Download or read book Dissecting Stephen King written by Heidi Strengell and published by Popular Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 control: "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."
Download or read book Stephen King and Philosophy written by Jacob M. Held and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-08-15 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Haunting us with such unforgettable stories as The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, Salem’s Lot, Carrie, The Green Mile, and Pet Sematary, Stephen King has been an anchor of American horror, science fiction, psychological thrillers, and suspense for more than forty years. His characters have brought chills to our spines and challenged our notions of reality while leaving us in awe of the perseverance of the human spirit. The first book in the new Great Authors and Philosophy series, Stephen King and Philosophy reveals some of the deeper issues raised by King’s work. From retribution, freedom, and moral relativity, to death and insanity, the chapters of this book expose how King’s stories access the questions and fears that haunt each of us in the middle of the night.
Download or read book The Science of Stephen King written by Lois H. Gresh and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-08-31 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: Where Science and Fiction Intersect -- From Proms to Cells: The Psychic World of Stephen King -- Carrie -- Firestarter -- The Dead Zone -- Hearts in Atlantis Cell -- The Green Mile -- On the Highway with Stephen King -- "Trucks"--They Came From Outer Space -- Dreamcatcher -- The Tommyknockers -- The Fourth Horseman -- The Stand -- Up the Dimensions with Stephen King -- The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger -- Insomnia -- Traveling in Time with Stephen King - The Langoliers -- Parallel Worlds -- "The Mists" -- From a Buick 8 -- The Dark Tower -- The Tailisman -- Longevity an Genetic Research - The Golden Years -- Evil, Obsession, and Fear -- The Tommyknockers -- Carrie -- The Talisman -- It -- The Stand -- Danse Macabre -- The Shining -- Misery -- "Night Surf."
Download or read book Stephen King and the Uncanny Imaginary written by Erin Mercer and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-08-25 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering an insightful examination of Stephen King’s fiction, this book utilises a psychoanalytical approach drawing on Freud’s theory of the uncanny. It demonstrates how entrenched King’s work is in a literary tradition influenced by psychoanalytic theory, as well as the ways that King evades and amends Freud. Such an approach positions King’s texts not simply as objects of interpretation that might yield latent meaning, but as producers of meaning. King can certainly be read through the lens of the uncanny, but this book also aims to consider the uncanny through the lens of King. Organised around specific elements of the uncanny that can be found in King’s fiction, this book explores the themes of death and the return of the dead, monstrosity, telepathy, inanimate objects becoming menacingly animate, and spooky children. Popular texts are considered, such as IT, The Shining, and Pet Sematary, as well as less discussed work, including The Institute, The Regulators and Desperation. The book’s central argument is that King’s uncanny motifs offer insightful commentary on what is repressed in contemporary culture and insist on the failure of scientific rationalism to explain the world. King’s uncanny imaginary rejects dualistic notions of an experiencing self in an inert physical world and insists that psychic experience is bound up with the environmental. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of contemporary and popular literature, gothic and horror studies, and cultural studies.
Download or read book Violence in the Films of Stephen King written by Michael J. Blouin and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-07-29 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Violence in the Films of Stephen King, contributors analyze the theme of violence in the film adaptations of Stephen King’s work—ranging from the earliest films in the King canonto his most recent iterations—through a variety of lenses. Investigating the diverse and varying roles that violence continues to play as both the level of violence and the gendered depictions of violence have evolved, many of the contributors come to the conclusion that King’s films have grown more violent over time. This book also examines the fine line between necessary violence and sensationalist violence, discussing the complexity of determining what constitutes violence with a narrative and ethical significance versus violence intended solely to titillate, repulse, or otherwise draw an emotional reaction from viewers. Scholars of film studies, horror studies, literary studies, and gender studies will find this book particularly useful.
Download or read book Transcendent Writers in Stephen King s Fiction written by Joeri Pacolet and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-02-13 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transcendent Writers in Stephen King’s Fiction combines a post-Jungian critical perspective of the puer aeternus. Offering new insight into King’s work, it provides reconceptualisation of the eternal youth to develop a new theory: the concept of the transcendent writer. Combining recent Jungian and Post-Jungian developmental theories, this analysis of a selection of classic King novels addresses the importance of the stories within King’s main narrative, those of King‘s writer-protagonists; an aspect often overlooked. Using these stories-within-stories, it demonstrates the way in which King’s novels illustrate their young protagonist’s trajectories into adulthood and delineates King’s portrayal of the psychological development of adolescence and their ambivalent experience of the world. This book demonstrates how the act of writing plays a crucial role for King’s writer-protagonists in their search for a stable identify, guiding us through their journey from disaffected youths to well-rounded adults. Transcendent Writers in Stephen King's Fiction will be of interest to Jungian and post-Jungian scholars, philosophers and teachers focusing on the theme of psychological development and identity, and to those studying literature with a particular interest in horror.
