louis C reed, then, PET SE M A T A R Y suggests that
the doctor's outw ard acceptance of death as "the m ost natural thing in the
w orld" signals repressed castration/annihilation anxieties. These anxieties
follow a predictable path of displacem ent as Louis projects them onto his son.
W e see evidence of such displacem ent early in the novel, w hen one night
Louis stands over G age's crib:
[Louis] took Gage into his room an d laid him in his crib. As
he pulled the blanket u p over his son, though, a shudder
tw isted up his back, an d he thought su d d en ly of his Uncle
C arl's "show room ." N o new cars there, no televisions w ith all
the m odern features, no dishw ashers w ith glass fronts so you
could w atch the m agical sudsing action. O nly boxes w ith their
lids up, a carefully h id d en spotlight over each. H is father's
brother w as an undertaker.
Good God, what gave you the horrors? Let it go! Dump it!
H e kissed his son an d w ent dow n to listen to Ellie tell about
her first d ay at the big k id 's school. (36, italics in text)
Louis's mysterium tremendum as he literally "lays Gage to rest" here fore
shadow s "the horrors" that will transpire in his eventual standing over his
son's open coffin. A t this point in the novel, how ever, such feelings can be
explained in p art as m otivated by "regressive" narcissism , a libidinal process
that F reud contended is both reactivated an d re-routed in the adult partici
p an t in the parent-child relationship. In On Narcissism: A n Introduction Freud
p roposed that
If w e look at the attitu d e of affectionate parents tow ards their
children, w e have to recognize that it is a revival an d rep ro d u c
tion of their ow n narcissism w hich they have long since aban
doned. The trustw orthy pointer constituted by overvaluation
. . . dom inates, as w e all know , their em otional attitude. . . .
M oreover, they are inclined to suspend in the child's favour the
operation of all the cultural acquisitions w hich their ow n narcis
sism has been forced to respect, and to renew on his [sic] behalf
the claims to privileges w hich w ere long ago given up by them
selves. . . . Illness, death, renunciation of enjoym ent, restrictions
on his ow n will, shall not touch him ; the law s of nature and of
society shall be abrogated in his favour; he shall once m ore
really be the centre and core of creation . . . as w e once fancied
ourselves. . . . Parental love, w hich is so m oving and at bottom
so childish, is nothing b u t the parents' narcissism born again.
(SE 14: 90-91)
This "narcissism born again" is regressive in that it m oves from object-choice
to the kind of self-choice characteristic of infantile narcissism . It sees the
child as an extension of the self, draw s it into a libidinal em brace, an d m erges
w ith that w hich it em braces.9
A certain degree of regressive narcissism w o u ld seem both inevitable
and norm al in the parent-child relationship (w here norm ality is contingent on
the p aren t's m aintaining an aw areness of the vicarious nature of his or her
identification). Because it involves a m ixture of assim ilation and disavow al,
how ever, an overindulgence in regressive narcissism w o u ld seem extrem ely
dangerous for the psychic w ell-being of the adult. For Louis, the substance
of his identification w ith Gage reaches a p oint of such intensity that his ow n
sense of self-aw areness is lost. W e see a pow erful exam ple in an incident
taking place two m onths before G age's untim ely death:
It w as a m om ent w ith his son that Louis never forgot. As he
had gone u p and into the kite as a child him self, he now found
him self going into Gage, his son. H e felt him self shrink un til he
w as w ithin G age's tiny house, looking o u t of the w indow s that
w ere his eyes— looking out at a w o rld that w as so huge and
bright, a w orld w here M rs. V inton's field w as nearly as big as
the Bonneville Salt Flats, w here the kite soared m iles above him ,
the string d rum m ing in his fist like a live thing as the w ind
blew aro u n d him , tum bling his hair. (223)
The celebratory tone of this passage is deceptive. The exuberant tone inform
ing the father's im agined return to childhood serves prim arily in a stylistic
capacity, its excess underscoring the excessive nature of Louis's regressive
narcissism . The passage lays the gro u n d w o rk for L ouis's eventual break w ith
sanity in that it dem onstrates the kind of delusional separation from reality
sym ptom atic of hysteria.1 0 L ouis's ultim ate slippage from narcissistic identi
fication into hysteria w ill occasion his experiencing the death of Gage as the
realization of his ow n unconscious castration fear.
195
j
The narrative effectively im plicates the audience in this slippage as j
well. The m erging of two distinct entities in the above passage is so com
plete that distinguishing betw een them becom es an im possible task for the
reader. The initial am biguity occurs in the adverbial "w here the kite soared
m iles above him." To w hich him does the clause refer? O ne w o u ld assum e it
refers to Louis in that the nearest spatial reference is "the Bonneville Salt
Flats," w here Louis h ad flow n kites as a child. But tem poral consistency
w o u ld call for the perfective tense— w here the kite had soared m iles above
him ~ to distinguish betw een the rem ote past of L ouis's childhood and the re
cent past in w hich his flashback takes place: "It w as a m om ent w ith his son
that Louis never forgot." Subsequent p ro noun references— "his fist," "around
him ," an d "his hair"— only am plify this am biguity. A re these references to
Louis's fantasy of his ow n childhood experience at the Bonneville Salt Flats or
to G age's actual experience in "Mrs. V inton's field"? The m ore the reader
tries to establish som e clarity of reference here, the m ore im possibile the task
becom es and the m ore he or she is im plicated in L ouis's schizophrenic self
erasure.
All of this excess sets the stage for the narrative's pivotal event, the
event that ensures the dissolution of the C reed family: a bizarre traffic acci
d en t that claim s G age's life in full view of Louis, Rachel, Ellie, an d Jud. Gage
an d Louis are playing in Mrs. V inton's field w hen the gam e turns suddenly
deadly:
196
They w ere yelling at Gage to come back, b u t he w o u ld n 't— lately i
the gam e h ad been to ru n aw ay from M om m y-D addy— an d then
they w ere chasing him . . . . Gage w as laughing, Gage w as ru n
ning aw ay from D addy— that w as the game. . . . Gage w as ru n
ning dow n the m ild slope of the law n now to the verge of R oute
15, an d Louis prayed to G od that Gage w ould fall dow n . . . yes,
fall dow n bloody his nose crack his skull need stitches w h at
ever, because now [Louis] could hear the drone of a truck com
ing tow ard them , one of those big ten-w heelers that w ent back
and forth endlessly betw een Bangor and the Orinco p lan t in
Bucksport, and he h ad scream ed G age's nam e then. . . . (232-33)
This event is effectively horrifying to the degree that one is w illing to grant
that the d eath of an infant u n d er the w heels of a tanker m ay be called horri
fying, but I w an t to look beyond this essentially conceptual assessm ent to con
sider the various degrees or levels of em otional response that differing m odes
of presentation potentiate and realize. I w ant, that is, to attem pt to account
for the pronounced difference betw een levels of tension (and potential
traum a) elicited from the audience by different form al representations of the
event as it is recorded in the novel and on film.
In K ing's novel the overall effect of the event is diluted in that the
reader learns the details indirectly and after the fact: the dram a is staged as a
flashback of L ouis's, follow ing a lengthy expose describing the m ental states
of Louis, Rachel, an d Ellie in response to it. Also preceding the details of the
event are brief descriptions of a fist-fight that erupts in the funeral parlor
beside G age's casket an d a passing reference to Rachel's subsequent break
dow n. Follow ing a m ore in-depth description of the fist-fight betw een Louis
an d his father-in-law , Jud comes to Louis w ith the accusation that the latter is
197
"thinking about things that are not to be thought of" (258). W hen Louis
feigns ignorance of w h at Jud suggests, the latter launches into the horrific tale
of Tim m y Baterm an, a young soldier w ho had been killed in W orld W ar Two
an d w hose father had b uried him in the M icmac burial ground (w ith the re
sults cited above).
After num erous digressions of this sort, chapter 40 opens: "But none of
those things happened. All of them . . . existed only in Louis C reed's m ind
d u rin g the few seconds that passed w hile he raced his laughing son to the
road" (275). The direct an d assertive nature of this statem ent, com ing as it
does from a heretofore trustw orthy narrator, strikes the reader w ith the cog
nitive equivalent of a slap in the face. W e are confronted w ith a dilem m a: ac
cept the statem ent as true (an acceptance invested w ith our ow n desire and
partially justifiable on the basis of the narrative's previous dependability) or
re-exam ine the source of our inform ation. This latter alternative is tem porar
ily discouraged w hen the ap p aren t validity of the chapter's opening declara
tion is reasserted: "But Gage w as n o t killed; all of that h a d only been a hell
ishly detailed m om ent of im agination as Louis outraced his son's death
across a green law n on a sunshiny M ay afternoon" (277). As if sensing the
read er's reservations, the narrative apparently attem pts to assuage them , as
suring us that the w orst has not happened.
