Dissecting Stephen King: From the Gothic to Literary Naturalism

by Heidi Strengell

    In a thoughtful, well-informed study exploring fiction from throughout Stephen King's immense oeuvre, Heidi Strengell shows how this popular writer enriches his unique brand of horror by building on the traditions of his literary heritage. Tapping into the wellsprings of the gothic to reveal contemporary phobias, King invokes the abnormal and repressed sexuality of the vampire, the hubris of Frankenstein, the split identity of the werewolf, the domestic melodrama of the ghost tale. Drawing on myths and fairy tales, he creates characters who, like the heroic Roland the Gunslinger and the villainous Randall Flagg, may either reinforce or subvert the reader's childlike faith in society. And in the manner of the naturalist tradition, he reinforces a tension between the free will of the individual and the daunting hand of fate.
    Ultimately, Strengell shows how King shatters our illusions of safety and "King places his decent and basically good characters at the mercy of indifferent forces, survival depending on their moral strength and the responsibility they may take for their fellow men."

Genres: Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published July 8, 2005

About the author

Julkaissut teoksia myöhemmin nimellä Heidi Lakkala

Reviews

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but I suspect the chapters of having been published separately as individual papers and then put together for a book, as there's quite a bit of repetition and redundancy. Not all of it is well argued; perhaps unsurprisingly, the chapters on the Gothic are the strongest and she makes some interesting connections, while the digressions about Calvinism are just confusing. There are a few places where Strengell contradicts herself and one or two where (IMO) she's just plain wrong. She gets a few minor points about The Stand wrong; they don't affect her argument but it does pay to get the details right. All in all, though, the book is thorough and workmanlike. Strengell does a good job of synthesizing the extant lit crit on King's work, and the bibliography is highly useful for future reading.