Download or read book Everyday Evil in Stephen King s America written by Jason S. Polley and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-06-03 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection variously interrogates how everyday evil manifests in Stephen King’s now-familiar American imaginary; an imaginary that increases the representational limits of both anticipated and experienced realism. Divided into three parts: I. The Man, II. The Monster, and III. The Re-mediator, the book offers rigorous readings of evil, realism, and popular culture as represented in a range of texts (and paratexts) from the King canon. Rich with images, a photo-essay, and appendices collecting classical texts and cultural detritus germane to King, this book moves away from viewing King’s work primarily through the lens of the “American gothic” and toward the realism that the suspense novelist’s voice (fictional and non-) and influence (literary and popular) indelibly continue to amplify, all the while complicating the traditional divide between serious literature and popular fiction. Stephen King remains perpetually popular. And he is finally receiving the academic treatment he has craved since the early 1980s. Yet still unexamined in the King critical canon is the suspense novelist’s fascination with “everyday evil.” Beyond rigorous interrogations of King’s fictional depictions of “everyday evil” by an array of scholars of different ranks living around the world (Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, the UK), the book, replete with 20 images, considers how King widens the parameters of literary production and appreciation. An integral part of the Americana that King’s five-decades-in-the-making canon configures, of course, includes King himself. King has long made use of self-referentiality in his fiction and nonfiction. Some of his nonfiction, several of our essays reveal, recirculates in paratextual form as “Prefatory Remarks” to new novels or new editions of older ones. The paratexts considered here (both across the volume and in the appendices) offer alternate ways by which to appreciate King and his sphere of influence (literary and popular). Said appendices are a grouping of King's paratexts on his writing as Bachman, appearing here, for the first time, as a cohesive collection. King's influence took off in the 1970s, as is further explored in the book-enveloping three-part photo-essay “King’s America, America’s King: Stephen King & Popular Culture since the 1970s.” About the transformative quality of “everyday evil,” the photo-essay tracks the cultural impacts of King first as an emerging author, then a pop culture phenomenon, and, finally, as an established American literary voice. Everyday Evil in Stephen King's America is designed to appeal to teachers and students of American literature, to Stephen King enthusiasts, as well as to acolytes of Americana since the Vietnam War.
Download or read book How to Analyze the Works of Stephen King written by Marcia Amidon Lüsted and published by ABDO. This book was released on 2011 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title explores the creative works of famous novelist Stephen King. Books analyzed include Carrie, The Green Mile, The Stand, and the Dark Tower series. Clear, comprehensive text gives background biographical information of King. “You Critique It” feature invites readers to analyze other creative works on their own. A table of contents, timeline, list of works, resources, source notes, glossary, and an index are also included. Essential Critiques is a series in Essential Library, an imprint of ABDO Publishing Company.
Download or read book Stephen King and American Politics written by Michael J. Blouin and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2021-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From The Long Walk to The Outsider, Stephen King’s output reflects the major political concerns of the previous fifty years. This book is the first sustained study of the complex ways in which King’s texts speak to their unique political moments. By exploring this aspect of the author’s popular works, readers might better understand the numerous crises that Americans currently face – the book surveys King’s corpus to address a wide range of issues, including the spread of neoliberalism, the Bush-Cheney doctrine, and the chaos of the populist present. Although the fiction outwardly declares itself to be anti-political (thus reflecting a widespread shift away from democracy in the aftermath of the 1960s), political energies persist just beneath the surface. Given the possibility of a political resurgence that haunts so many of his page-turners, Stephen King produces horror and hope in equal measure.
Download or read book Stephen King and American History written by Tony Magistrale and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-16 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book surveys the labyrinthine relationship between Stephen King and American History. By depicting American History as a doomed cycle of greed and violence, King poses a number of important questions: who gets to make history, what gets left out, how one understands one's role within it, and how one might avoid repeating mistakes of the past. This volume examines King's relationship to American History through the illumination of metanarratives, adaptations, "queer" and alternative historical lenses, which confront the destructive patterns of our past as well as our capacity to imagine a different future. Stephen King and American History will present readers with an opportunity to place popular culture in conversation with the pressing issues of our day. If we hope to imagine a different path forward, we will need to come to terms with this enclosure—a task for which King's corpus is uniquely well-suited.
Download or read book The Modern Stephen King Canon written by Patrick McAleer and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-11-29 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Modern Stephen King Canon: Beyond Horror is a collection of essays focused on the more recent writings of Stephen King, including Revival, 11/22/63, and a selection of short stories by the “Master of the Macabre.” The authors write about King works that have received little critical attention and aim to open up doorways of analysis and insight that will help readers gain a stronger appreciation for the depth and detail within King’s fiction. Indeed, while King is often relegated to the role of a genre writer (horror), the essays in this collection consider the merits of King’s writing beyond the basics of horror for which he is primarily known. Recommended for scholars of literature, horror, and popular culture.