But this chapter is, in fact, a dream sequence that concludes w ith
L ouis's w aking and, w hile "sitting on his bed," his being "unm anned" (279) by
198
grief. Both versions of G age's d eath dram a as they occur in the novel--the
first a flashback of the actual event, the second a tem porary disavow al of that
event m anifest as a dream sequence~are m ental recapitulations that create for
the reader a sense of uncertainty and num bing distance; thus, the overall ef
fect of K ing's narrative strategy is paradoxical. O n the one hand, the poten
tial h o rro r the reader m ay experience is attenuated by the distance inherent in
the flashback and the am biguity inherent in the dream narrative. O n the
other hand, distancing an d am biguity strengthen the reader's identification
w ith Louis. Like him , w e see G age's death through various psychic a n d /o r
cognitive "filters" that increase our ow n sense of disorientation even as they
clarify L ouis's state of m ental deterioration. W e thus becom e partakers in a
disconcerting relationship w ith the character that approaches the kind of
discom fort K ing has acknow ledged to have felt over w riting this sequence:
I have alw ays been aw are of the things that I d id n 't w an t to
w rite about. The death of a child is one. . . . A nd I have alw ays
shied aw ay from the entire funeral process— the afterm ath of
death. The funeral parlors, the burial, the grief, and, particu
larly w here you are dealing w ith the death of a healthy child,
the guilt— the feeling th at you are som ehow at fault. . . .
I decided that if I w as going to w rite this book, perhaps it
w ould be good for m e . . . to go through w ith it, to find out
everything, an d to see w hat w ould happen.
But in trying to cope w ith these things, the book ceased being
a novel to m e, and becam e instead a gloom y exercise, like an
endless m arathon run. It never left m y m ind; it never ceased to
trouble me. I w as trying to teach school, and the boy w as al
w ays there, the funeral hom e w as alw ays there, the m ortician's
room w as alw ays there.
A nd w hen I finished, I p u t the book in a draw er. (W inter
147)
199
K ing's am bivalence is not replicated in the film, how ever, w here
G age's death achieves its horrific potency in a different w ay. First, it is
inserted into the filmic narrative as an event in the diegetic here-and-now
rather than analeptically. By locating the scene in the narrative present, the
film creates a sense of im m ediacy and indeterm inacy that heighten suspense.
Director M ary L am bert assum es and then proceeds to exploit her audience's
expectations— its learned ability to anticipate narrative events based on genre
conventions— to intensify the ultim ate shock value of the scene. Second, the
"castrating" tension of the scene is em phasized in its enunciatory style: it is a
virtual carnival of colliding binary oppositions. L am bert pieces together the
visual fragm ents as a rap id m ontage that rushes tow ard a collision/consum
m ation of com plete annihilation. The result is that Louis C reed's castra
tio n / annihilation anxieties are so pronounced both conceptually and form ally
that they spill forth their intensity from the narrative to threaten and em brace
the spectating subject.
The sequence opens by juxtaposing a frenetic industrialism w ith a pas
toral quietude. Tw o low -angle shots of a filled-to-capacity eighteen-w heeler,
an "Orinco" sem itrailer, are answ ered by an extrem e high-angle p a n across
the bucolic landscape (field, trees, lake) of the C reed property, w here a fam ily
picnic is in progress. Both form and content are at odds here. The cam era
tracks the tanker em erging like the tongue of a m onstrous dragon from a
sm oke-engulfed cityscape of industrial pollution w hile the soundtrack sug
200
gests— via the electric strains of the R am ones's "Teena Is a P unk Rocker"— that
it brings its destructive techno-ideology w ith it. The scene then cuts to a
close-up of a soaring kite and an accom panying soundtrack of w in d ruffling
its fragile structure as it sails high above the C reed picnic. C ross-cutting be
tw een the tanker an d G age's flying of the kite foreshadow s the disaster w hile
the very form ulaic presentation of narrative inform ation toys w ith spectatorial
expectations.
A n extrem e high-angle shot centers on Gage toddling screen-right
across w hat appears from the cam era's overhead position to be a "vast" field.
This vastness is a he, how ever, an d the lim ited (read "castrating") peripheral
m arked by the fram e im plicates the apparatus in this lie, im plying a pow er
fully "present" and potentially threatening blind-space beyond the inscribed
boundary of the screen. As if attem pting to absolve itself of suspicion (or
perhaps to regain the com plicity of the spectator), the cam era pans right, out
distancing the child and com ing to rest on w h at w e recognize as his (for
m erly off-screen) destination: the highw ay. Signifying a kind of "lim ited
om niscience"— codified by the cam era's extrem e high angle— this shot threatens
w ith the inexorability of a H ardyesque Im m anent Will a terrifying "conver
gence."1 1 The cam era, now stationary an d centered from its overhead angle
on the highw ay, sees the tanker as it m oves inevitably dow n-fram e directly
tow ards the toddler, w ho has just entered the field of vision (w hat a m om ent
ago had constituted the "potentially" threatening off-screen blind-space).
201
Lam bert's unflinching camera captures the inevitability of this se
quence in graphic and brutal detail. Accelerated-montage editing intensifies
the horror for the audience by forcing the spectator to participate from a m ul
tiplicity of identificatory positions: from Jud's sudden, alarm ed cry and w ild
gesticulations, to Rachel's terrified screams, to Louis's im m ediate pursuit of
his son, and finally to the extreme close-up of the trucker just before he
(along w ith the film's audience) spies the infant in his im m ediate and inevi
table path. Each character registers a different aspect of our ow n response to
the dram a that is unfolding before th eir/o u r very eyes: Rachel's helpless ter
ror, Louis's hopeless action, and the trucker's disbelief at w hat he sees. Like
these characters, however, we rem ain helpless to change the course of events.
But prim ary cinematic identification assures our alignm ent w ith
another gaze here as well: that of the ruthlessly objective camera. This iden
tification is guaranteed w hen Louis turns his back on Gage just before the
overhead pan (m entioned above) begins. Kaja Silverman has described w hat
happens w hen the spectator's gaze is severed from the diegetic surrogate
bearer of that gaze:
. . . O ur relationship w ith the camera rem ains unm ediated,
"unsoftened" by the intervention of a hum an gaze.
Far from attem pting to erase our perception of the cinematic
apparatus, the film exploits it, playing on the view ing subject's
own paranoia and guilt. We enjoy our visual superiority . . .
but at the same time w e understand that the gaze of the cam
era— that gaze in which we participate— exceeds us, threatening
not only [the character] but anyone exposed to the film 's spec
tacle. (208)
202
We can no longer attribute our gaze to the secure, protective gaze of the fa
ther; instead, that gaze is displaced onto the disem bodied and em otionless
look of the cam era. Even if this identification is unstable— p u t into question
by the im possible "kite's eye view" of the m ini-dram a— it is sufficiently en
couraged by other factors. The stationary quality of both gazes (cam era/
spectator), their extradiegetic origin, and their inability to intervene in the
events they register supersede the questionable point of view . The gazes of
cam era an d spectator are m erged.
Lacan w ould argue that the gaze offers here a m eans by w hich the
spectator can appropriate or "possess" the object (the narrative event). In
Lacan's theory of the gaze, the "castrated" subject/spectator restores to itself a
portion of its innate lack by engaging in specular activity. But along w ith
this constructive elem ent of the scopophilic drive, a potentially destructive
elem ent is at work:
The privilege of the subject seem s to be established . . . from
that bipolar reflexive relation by w hich, as soon as I perceive,
m y representations belong to me. . . . This is . . . som ething that
m ay have eluded you in passing, nam ely, this belong to me as
pect of representations. . . . W hen carried to the lim it, the p ro
cess of this m editation . . . goes so far as to reduce the subject
. . . to a pow er of annihilation.
The m ode of m y presence in the w orld is the subject in so far
as by reducing itself solely to this certainty of being a subject, it
becom es active annihilation. (FFC 81, italics in text)
To see, Lacan seem s to say, is to destroy. But destroy w hat? W e cannot
destroy the film, nor can w e destroy by our gaze the im ages im printed on it.
203,
N either do we, as spectators, have any "real" control over the events inscribed
in light and shadow on the cinem atic screen. W hat, then, do w e have the
capacity to "annihilate" by engaging in specular activity?
W e annihilate our ow n fear. In the scene w ith w hich w e are here con
cerned, as w ith any num ber of horror im ages, I believe that seeing destroys
not the object of the gaze b u t the subject's/spectator's fear of castration/annihila
tion itself. Seeing (or "watching") constitutes the spectator as a dom inating
agency (we do have "symbolic" control) rather than as (potential) castratee
(victim of the law). The role of the potentially annihilated (spectator) is thus
reversed, and the subject/spectator becom es the potential agent of destruc
tion. I am not arguing that as spectators, w e desire or rejoice in Gage's death,
but rather that w e do experience a kind of pleasure in the m uch m ore abstract
"death" of our ow n fear over confronting that event.
