E! True Hollywood Story: Stephen King

Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine to parents Nellie Ruth and Donald Edwin King. Two years later his father abandoned the family, leaving Stephen and his adopted older brother David completely in their mother's care. Later in his childhood he experienced a rather traumatic experience in which he witnessed one of his friends being hit and killed by a train. Some believe that this incident inspires his dark writings, but he casually has dismissed that idea. After graduating from Lisbon Falls High School, he then attended the University of Maine where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in English. During his time at the University of Maine, he wrote a column in the school newspaper and wrote his first published short story "The Glass Floor". King would continue to write short stories in his younger years as a job while also holding teaching credentials. He also married Tabitha Spruce, a classmate at the University, a year after graduating. In 1974 King published his first novel, "Carrie" which made 400,000 dollars. This was the start to a very successful career for King with such great novels to follow such as "The Shining", "Salem's Lot", "The Stand" and many more. In the summer of 1999, King was hit by a car while walking around town in Lovell, Maine. The incident nearly made him consider retirement due to the pain he endured while sitting down, but he has yet to do so. King has been majorly influenced by writers Richard Matheson and H.P. Lovecraft. He said when he first saw the cover to a collection of H.P. Lovecraft's short stories, a drawing of a monster hiding in a cave, he then immediatley knew that he wanted to write horror novels for the rest of his life.

Pet Sematary Quotes

1. " Death was a vague idea;the Pet Semetary was real. In the texture of those rude markers were truths which even a child's hands could feel." p.55

Ellie, Louis' daughter, has confronted her father in a very sad and distraught manner with the idea of death and how it will eventually take their cat Church. This idea had been put into her mind after a visit to the local pet cemetery in which pets dating back to the early 1900's lay. This brings a very foreboding feeling to the story, that many things are leading towards death and back to the cemetery. Louis while describing his cat sleeping even described him as dead looking adding onto the feeling of foreboding.

2. " Don't go beyond, no matter how much you feel you need to, Doctor. The barrier was not made to be broken." p.160

After being warned by a dead student from Louis' school to not venture beyond the barrier, we find him and Jud far beyond the barrier in the real cemetery where he tries to bury his dead cat in hopes of him being resurrected. He does not want to have to break the news to his daughter that their beloved cat had died, and have to deal with her mourning. The warning from his dead student gave me great feelings that of course he would venture beyond the barrier. His actions also represent evil, because he is undoing one of the natural laws of the world because of temptation to be able to go through things easier.

3. " It was only the bad it wanted to talk about though. It was only the bad it wanted us to remember because it was bad... and because it knew we meant danger for it." p.369

After the death of Louis' young son Gage, he starts to reconsider using the cemetery again to bring back his son. However Jud Crandall, his old neighbor, knows what he is thinking and comes to his house to try and talk him out of it. He tells him of the story of Timmy Baterman, who was resurrected through the cemetery and how he turned out to be an abomination. Timmy Baterman's resurrected soul, was a direct representation of evil in King's eyes, that it was all evil and had no good in it. Much like the evil character in "The Stand", Randall Flagg, who very much was pure evil and every action of his was meant for his own purposes.

4. " For a moment Louis saw the Pet Sematary as a kind of advertisement... a come-on, like the kind they gave you on freak alley at the carnival." p.387

Once again King uses temptation to show evil. From all the foreboding that he has created about the cemetery it is obvious that it is an evil place, yet Louis still is attracted to what it has to offer. I think this brings a keen view on good and evil for King. Evil will try to get you at any cost and will come in many different forms as things that you want. Good, will not be as noticeable and gives you the choice to either follow the right path or go the other way, making it easier to become evil than to be good.

5. " She listened to the steady drone of the big trucks, and it came to her with a sudden vicious certainty that the truck that had killed her son was here among them... not muttering but chuckling."

Rachel, Louis' wife, sits and watches the road in front of her house where her son was run over by a truck. The trucks represent a materialistic world because they bring the materials here and there, and this brings back an idea that I noticed in "The Stand". The evil people in "The Stand" lived in Las Vegas, one of the most materialistic places in the world. I believe that King thinks that materialism blinds people from true goodness and steers them towards evil and misfortune, which it clearly has i this book with the death of a toddler and in "The Stand" where the human population was nearly wiped out