Download or read book Stephen King s Modern Macabre written by Patrick McAleer and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-08-12 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Stephen King has continued to publish numerous works beyond one of the many high points of his career, in the 1980s, scholarship has not always kept up with his output. This volume presents 13 essays (12 brand new) on many of King's recent writings that have not received the critical attention of his earlier works. This collection is grouped into three categories--"King in the World Around Us," "Spotlight on The Dark Tower" and "Writing into the Millennium"; each examines an aspect of King's contemporary canon that has yet to be analyzed.
Download or read book Excavating Stephen King written by James Arthur Anderson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-10-28 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excavating Stephen King: A Darwinist Hermeneutic Study of the Fiction combines approaches from science and literary theory to examine the canon of Stephen King’s fiction work in a single critical study. James Arthur Anderson has devised the concept of Darwinist Hermeneutics as a critical tool to combine evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, biology, and literary Darwinism with other more conventional critical theory, including structuralism, narratology, semiotics, and linguistic analysis. Using this theory, Anderson examines King’s works in terms of archetypes and mythology, human universals, affective emotions, and the organization of story to create maximum suspense. This method brings new insights into King’s stories and broader implications for storytelling as a whole.
Download or read book The Gothic World of Stephen King written by Gary Hoppenstand and published by Popular Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stephen King’s popularity lies in his ability to reinterpret the standard Gothic tale in new and exciting ways. Through his eyes, the conventional becomes unconventional and wonderful. King thus creates his own Gothic world and then interprets it for us. This book analyzes King’s interpretations and his mastery of popular literature. The essays discuss adolescent revolt, the artist as survivor, the vampire in popular literature, and much more.
Download or read book The Midnight Disease written by Alice W. Flaherty and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An original, fascinating, and beautifully written reckoning . . . of that great human passion: to write.”—Kay Redfield Jamison, national bestselling author of An Unquiet Mind Why is it that some writers struggle for months to come up with the perfect sentence or phrase while others, hunched over a keyboard deep into the night, seem unable to stop writing? In The Midnight Disease, neurologist Alice W. Flaherty explores the mysteries of literary creativity: the drive to write, what sparks it, and what extinguishes it. She draws on intriguing examples from medical case studies and from the lives of writers, from Franz Kafka to Anne Lamott, from Sylvia Plath to Stephen King. Flaherty, who herself has grappled with episodes of compulsive writing and block, also offers a compelling personal account of her own experiences with these conditions. “[Flaherty] is the real thing . . . and her writing magically transforms her own tragedies into something strange and whimsical almost, almost funny.”—The Washington Post “This is interesting, heated stuff.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Brilliant . . . [a] precious jewel of a book . . . that sparkles with some fresh insight or intriguing fact on practically every page.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer “Flaherty mixes memoir, meditation, compendium and scholarly reportage in an odd but absorbing look at the neurological basis of writing and its pathologies . . . Writers will delight in the way information and lore are interspersed.”—Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Methods and Meaning in the Novels of Stephen King written by James Arthur Anderson and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2024-07-29 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the techniques, themes, and subtexts in the fictional works of one of America's best-known and most-loved storytellers, Stephen King. Each of King's novels are analyzed in chronological order of their publication from Carrie to Holly. Every novel's analysis includes a background and summary, narrative devices, archetypes that influenced the novel, themes and subtexts, human universals, interesting facts, and notable quotes. As an invaluable resource for any Stephen King "Constant Reader" and students of literature in general, this work appreciates the beauty of King's fiction without needing to master the jargon of contemporary literary criticism.
Download or read book The Functions of Unnatural Death in Stephen King written by Rebecca Frost and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-03-02 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Functions of Unnatural Death in Stephen King: Murder, Sickness, and Plots examines over thirty of King’s works and looks at the character deaths within them, placing them first within the chronology of the plot and then assigning them a function. Death is horrific and perhaps the only universal horror because it comes to us all. Stephen King, known as the Master of Horror, rarely writes without including death in his works. However, he keeps death from being repetitious or fully expected because of the ways in which he plays with the subject, maintaining what he himself has called a childlike approach to death. Although character deaths are a constant, the narrative function of those deaths changes depending on their placement within the plot. By separating out the purposes of early deaths from those that come during the rising action or during the climax, this book examines the myriad ways character deaths in King can affect surviving characters and therefore the plot. Even though character deaths are frequent and hardly ever occur only once in a book, King’s varying approaches to, and uses of, these deaths show how he continues to play with both the subject and its facets of horror throughout his work.