H ow , then, to reconcile Lacan's argum ent w ith Silverm an's proposal
that this "transcendental" gaze "threatens" the spectator? First, if the spectator
possesses the pow er to "annihilate," then im plicit in that active process is its
passive alternative— the danger of being annihilated. It is not the gaze itself
(the "object") that threatens b u t the scopophilic event w ithin w hich the
presence of the gaze im plies by its presence the potential for its absence. The
potential rejection of the gaze is w h at threatens the spectator. The scopophilic
operation bears in its very structure the possibility (the "threat") of castration/
204
I
annihilation just as the "presence" im plied by the phallus im plies equally the |
possibility of "absence."
Thus, w hen the narrative transaction involves a visual m ed iu m such as
cinem a, the gaze becom es a particularly potent m eans by w hich the spectat
ing subject m ay achieve a specific end: the confrontation (and overcom ing) of
castration/annihilation anxiety evoked by the narrative. As spectators, our
only defense against (sym bolic a n d /o r psychological) castration is a kind of
passive-offense~to accept the full blow of events in all their horror, retaining
our spectatorial "wholeness" by refusing to su rren d er our gaze. The horror
film intensifies ipso facto the anxiety inherent in this passive-offense, ex
ploiting the (often stronger) tem ptation for the spectator to choose castration
at the h ands of the visual--turning aw ay, covering the face, closing the eyes,
etc.--com m itting thereby an act of sym bolic self-em asculation via the castrat
ing of o u r ow n gaze. But this increased anxiety is accom panied by an
equally increased potential for relief. This is w hy w h en leaving the theater
after a horror film , one spectator feels exhilarated w hile another feels psy
chologically traum atized and em otionally exhausted. O ne has engaged ac
tively in annihilation (having w ithstood the narrative's v isu al/p sy ch o lo g ical/
em otional onslaught), the other passively in castration.
W hereas King distances his readers at this crucial m om ent of the nar-
i
rative, Lam bert draw s her audience directly into the m aelstrom . By partici
pating in this w ay, the audience shares both L ouis's horror and his potential
205
for surviving and rising above that horror. T hus, w hat film critic Philip
Strick has called L am bert's "cruel precision" (998) m ight just as well be re
construed as L am bert's saving grace. G ranted, it is cruel precisely because it
forces the spectator into the sam e psychological position that the narrative
has forced the father: w e m ust subm it to the c am era's/n arrativ e's threat of
castration or attem pt to w ithstand the tem ptation to subm it, confronting
"head-on" the severity of those events. The "precision" of this sequence is re
flected in L am bert's technical proficiency as her "brutal" objectivity threatens,
intim idates, even terrorizes the spectator as it sim ultaneously m ocks the frag
ile nature of the narrative father's ow n professed (but im potent) professional
objectivity.
G age's death adm inisters the final blow to that professional objectivity
as Louis C reed realizes that although "he h ad done his best to explain the
facts of death to Ellie . . . [these w ere] facts he h ad found ultim ately unac
ceptable to himself" (373). A fter G age's burial, Louis exhum es the body of
his dead son, takes the corpse to the Indian burial ground, and reinters it.
The dom estic apocalypse that follow s is im m ediate an d complete. Gage is re
anim ated, "not L ouis's son retu rn ed from the grave b u t som e hideous m on
ster" (380). H is first confrontation is w ith Jud C randall:
Gage C reed cam e in, dressed in his burial suit. M oss w as
grow ing on the suit's shoulders an d lapels. M oss h ad fouled his
w hite shirt. H is fine blond hair w as caked w ith dirt. O ne eye
h ad gone to the wall; it stared off into space, w ith terrible
concentration. The other w as fixed on Jud.
206
Gage w as grinning at him . (381)
In Pet Sematary's m ost overtly oedipal sequence, this reanim ated "Gage-thing"
kills the patriarchal Jud C randall and then Rachel C reed (both w ith Louis's
scalpel). It then accom plishes through literal oral incorporation the "dom i
n an t aim" (Klein, LGR 219) of oral-sadistic fantasy by cannibalizing Rachel be
fore Louis finds and successfully dispatches it.1 2 But the sight of G age resur
rected— "his m outh sm eared w ith blood, his chin dripping, his lips pulled
back in a hellish grin" (401)~catapults Louis C reed into the insanity that has
stalked him from the m om ent of his son's death.
Incapable of reasoning, engulfed by m adness and grief, Louis burns
the house (along w ith the bodies of Jud and tw ice-dead Gage) to the ground,
b u t not before he carefully w raps R achel's body in a bed sheet and m akes
one last trip to the Indian burial ground. The novel concludes:
[Louis] played solitaire that night until long after m idnight.
He w as just dealing a fresh h an d w hen he heard the back
door open.
What you buy is what you own, and sooner or later what you own
will come back to you, Louis C reed thought.
H e did n o t turn around b u t only looked at his cards as the
slow, gritting footsteps approached. H e saw the queen of
spades. H e p u t his h an d on it.
The steps ended directly behind him .
Silence.
A cold h an d fell on L ouis's shoulder. Rachel's voice w as
grating, full of dirt.
''Darling," it said. (411, italics in text)
This tim e w e find m ore pow er on the page than on the screen prim arily be
cause in K ing's novel the m onstrous Rachel m aintains a threatening am bigu
207
ity. The reader is forced to share L ouis's blindness, for although the charac
ter chooses "not [to] tu rn around," the reader is bound by that choice. Rachel
rem ains figuratively dism em bered, reduced to a "cold hand," "gritting foot
steps," and a "voice . . . grating, full of dirt." T hus, although King eschew s
indulgence in his usual aesthetics of revulsion, opting instead for im plication
and restraint, the reader rem ains acutely aw are of the threat em bodied b y off
screen (or "off-page") space. Even in its appropriation of a rather w ell w orn
"cinematic" cliche— ". . . he heard the back door open . . . The steps en d ed di
rectly behind him . . . A cold h an d fell on [his] shoulder"— the scene achieves
pow er not so m uch by invoking the unseen as the unseeable, those terrors that
have seized and inhabited L ouis's m ind. The result is a potent terror gro u n d
ed in the inability to see precisely.
D ealing w ith such scotom a is a decidedly m ore difficult endeavor for
the film m aker. G ranted, Lam bert m ight have left the resurrected Rachel
C reed to the spectator's im agination, but, as I have already proposed, re
straint is not characteristic of L am bert's style nor of the genre w ithin w hich
she is w orking. She attem pts rather to translate the novel's abstractions into
icons. Thus, Rachel's "cold hand" becom es Rachel's extrem ely m u d d y hand,
"gritting footsteps" a syncopated clocking of one high-heel and one barefoot,
the novel-Rachel's voice of "dirt" a seductive w hisper. Finally, terror of the
unseen becom es terror at the unseeing as Louis, far from choosing not to turn
aro u n d , w atches w ith exuberant expectation as his u n d ead wife crosses the
208
floor. C haracter and audience are not bou n d by the blindness they share in
the novel; indeed, w e are denied any such possibility as w e witness, via the
cam era's strategic placem ent behind Rachel, an insane joy on Louis's face.
From an over-the-shoulder shot Lam bert cuts to the reverse field, and w e are
once again su tu red into the text by w ay of L ouis's gaze just as Rachel's gro
tesquely oozing eye vom its a yellow p u s (com plete w ith bubbling so u n d
track) dow n her left cheek. She grabs a kitchen knife and decapitates Louis,
her act of "castration” itself cut off by the final fade-to-black that, in its am bi
guous darkness, evokes the sym bolic blackness of death that has preoccupied
the narrative.
Both novel and film indicate that although the narrative discourse is
over, the events of the story are not. U nlike the m ajority of K ing's w orks, in
w hich narrative closure im plies and coincides w ith the end of story, PET
SE M A T A R Y suggests by w ay of anticlosure that the horror is not over. Form
thus com plem ents them e as both dem onstrate aesthetically w hat they have
im plied throughout ideologically: the destructive n atu re of unresolved ten
sions stem m ing from rem ote traum a(s). Jud C randall's argum ent that "some
times dead is better" is verified first in the resurrected Gage and then in the
survival of the castrating fem ale, the m onstrous m other that validates the
anxieties and accom plishes the m utilation that Louis C reed has both dreaded
an d m ade possible. The narrative's aesthetic (formal) an d ideological (ethical)
rhetorics ultim ately m erge in the suggestion that the father brings about the
209
destruction of him self and his fam ily because of his inability to accept that,
indeed, som etim es dead is better. C oncern w ith residual tensions extends be
yond sem antic (or them atic) content, how ever, in the lack of reso lu tio n /clo
sure that defines the narrative's overall form . The structured presentation of
events is finally unable to contain those events them selves, the narrative
thereby proclaim ing its ow n inability "wholly to control or m aster" (Jameson)
that w hich it has itself conceived. The b u rden of (psychological) control and
m astery is displaced onto the read er/sp ectato r, w ho m u st construct som e
form of acceptable closure— a form idable task for any w ho have experienced
the death of a loved one.
