Carrie: analysis of Stephen King's horror novel

Stephen King's Carrie as a Modern-Day Horror Story

A superior horror story is a combination of reality, supernatural, and the fantastical worked into a suspenseful, captivating, believable story. Stephen King's novel, Carrie, utilizes these literary elements to create a modern-day horror story. The character, Carrie, is realistic because she is, from all outward appearances, a normal teenage girl that suffers from merciless teasing. Carrie is also realistic because while we pity her, we also detest her actions. This realistic character is placed in a supernatural setting with her telekinetic powers, which makes the novel fantastical. Carrie succeeds because it operates from a level of realism and supernaturalism that captivates us as well as creates suspense until the end of the novel.

King creates a captivating, believable story with Carrie with examples of reality, which include the fact that Carrie lives in a real teenager's world, complete with angst and cruel people. In short, Carrie's is the quintessential teenage experience of being misunderstood. An example of this can be seen at Carrie's camp experience. This was a youth camp that Mrs. White did not want Carrie to attend but Carrie earned the money to go by taking up sewing. Mrs. White claimed that the whole idea of it was a "sin" (King 17) and "forbade Carrie to swim" (17). Despite her efforts to fit in, Carrie is the butt of a "thousand practical jokes" (18) and she returned home one week early. Mrs. White used this experience as proof that she was always right and to drive the point home, she "sent Carrie to the closet for six hours" (18). With these scenes, King presents us with a very real character with Carrie. She lives in a real world with real problems to which we can all relate.

King also creates a very realistic character with Carrie in that she is depicted in two very different ways, which plays on our emotions.

She is, on one hand, a creature to be pitied and on the other, she is a creature to de despised. At the beginning of the novel, we cannot help but feel sympathy for Carrie as she experiences her first menstrual cycle. Her first response is that she is "bleeding to death" (9) and the fact that Miss Desjardin is unsympathetic fosters our compassion for the girl. In addition, Carrie's classmates were "throwing sanitary napkins" (15) at Carrie in the shower. When we are told that she is "innocent of the entire concept of menstruation" (8), we are forced to feel sympathy for a young girl who feels as though she is facing death. We must also feel pity for Carrie as we learn of her past. Her birth into the world is something quite extraordinary and it sets the macabre mood and tone for the rest of the novel. Mrs. White delivered the child alone, cutting the umbilical cord with a knife. Carrie's reaction to Tommy's invitation to the Spring Ball is also realistic for a young girl that is tormented for most of her life. After she accepts his proposal, we read that she "looked as though she might swoon" (63). Here King is creating suspense in the novel by actually presenting us with a sense of hope that things might actually work out well at the prom. However, at the end of the novel, we come to detest Carrie by the end of the novel as the giggles while she watches the town burn.

The supernatural in Carrie is real and is expressed primarily through Carrie's supernatural powers. This power, telekinesis, is presented in a very realistic form in the novel, presenting us with a fear that is real as well as supernatural. For example, King accentuates the supernatural with realism with an excerpt from an article printed in the Tulane University Press that writes that Carrie's "ability to move objects by effort of the will alone comes to the fore only in moments of extreme personal stress" (5). The unique powers, while real, cannot be explained scientifically. This type of supernatural power isolates Carrie socially because they are so real they are horrifying and this synthesis frightens us.

The fantastical and supernatural are born from Carrie's natural experience and, apparently, heredity. We read that she was the unfortunate "victim of her mother's religious mania. We know she possessed a latent telekinetic talent" (89). This talent manifests itself on prom night in a horrifying way.