N O TES
1. In L am bert's film, after Jud's death, his voice-over rem inds Louis
(and us) that this is true as the cam era tracks a distraught Louis carrying
Rachel's body to the M icmac burial ground.
2. The m otif of a child being alone w ith a dying, and "m onstrous,"
loved one recurs throughout King. See, for exam ple, "Gramm a" (SC 464-94),
K ing's fictionalization of an actual event that took place in his childhood.
(See D ouglas W inter 18, 218-19). The m etam orphosing of a bed-ridden indi
v id u al into a kind of m onster occurs also in The Talisman and Dolores
Claiborne.
3. See The Interpretation of Dreams (1900):
. . . a child's idea of being "dead" has nothing m uch in com m on
w ith ours apart from the w ord. C hildren know nothing of the
horrors of corruption, of freezing in the ice-cold grave, of the
terrors of eternal nothingness— ideas w hich grow n-up people
find it so hard to tolerate, as is proved by all the m yths of a
future life. The fear of death has no m eaning to a child. . . .
(SE 4: 254)
H einz K ohut m akes a sim ilar observation in "Forms an d T ransform ations of
N arcissism " (1966). H e argues there that the recognition and acceptance of
210
one's ow n m ortality m ay be the "greatest psychological achievem ent" (118)
that takes place "late in life" (119) an d involves "a shift of the narcissistic
cathexes, from the self to a concept of participation in a supraindividual and
tim eless existence" (119). O ne assum es th at not m any five-year-olds have
reached this point of philosophic m aturity.
4. In chapter ten of The Dynamics of Literary Response (262-80), H olland
offers a provocative discussion concerning character identification. H e states
the problem w ith w hich I am dealing here as one that differentiates old (the
m ajority of nineteenth-century) an d new (tw entieth-century) criticism: "The
old critics say we m ust think of dram atic characters as real people; the new
critics say w e m ust not" (266). A lengthy interrogation of Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet, leads H olland to conclude that "there is no critical dilem m a
about the characters' being real" (280). This is because, says H olland,
. . . our so-called "identification" w ith a literary character is
actually a com plicated m ixture of projection and introjection, of
taking in from the character certain drives and defenses that are
really objectively "out there" and of putting into him [sic] feel
ings that are really our ow n, "in here." A nd . . . w e do not just
incorporate a character's drives and defenses~w e incorporate
the w hole character, clothes, features, m anners, physique, and
the rest. . . . O ur "identification" w ith literary characters, then,
continues and specializes o u r oral introjection of the entire w ork
in the "as i f or "willing suspension of disbelief."
The earliest psychoanalytic statem ents on art said w e satisfy
our drives vicariously through dram atic and literary characters.
W hat I am now suggesting is that w e satisfy those drives only
in the econom y or subsystem created by the w ork as a whole.
(278, em phasis added)
If, then, we accept F reud's contention that in the extradiegetic w orld every
one m ust pass through the oedipal dram a in the quest for subjectivity, it
seem s logical to attem pt an u n d erstan d in g of Louis C reed in this context.
5. F reud's principle (or "law") of constancy is articulated in a letter
(dated 1 January 1896) to W ilhelm Fliess: "There is a norm al trend tow ards
defence— that is, an aversion to directing psychical energy in such a w ay that
unpleasure results. This trend . . . is linked to the m ost fundam ental condi
tions of the psychical m echanism (the law of constancy)" (Extracts from the
Fliess Papers 221). Laplanche and Pontalis elaborate further: "The thesis is that
[the psychical] apparatus endeavours to keep all excitations in itself at a con
stant level. This it succeeds in doing, as far as external stim uli are concerned,
by setting avoidance m echanism s [such as repression] in m otion" (341). O ne
detects in F reud's letter, early rum blings of w h at will em erge in Beyond the
211
Pleasure Principle (1920) as the theory of the death instinct, in which Freud
contends that all living organisms strive for a state of zero-tension, a state
that can be realized perfectly only in completing the transform ation from or
ganic substance to inorganic substance. (SE 18: 3-64)
6. At one point Louis confides to Ellie that "'One of the reasons I
w anted the job at the university was because I got sick of looking at [suffer
ing] day in and day out'" (216).
7. A lthough Freud did not differentiate betw een castration fear and a
fear of death, he did acknowledge, and theorize, the emergence of a distinc
tion betw een fear of death and fear of annihilation. In "Thoughts for the
Times on W ar and Death" (1915), he attributes to "primaeval man" the notion
of "death" as the destruction of the physical body and "annihilation" as the de
struction of the soul or spirit as well. H e then goes on to argue th a t ". . . our
unconscious is just as inaccessible to the idea of our ow n death, just as m ur
derously inclined tow ards strangers, just as divided (that is, ambivalent) to
wards those we love, as w as prim aeval man" (SE 14: 299).
8. Freud was well aware of the "symbolic" equivalences m any of his
peers associated with the notion of castration, but he insisted "that the term
'castration complex' ought to be confined to those excitations and conse
quences which are bound up w ith the loss of the penis" (Analysis of a Phobia in
a Five-Year-Old Boy 8n2, italics in text). H e did, however, propose a theory of
the female castration complex in "Female Sexuality" (1931), arguing that
castration anxiety inaugurates the O edipus complex for the female whereas it
terminates that complex for the male (SE 21: 229-232). He also argued that
for the female, the O edipus complex "escapes the strongly hostile influences
which, in the male, have a destructive effect on it" and that the "consequences
of its break-up are smaller and of less importance in her" (230). Klein takes
issue, however, arguing in "Infantile Anxiety-Situations" (1929) that a sense of
"something lacking" contributes to "the m ost profound anxiety experienced
by girls":
It is the equivalent of castration-anxiety in boys. The little girl
has a sadistic desire, originating in the early stages of the O edi
pus conflict, to rob the m other's body of its contents, namely,
the father's penis, faeces, children, and to destroy the m other
herself. This desire gives rise to anxiety lest the m other should
in her turn rob the little girl herself of the contents of her body
(especially of children) and lest her body should be destroyed or
m utilated. (LGR 217, em phasis added)
It follows that Klein considers the female subject equally susceptible to the
"strongly hostile influences" of castration anxiety that Freud attributed to
males only.
212
9. F reud argues in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921)
that identification, "as the earliest expression of an em otional tie w ith another
person" (SE 18: 105), is inherently regressive for the adult. O f the two
dom inant processes inform ing the O edipus complex— identification an d object
cathexis— identification occurs first. "It often happens," w rites Freud, that
"w here there is repression an d w here the m echanism s of the unconscious are
dom inant, object choice is turned back into identification" (SE 18: 107).
10. Freud differentiates betw een narcissistic identification and hysteri
cal identification in "M ourning and Melancholia": "The difference . . . m ay be
seen in this: that, w hereas in the form er the object-cathexis is abandoned, in
the latter it persists and m anifests its influence" (SE 14: 250). O ne could
argue that Louis C reed's hysterical identification and eventual psychosis stem
from his forbidden know ledge— that the M icmac burial gro u n d has the pow er
to revive the dead. If Louis h ad never possessed this know ledge, w e can
assum e that his m ourning for Gage w ould have played itself out in a m uch
m ore norm al fashion. Jud, how ever, destroys any such possibility w hen he
takes Louis to the burial ground to inter Ellie's dead cat.
11. In her discussion of PSYCHO, Silverm an refers to this kind of shot
as signifying a "transcendental gaze" (208). It "exceeds" the possible gaze(s)
of any one of the characters an d allow s the spectator to assess the narrative
situation "better" (or m ore com pletely) than any of the individuals inhabiting
it.
H ard y 's "The C onvergence of the Twain" provides an alm ost uncanny
literary exam ple of just such a transcendental gaze:
A lien they seem ed to be:
N o m ortal eye could see
The intim ate w elding of their later history,
O r sign that they w ere bent
By paths coincident
O n being anon tw in halves of one august event,
Till the Spinner of the Years
Said "Now!" A nd each one hears,
A nd consum m ation comes. . . .
L am bert m anages to capture the sam e irony inherent in the d ram a depicted
by H ard y 's poem w hile m aintaining a greater degree of am biguity. From the
opening scene of the film, a kind of Im m anent W ill is suggested an d then im
m ediately disavow ed w hen a bestial and m alevolent roar, apparently origi
nating beyond the Pet Sem atary, bleeds over the visual cut, m anifesting itself
213
as the roar of an O rinco tanker passing the C reed hom e. The m ediatory
function of this sound-bridge forces the spectator to entertain the possibility
of auditory hallucination. (It also suggests a self-conscious tribute to Val
L ew ton/Jacques T ourneur's CAT PEOPLE [1942], in w hich a sim ilar am bigu
ity exploits spectatorial expectations w hen a prim al roar w e anticipate as sig
naling the off-screen presence of the cat-w om an is revealed as the approach
of a city bus.)
12. O edipal tendencies, according to Klein, are com prised of both oral
and sadistic im pulses:
In m y experience sadism reaches its height in this phase [the
early stages of the O edipus conflict], w hich is ushered in by the
oral-sadistic desire to devour the m other's breast (or the m other
herself) and passes aw ay w ith the earlier anal stage. A t the p e
riod of w hich I am speaking, the subject's dom inant aim is to
possess him self [sic] of the contents of the m other's body an d to
destroy her by m eans of every w eapon w hich sadism can com
m and. A t the sam e tim e this phase form s the introduction to
the O edipus conflict. (LGR 219)
O ral incorporation is one m eans by w hich the subject tries to realize its
oedipal desire to possess the m other. Like so m any of the horrendous events
that take place in PET SE M A T A R Y this instance of oral sadism is foreshad
ow ed early:
. . . Gage w as cutting teeth and fussed alm ost ceaselessly. H e
w ould not sleep, no m atter h o w m uch Rachel sang to him . She
offered him the breast even though it w as off his schedule . . .
an d he prom ptly bit her w ith his new teeth. (15)
214
C O N C L U S I O N (S )
I began this study by proposing that Stephen King7 s view of horror
an d Fredric Jam eson's notions concerning the social and ideological functions
of narrative are quite com patible. A dm ittedly, cultural theorist an d popular
novelist focus their attentions on very different kinds of narratives, Jam eson
attending to a caliber of universally revered w riters exem plified by such
nam es as C onrad and Joyce, King offering unabashed allegiance to E. C.
Com ics and Spider-M an.1 But the very dissim ilarity of texts w ith w hich
Jam eson and King align them selves attests to the validity of their sim ilar
argum ents. Looking beyond stated differences of stylistic, aesthetic, and even
form al preference, I have tried to dem onstrate that both see narrative not
only as meaning b u t as doing.
For King, fiction provides a "w indow . . . on the question of how we
perceive things an d the corollary question of how w e do or do not behave on
the basis of our perceptions" (FPM 584). For Jam eson, the fictional narrative
is not so m uch a m etaphorical w indow as it is a potentially distorting lens. It
functions, he insists tim e and again, to "console the im agination torm ented by
unresolvable contradictions" (179) or to im pose "ideological lim its or stra
215
tegies of containm ent" (53) on the very ideas to w hich it gives rise. In the
paradoxical act of unleashing an d restraining, narrative perform s a pow erful
act of ideological m anipulation. Yet Jam eson's crucial point is that this m a
nipulation is not so m uch intentional in som e insidious w ay as it is inevitable.
W illiam D ow ling has rightly observed that Jam eson does not "make the con
ventional claim that w e m ake u p stories about the w orld to u n derstand it, but
the m uch m ore radical claim that the world comes to us in the shape of stories"
(95-96, em phasis added).2
As one of the m ost resilient and culturally attuned "popular" genres,
horror brings to its audience a w orld that acknow ledges an d attem pts to deal
w ith fears rooted in unsettling, an d at tim es m assive, social change. I have
attem pted to explore one of the w ays it does so by isolating a particularly
"domestic" strain of contem porary horror, designating it a m ode or subgenre
that takes as its setting the contem porary hom e an d that foregrounds as its
principal dram atic concern the survival of the fam ily unit; thus, the w orld
that comes to us by w ay of the dom estic horror narrative is a w orld attem pt
ing to negotiate its ow n uncertainty about the changing nature of the fam ily
and the broader cultural im plications of such change.
As I have attem pted to show , dom estic anxieties are not a new them e
in the horror genre; indeed, from its earliest m om ents of gothic infancy,
m odern horror has probed the intim acies of the family. W illiam Patrick Day
argues, for exam ple, that m any of the tensions I have associated w ith the con
216
I
tem porary dom estic horror narrative w ere just as potent tw o h u n d red years
ago as they are today. This is because, says Day, "the various 'fam ily7 stories
w e find in the G othic fantasy em body the links betw een the problem s of per
sonal identity an d fam ily relationships on the one hand, and, on the other,
the transform ation of culture and society, the m ovem ent of history" (96). Yet
unlike the w orlds that cam e to an increasingly industrialized w est by w ay of
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gothic fiction, the w orld of late-tw entieth-
century dom estic horror comes to its audience in the paradoxical m oving and
im m utable visual signifiers of the cinem a as well. As various studies cited
earlier in this project attest, horror film s of the last tw o decades have
dem onstrated a notable preoccupation w ith dom estic m atters. James
Twitchell has even gone so far as to claim that "It is h a rd to see alm ost any
carefully m ade horror film since the 1960s and not be aw are that the m odern
fam ily is its im plied or stated center" (DP 321n4, em phasis added).
W es C raven, a prolific creator w ithin this m ore recent narrative m e
dium , points to one of the m ore tim eless aspects of dom estic horror, prefer
ring, he says, to center his horror film s a ro u n d the fam ily because
The fam ily is the best m icrocosm to w ork with. If you go m uch
beyond that y ou're getting aw ay from a lot of the roots of our
ow n prim eval feelings. . . . [M]ost of the basic stories and the
basic feelings involve very few people: M om m y, D addy, m e, sib
lings, and the people in the other room . I like to stay w ithin
that circle. It's very m uch w here m ost of our strong em otions
or g u t feelings come from. It's from those very early experi
ences and h o w they are w orked out. (W ood, "Neglected N ight
m ares" 28)
217
Freud w o u ld have approved of C raven's em phasis on "primeval," "basic,” and
"gut" feelings as well as the im portance the latter attributes to "strong
em otions" and the w orking out of "early experiences." These com prise the
very substance of the unconscious, an d from our ow n earliest m om ents of
existence, w e are forced as individuals to deal w ith such elem ents through a
process of socialization that begins w ithin the intim ate confines of fam ily;
thus, w hen one considers the influential role of fam ily in the form ation of
individual subjectivity— and, thereby, in the form ation of a cultural (or "politi
cal") unconscious— the radical and pervasive changes inform ing the dom estic
sphere over the last half of the tw entieth century take on a m ajor significance
com parable to those of late-eighteenth century England at the birth of the
gothic novel.
The them es or "argum ents" em bedded in the dom estic horror narrative
seem to turn m ost frequently on w hat m ay be thought of as "vertical" a n d /o r
"horizontal" conflict; that is, fam ilial breakdow n is depicted by exploiting the
conventions of generational conflict (which m ight be seen as a vertical break
dow n betw een parents [or p aren t surrogates] and their children) or by oppos
ing genders (which m ay be seen as the com plem entary horizontal breakdow n
betw een m ale and fem ale subjects). The degree to w hich any given narrative
explores either or both dim ensions of the dom estic situation suggests w here
that narrative's prim ary ideological tensions lie. In pitting child against
adult, the narrative is able to foreground the kinds of tim eless generational
218
hostilities Freud recognized as fundam ental to the oedipal dram a. In pitting
one gender against another the narrative addresses issues crucial to an in
creasingly pervasive questioning of phallocentrism .
A lthough threats to the fam ily are m ultifaceted and tenacious, one of
the m ost potent— largely because it is one of the m ost proxim ate, one of the
m ost unexpected, and, w ithin the p u rv iew of a fairly cohesive socioethics,
one of the m ost reprehensible~is the paternal authority figure. Thus, the con
cept of the m onster-fath er/h u sb an d is as durable as any notions of fam ily
a n d /o r dom estic security. In depicting the father (sym bolic as well as bio
logical) as agent of dom estic destruction, the contem porary dom estic horror
narrative taps into one of the m ost culturally pervasive anxieties of the post-
1960s A m erican political unconscious, w here fathers have been both per
petrators and victim s of violence traceable to changes in the character and
organization of the family.
From Carrie to Dolores Claiborne, the horror that intrudes m ost fre
quently on Stephen K ing's w orld is that entity or event that threatens to
destroy the family. As a recurring factor in this destruction, the fath e r/
husban d serves either as a dom inating presence and thus as an active threat
or as an absence— physical, psychological, em otional, spiritual— w hose absence
provides the structural gap that allow s the designated threat access to the
fam ily. This paternal anxiety consistently survives the array of changes that
inevitably take place in the process of adapting K ing's fictions to alternative
219
media. We have seen how psychological a n d /o r em otional w ithdraw al on
the part of the father creates in THE SHINING and in PET SEM ATARY a
fragm entation that isolates virtually every m em ber of the Torrance and Creed
families. Jack Torrance's psychological decline creates a chasm betw een him
self and his son that is finally too great to bridge, and Louis C reed's futile
devotion to his lost son destroys any hopes he m ay have of salvaging his re
lationship with his wife and daughter. Similar anxieties could be traced to
w hat m ay be called "the comm unal father" in narratives that explore a
broader and m ore loosely defined domestic terrain, narratives such as
SALEM'S LOT and NEEDFUL THINGS, where dark fathers K urt Barlow (a
vampire) and Leland G aunt (a supernatural demon) bring apocalyptic de
struction to the respective comm unities of Jerusalem's Lot and Castle Rock,
Maine.
Yet of equal importance to the consideration of w hat survives the pro
cess of adaptation is a consideration of the inevitable reconceptualization that
takes place during translation from one m edium to another. Like genre,
adaptation "reinvents," appropriating and discarding according to its needs,
resulting often in a final product that bears only distant resemblance to its
source. One m ight accept, for example, that paternal anxiety plays a prom i
nent role in both versions of THE SHINING and still argue, as has Michael
Collings, that Kubrick's and Johnson's film can only be appropriately as
sessed by "divorcing] it from connections w ith Stephen K ing~not because
220
Kubrick failed to do justice to K ing's narrative, b u t sim ply because it has
ceased to be King's" (Spignesi 568, em phasis in text). Indeed, w e have seen
how Kubrick an d Johnson reshape K ing's novel in such a w ay as to retain its
dom estic optim ism w hile shifting the focus of that optim ism from a funda
m entally residual vision to a m uch m ore em ergent one. Paternal anxiety is
still very m uch in evidence, b u t it is confronted and resolved in a very differ
ent w ay. O n the other hand, w e have seen how M ary Lam bert creates a vi
sual-aural narrative that in its ideological content m uch m ore closely ap
proxim ates that of the novel that inspired it. If, how ever, Lam bert's PET
SEMATARY offers at a them atic level little m ore than an ideological echo of
K ing's original, it acquires significance here in its necessary em ploym ent of
very different techniques of enunciation to achieve its sim ilar stance. By
exam ining these different form al strategies, w e discover some of the virtually
infinite w ays that sim ilar ideologies can be com m unicated through different
narrative m edia.
Perhaps, then, on the basis of these and other texts exam ined through
out this project, it should not surprise us that King, in his characteristically
chatty style, verbalizes w hat is essentially Jam eson's ow n m ore form ally
stated argum ent. A lthough he does not em ploy Jam eson's term inology, King
clearly recognizes the m otivational force of a political unconscious in the
horror narrative:
221
Begin by assum ing that the tale of horror, no m atter how
prim itive, is allegorical by its very nature; that it is symbolic.
A ssum e that it is talking to us, like a patient on a psychoanal
yst's couch, about one thing w hile it m eans another. I am not
saying that horror is consciously allegorical or symbolic; that is to
suggest an artfulness that few w riters of horror fiction or direc
tors of horror films aspire to. . . .
. . . H orror appeals to us because it says, in a sym bolic way,
things w e w ould be afraid to say right out straight . . .; it offers
us a chance to exercise . . . em otions w hich society dem ands w e ,
keep closely in hand. (DM 31, em phasis in text)3
In this com m ent w e can see m ost clearly w hat I have arg u ed throughout this .
dissertation: that one im portant reason for K ing's sustained com m ercial suc
cess is his ability to effectively appropriate the conventions of the horror
genre to say w hat his audience senses b u t is either unable or "afraid to say
right out straight." By m oving w ith equal ease betw een the w orlds of fantasy
an d reality— two fundam ental horizons of expectation associated w ith the hor
ror genre— K ing's fictions consistently im ply, even as they disavow , a safe dis
tance that separates the w orld of the fiction (w here fantasy intrudes) from
that of the reader (w here it does not). Sim ultaneously how ever, by locating
his supernatural horrors in the sacred arena of hearth and hom e, King
undercuts this com forting assurance, creating an im m ediacy that intensifies
our experience as participants in the narrative transaction.
W orks such as THE SHINING (K ing/K ubrick), THE DARK HALF
(K ing/R om ero), "SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK" (K ing/M cLoughlin), and
IT (K ing/W allace) attain their greatest ideological significance in their insis
tence that, in spite of the horrors they depict, the fam ily has the pow er to
trium ph, that survival in the face of apparently insurm ountable o dds is never
outside the realm of possibility. D arker narratives~PET SE M A TA R Y (K ing/
Lam bert), Thinner, "THE BOOGEYMAN” (K ing/Schiro), "The M ist,” The Run
ning M an, "The Sun Dog"--urge a different kind of ideological argum ent, one
that offsets any naive optim ism one m ay be tem pted to attribute to King on
the basis of his m ore reassuring w orks. A nd w hen King is at his best, even
those narratives that strive tow ards a depiction of the "perfect" fam ily as an
essential elem ent of closure acknow ledge dark potentialities. Thus, in "W ord
Processor of the Gods," a likeable Richard H agstrom em erges as father of a
picture-perfect nuclear fam ily, b u t only after he has "deleted" his less-than-
satisfactory real fam ily to m ake w ay for a m ore desirable one. H ere, as is
often the case in King, the fantasy narrative raises very real questions
regarding the price one is (or should be) w illing to pay in the p u rsu it of
dom estic bliss.
The best of K ing's dom estic horror fictions and their adaptations en
courage audiences to recognize solutions to unresolvable issues for w hat
those solutions are: imaginary. H ighly self-conscious, these narratives
effectively call attention to the ideological m echanism s at w ork in their es
sential form , inviting us, in the best postm odern tradition, to exam ine those
m echanism s, to step outside the prison house of ideology for a m om ent and
"m editate" on the fundam ental assum ptions encoded in the text. In doing so,
they afford us an opportunity to see ourselves seeing ourselves, as Lacan put
1
223
it, to discern fundam ental "truth[s] about ourselves" encoded in the narra
tives' "lies about people w ho never existed." Such vision is seldom as clear as
■ the novel implies or as sharply focused as the cinematic screen w ould have
us believe. Still, the "world" that comes to us through the fictions of Stephen
King and through the films adapted from those fictions is in m any ways our
world, a world at once familiar and alien, a w orld threatened by both the im
possible and the imminent. The prospect of negotiating these apparent con
tradictories and the potential results of doing so create m uch of the resonance
of King's work. Such negotiation admits, indeed thrives on, uncertainty,
finding its greatest prom ise in the popular appeal of the artifact that inspires
it, its greatest liability in the dismissive perception of that artifact as "empty"
entertainment.
NOTES
1. See Danse Macabre (35-36, 346n). King's own penchant for overstate
m ent and criticism of the critical m achinery of academic investigation cast an
inevitable suspicion on the validity of his claims here. Gregory Waller has
observed, rightly I think, that "Danse Macabre is itself a horror story of sorts,
with King as the protagonist always peering over his shoulder in fear of (and
in fear of being m istaken for) academic literary critics, who come to em body
analytical thinking and all the other w orst qualities of adulthood" (The Living
and the Undead 268nl4).
2. Dowling observes that for Jameson,
narrative m ay be taken not as a feature of our experience but as
one of the abstract or "empty" coordinates w ithin which we
come to know the world, a contentless form that our perception
imposes on the raw flux of reality, giving it, even as we per
ceive, the comprehensible order we call experience. This is not
to make the conventional claim that we m ake u p stories about
the w orld to understand it, but the m uch m ore radical claim
224
that the w orld comes to us in the shape of stories. . . . Jam eson's
argum ent in The Political Unconscious depends in a num ber of
w ays on the claim that narrative is really an epistem ological
category traditionally mistaken for a literary form. (95-96,
em phasis added)
3. K ing's com m entary recalls an argum ent (m entioned earlier in this
study) posed by Robin W ood, w ho points to the very banality of popular "en
tertainm ent" as its m ost pow erful ideological characteristic. (See above, pp.
29-30.)
A pp e n d ix a
King's Published W orks and Adaptations
PUBLISHED NOVELS FILM ADAPTATIONS
(1974-1993) (1976-1993)
(* indicates m ade-for-tv)
1) Carrie (1974)
2) 'Salem's Lot (1975)
3) The Shining (1977)
4) Rage (Bachm an 1977)
5) The Stand (1978)
6) The Dead Zone (1979)
7) The Long Walk (Bachman 1979)
8) Firestarter (1980)
9) Cujo (1981)
10) Roadwork (Bachm an 1981)
11) The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
(1982)
12) The Running Man (Bachman 1982)
13) Christine (1983)
14) Cycle of the Werewolf (1983)
15) Pet Sematary (1983)
16) The Eyes of the Dragon (1983)
17) The Talisman (w ith Peter Straub,
1984)
18) Thinner (Bachman 1984)
19) It (1986)
20) The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of
the Three (1987)
CARRIE (De Palm a 1976)
* 'SALEM 'S LOT (H ooper 1979)
THE SH INING (Kubrick 1980)
THE DEAD ZONE (Cronenberg
1983)
FIRESTARTER (M ark Lester 1984)
CUJO (Lewis Teague 1983)
THE RU N N IN G M A N (Paul
M ichael G laser 1987)
CHRISTINE (C arpenter 1983)
SILVER BULLET (Daniel A ttias
1985)
PET SEMATARY (M ary Lam bert
1989)
* STEPHEN KING'S "IT" (Tomm y Lee
W allace, ABC: N ov. 18 & 20, 1990)
21) Misery (1987)
22) The Tommyknockers (1987)
23) The Dark Half (1989)
24) The Stand: The Complete and Uncut
Edition (1990)
25) Needful Things (1991)
26) The Dark Tower III: The Waste
Lands (1991)
27) Gerald's Game (1992)
28) Dolores Claiborne (1993)
COLLECTIONS
1) Night Shift (1978)
"Jerusalem 's Lot"
"G raveyard Shift"
"N ight Surf"
"I A m the Doorway"
"The M angier"
"The Boogeyman"
"Gray M atter"
"Battleground"
"Trucks"
"Sometimes They Com e Back"
"The Ledge"
"Strawberry Spring"
"The L aw nm ow er Man"
"Quitters, Inc."
"I K now W hat You N eed"
"Children of the Corn"
226
MISERY (Reiner 1990)
* THE TOMMYKNOCKERS
(Pow er, ABC: M ay 9-10, 1993)
THE DARK HALF (Romero 1993)
NEEDFUL THINGS (Fraser C. H es
ton 1993)
STEPHEN KING'S "GRAVEYARD
SHIFT" (Ralph Singleton 1990)
THE BOOGEYMAN (Jeffrey C.
Schiro 1983)
MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (Stephen
King 1986)
* SOMETIMES THEY COM E BACK
(Tom M cLoughlin, CBS: M ay 7,
1991)
CAT'S EYE (Teague 1985)
THE LAW NM OW ER M A N (Jim
Gonis 1987)
CAT'S EYE (Teague 1985)
CHILDREN OF THE CORN (Fritz
Kiersch 1984),
DISCIPLES OF THE CROW (John
W oodw ard 1989)
227
"The Last R ung on the Ladder" THE LAST RUNG O N THE LAD
DER (James Cole and D an Thron
1987)
"The M an W ho Loved Flowers"
"One for the Road"
"The W om an in the Room" THE W OM A N IN THE ROOM
(Frank D arabont 1983)
2) Different Seasons (1982)
"Rita H ayw orth and Shaw-
shank R edem ption"
"Apt Pupil"
"The Body" STAND BY ME (Reiner 1986)
"The Breathing M ethod"
3) Creepshaw (1982) CREEPSHOW (Rom ero 1982)
"Father's Day"
"The Lonesom e D eath of Jordy
Verrill"
"The Crate"
"Som ething to Tide You Over"
"They're C reeping U p O n You"
4) Skeleton Crew (1985)
"The Mist"
"Here There Be Tygers"
"The M onkey"
"Cain Rose Up"
"Mrs. T odd's Shortcut"
"The Jaunt"
"The W edding Gig"
"Paranoid: A Chant"
"The Raft" CREEPSHOW 2 (Michael Gornick
1987)
"W ord Processor of the Gods" * THE W ORD PROCESSOR OF THE
GODS (Gornick 1985)
"The M an W ho W ould N ot
Shake H ands"
"Beachworld"
"The R eaper's Image"
"Nona"
"For Owen"
"Survivor Type"
"Uncle O tto's Truck"
"M orning Deliveries (M ilkm an
# 1)"
"Big W heels: A Tale of the
L aundry Gam e (M ilkm an #2)"
"Gramma" * GRAMMA (Bradford M ay 1986)
"The Ballad of the Flexible
Bullet"
"The Reach"
5) Four Past M idnight (1990)
"The Langoliers"
"Secret W indow , Secret
G arden"
"The Library Policeman"
"The Sun Dog"
6) Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993)
"Dolan's Cadillac"
"The End of the W hole Mess"
"Suffer the Little Children"
"The N ight Flier"
"Popsy"
"It G row s on You"
"Chattery Teeth"
"Dedication"
"The M oving Finger"
"Sneakers"
"You K now They G ot a H ell of
a Band"
"Hom e Delivery"
"Rainy Season"
"My Pretty Pony"
"Sorry, Right N um ber"
"The Ten O 'Clock People"
"Crouch End"
"The H ouse on M aple Street"
229
"The Fifth Q uarter"
"The D octor's Case"
"U m ney's Last Case"
"Head Down"
"Brooklyn A ugust"
SCREEN- AND TELEPLAYS
(Dates are release or airing dates)
1) CREEPSHOW (1982)
2) CAT'S EYE (1985)
3) SILVER BULLET (1985)
4) MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (1986)
5) SORRY, RIGHT NUMBER (Nov. 20, 1987)
6) PET SEMATARY (1989)
7) STEPHEN KIN G'S GOLDEN YEARS (CBS m ini-series, July 1991. A n ini
tial tw o-hour episode [July 16] w as follow ed by six one-hour episodes, all
airing consecutively over the follow ing week.)
UNCOLLECTED FICTION
M y purpose here is to provide as com prehensive a list as possible for King's
uncollected fiction. I have therefore included som e sources that I have not
personally seen. Some of these are no longer in print. Those w orks I have
seen or been able to acquire include all publication inform ation including page
numbers. Those w orks that I have not actually seen b u t have verified from
other sources include all publication inform ation except exact pagination.
W orks included here can be found scattered through various bibliographies
of K ing's w ork, som e m ore current (and m ore accurate) than others. For fur
ther consultation see in m y W orks Cited: G eorge Beahm (1991), M ichael Col-
lings (1986),1 Stephen J. Spignesi (1991: 457-542), M arsha De Filippo (1990),
D ouglas W inter (1986: 210-41).
*An u p d ated and revised edition of this bibliography was scheduled
for publication in O ctober of 1993 from Borgo Press. C om plete publication
inform ation as of this w riting includes a new title: The Work of Stephen King:
An Annotated Bibliography and Guide. Bibliographies of M odem A uthors
Series. Ed. Boden Clarke. San B ernardino, CA: Borgo P.
230
"The Bear." Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Dec. 1990: 61-88.
"Before the Play." Whispers 17/18 Aug. 1982.
"Big W heels." New Terrors 2. Ed. Ram sey Cam pbell. [England]: Pan Paper
backs, 1980. Rpt. in Skeleton Crew as "Big W heels: A Tale of the
L aundry G am e (M ilkm an #2)": 449-63.
"The Bird and the Album ." A Fantasy Reader: The Seventh World Fantasy Con
vention Program Book. Ed. Jeff Frane and Jack Rems. 1981.
"The Blue Air Com pressor." Onan Jan. 1971. Rev. and rpt. in Heavy Metal
July 1981.
"The Cat from Hell." Cavalier June 1977. Rpt. in The Year's Finest Fantasy.
Ed. Terry Carr. N ew York: Berkley, 1979. 55-70. Also in Tales of
Unknown Horror. Ed. Peter H aining. London: N ew English Library,
1978; and Magicats! Ed. Jack D ann and G ardner Dozois. N ew York:
Ace, 1984; and New Bern Magazine M ar.-Apr. 1984: Top Horror. Ed.
Josh Pachter. M unich: W ilhelm H eyne Verlag.
"Cujo." Science Fiction Digest Jan.-Feb. 1982.
"The C ursed Expedition." People, Places and Things—Volume One 1963.2
"The Dim ension W arp." People, Places and Things— Volume One 1963.
"Do the Dead Sing?" Yankee N ov. 1981. Rpt. in Skeleton Crew as "The Reach":
546-66.
"For the Birds." Bred A ny Good Books Lately?. Ed. James C harlton. N ew
York: D oubleday, 1986.
2 People, Places and Things—Volume One is a collection of eighteen one-
page short stories, eight of w hich w ere w ritten by King betw een 1960 and
1963. One collaboration— "Never Look Behind Y ou"~w ith friend Chris Ches-
ley is also included here. A ccording to Stephen Spignesi, "There is one sur
viving original [of People, Places and Things], w hich is ow ned by M r. King,
and there probably a ren 't m ore than a dozen people in the U nited States w ho
have a copy" (467). There w ere no subsequent volum es.
231
"The Glass Floor." Startling M ystery Stories Fall 1967. Rev. and rpt. in Weird
Tales Fall 1990.
"The G unslinger." Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Oct. 1978.
"The D ark Man." Ubris Fall 1969.
"The G unslinger and the Dark Man." Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
N ov. 1981.
"H arrison State Park '68." Ubris Fall 1968.
"Heroes for H ope Starring the X-Men." M arvel Comics G roup: Dec. 1985.
"The H otel at the End of the Road." People, Places and Things—Volume One
1963.
"I'm Falling." People, Places and Things—Volume One 1963.
"In a H alf-W orld of Terror." Stories of Suspense #2 1966.
"I W as a Teenage Grave Robber." Comics Review 1965.
"I've G ot To Get Away!" People, Places and Things—Volume One 1963.
"Man w ith a Belly." Cavalier Dec. 1978. Rpt. in Gent N ov./D ec. 1979.
"The M onster in the Closet." Ladies' Home Journal Oct. 1981: 88-89, 143-44.
"Never Look Behind You." People, Places and Things-Volume One 1963.
"The N ight of the Tiger." Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Feb. 1978.
Rpt. in The Best Horror Stories from The M agazine of Fantasy and Sci
ence Fiction: Volume One. Ed. E dw ard L. Ferm an an d A nne Jordan.
N ew York: St. M artin's, 1988: 104-19. Also in: Tales of Unknown Horror.
Ed. Peter H aining. London: N ew English Library, 1979.
"The Oracle and the M ountains." Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Feb.
1981.
"The O ther Side of the Fog." People, Places and Things-Volum e One 1963.
232
"The Reploids." Night Visions 5. Ed. D ouglas W inter. N.p.: Dark H arvest,
1988. Rpt. in The Skin Trade. N ew York: Berkley, 1990. 11-29.
"The R eturn of Tim m y Baterman." Satyricon II Program Book. Ed. Rusty
Burke. N.p.: n.p., 1983.
"The Revelations of 'Becka Paulson'." Rolling Stone July 19-Aug. 2, 1984.
"The Revenge of L ard Ass Hogan." Maine Review July 1975.
"Skybar." The Do-It-Yourself Bestseller— A Workbook. Ed. Tom Silberkleit and
Jerry Biederm an. N ew York: D oubleday, 1982.
"Slade." Maine Campus June 11-Aug. 6, 1970.
"The Slow M utants." Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction July 1981.
"Squad D." The Last Dangerous Visions Ed. H arlan Ellison (aw aiting
publication as of this writing).
"The Star Invaders." N.p.: T riad Publishing Co., 1964.
"The Stranger." People, Places and Things-Volume One 1963.
"Stud City." Ubris (Fall 1969). Rpt. in Greenspun Quarterly 1970.
"The Thing at the Bottom of the Well." People, Places and Things-Volume One
1963.
"The W ay Station." Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Apr. 1980.
"Weeds." Cavalier M ay 1976. Rpt. in Nugget Apr. 1979.
233
A p p e n d ix b
A n Early Treatment
of The Shining: Concluding Sequence
The follow ing is from an early treatm ent of K ing's novel that w as altered sig
nificantly in the final cut of the film. As is the case w ith any collaborative ef
fort, attribution of authorship for specific ideas is extrem ely difficult (perhaps
im possible) and m ust rem ain conjectural here. I think it interesting, how ever,
to consider the different role assigned here to W endy Torrance, w ho m ight be
called "the heroic m other." M uch like C arol C lover's character-type of "the
Final Girl," W endy, not D anny, disposes of the m onster-father, stabbing him
to death. Then, as Jack dies, W endy hears H allorann's approach in the Snow
cat. She staggers to the lobby, w here the doors are open and banging in the
w in d — "W ho's there??? W ho is it???" N o answ er. She rushes to find D anny,
b u t he is now here to be found, an d the door to their room is open.
The conclusion of this treatm ent reads as follows:
66
W e see, som ew here else in the hotel, m oving slow ly along a corridor,
the m onstrous and threatening figure that D anny has seen in his vi
sions. But now w e see that it is H allorann.
G rady appears from som ew here.
— G ood evening, Chef.
— G ood evening, M r. G rady.
— Did you have a pleasant trip?
— Very pleasant indeed, thank you.
— W ell then, I w o n 't keep you. You have business.
— Yes.
234
67
In the finale, Hallorann will become an appalling figure of
lunatic savagery, sm ashing at walls with an axe and m aking hideous
noises.
Danny will desperately try to elude him, running from place to
place, in the large hotel.
The soundtrack will consist of a m ontage of terrifying sounds:
frightful whispers from the hotel which guide Hallorann, the sounds
of the howling storm outside, blasts of electronic music, and electronic
distortions of H allorann's thoughts.
From the soundtrack, we will know, and so will Danny, w hat
Hallorann is thinking and where he is heading next. This will m ake it
a bit more difficult for Hallorann to bring the child to ground.
W endy, arm ed with a knife, her eyes blazing, her hair flying
wildly, her lungs nearly bursting, runs through the room s and corri
dors of the hotel calling out for Danny. In her frenzied search for the
child, she herself will come to resemble some m addened, demoniacal
figure.
She will fling open doors which have not been opened before,
and will see hideous apparitions of past evils of the hotel.
At the conclusion of the chase, as Hallorann has finally cor
nered Danny, the child cries out: "Stop, Dick! Stop!!!!" For just a
moment, Hallorann is jolted by the psychic pow er of D anny's terror.
At this instant, W endy will rush howling out of a doorway, stabbing
in a frenzy, with her long boning knife, so that the old lady in "Psy
cho" will look like a pushover in comparison. There will be no ques
tion about how she is able to kill a homicidal maniac. She will tem po
rarily have become one herself.
68
As the dying H allorann falls to the floor, the sound track fades
away, and the room is left in complete silence but for the w ind out
side. W endy picks Danny up and runs out of the room.
-- [At this point the treatm ent refers to the shot of Jack's photo that
concludes the actual film (only at this stage of the screenplay, the
photo is in "the scrapbook"). Then, . . .] --
235
A m an's han d comes into fram e, closes the book and takes it
aw ay. W e hear his footsteps w alking away.
Fade out.
Fade in this title on to black: "The Overlook H otel w ould su r
vive this tragedy, as it h ad so m any others. It is still open each year
from M ay 20th to Septem ber 20th. It is closed in the winter."
THE END
236
F ilms C ited
ACCUSED, THE Jonathan K aplan 1988
AMBULANCE, THE Larry Cohen 1990
AM ERICAN GRAFFITI G eorge Lucas 1973
AMITYVILLE HORROR, THE Stuart Rosenberg 1979
BAD SEED, THE M ervyn Leroy 1956
i >
Paul W endkos 1985
BARRY LYNDON Stanley Kubrick 1975
BIRDS, THE A lfred Hitchcock 1963
BLACK CAESAR Larry C ohen 1973
BROOD, THE D avid C ronenberg 1979
CARRIE Brian De Palm a 1976
CAT PEOPLE Val L ew ton/Jacques
T ourneur
1942
CHRISTINE John C arpenter 1983
CLOCKWORK ORANGE, A Stanley Kubrick 1971
CRAZIES, THE George Romero 1976
CUJO Lewis Teague 1983
DEADLY ILLUSION Larry Cohen 1987
DEMON Larry Cohen 1976
DIAL RAT FOR TERROR Larry Cohen 1972
DRACULA T od Browning 1931
EXORCIST, THE W illiam Friedkin 1973
FIRESTARTER M ark Lester 1984
FRANKENSTEIN Jam es W hale 1931
FRIDAY THE 13TH Sean S. C unningham 1980
FUNHOUSE, THE Tobe H ooper 1981
HALLOW EEN John C arpenter 1978
HELL UP IN HARLEM Larry C ohen 1973
HILLS HAVE EYES, THE W es C raven 1977
I SPIT O N YOUR GRAVE
ISLAND OF THE ALIVE
IT
IT LIVES AGAIN
IT'S ALIVE
KILLER'S KISS
KRAMER VS. KRAMER
LAST HOUSE O N THE LEFT
LOLITA
MARTIN
NIGHTM ARE O N ELM STREET, A
ORDINARY PEOPLE
PEEPING TOM
PERFECT STRANGERS
PET SEMATARY
PET SEMATARY TWO
POLTERGEIST
THE PRIVATE FILES OF J.
EDGAR HOOVER
PSYCHO
Q (THE W INGED SERPENT)
RAISING CAIN
RETURN TO SALEM'S LOT
ROSEMARY'S BABY
'SALEM 'S LOT
SHINING, THE
SLEEPWALKERS
SPECIAL EFFECTS
ST ARM A N
STEPHEN KING'S "IT"
STEPFATHER, THE
STEPFORD WIVES, THE
STUFF, THE
M eir Zarchi 1977
Larry C ohen 1987
See STEPHEN KING'S
M J J 1 .
Larry C ohen 1978
Larry C ohen 1974
Stanley Kubrick 1955
Robert Benton 1979
W es C raven 1972
Stanley Kubrick 1962
George Romero 1977
W es C raven 1984
Robert R edford 1980
M ichael Powell 1960
L arry C ohen 1984
M ary Lam bert 1989
M ary Lam bert 1992
Tobe H ooper 1982
L arry C ohen 1977
A lfred Hitchcock 1960
L arry C ohen 1982
Brian De Palm a 1992
L arry C ohen 1987
R om an Polanski 1968
Tobe H ooper 1979
Stanley Kubrick 1980
M ick G arris 1992
L arry C ohen 1985
John C arpenter 1984
T om m y Lee W allace 1990
Joseph R uben 1987
Bryan Forbes 1975
L arry C ohen 1985
TERMINATOR, THE James C am eron 1984
TEXAS CHAINS AW MASSACRE, Tobe H ooper 1974
THE
TOMMYKNOCKERS, THE John Pow er 1993
WICKED STEPMOTHER Larry Cohen 1989
239
W ork s C ited
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