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Author: Heidi Strengell
Publisher: Popular Press
ISBN: 9780299209742
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
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."
Author: Heidi Strengell
Publisher: Popular Press
ISBN: 9780299209742
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Get Book Here
Book Description
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."
Author: George Beahm
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
ISBN: 9780836254273
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
Veteran King chronicler George Beahm thoroughly examines Stephen King's life as a celebrity and a publishing phenomenon who has published more than forty books--from CARRIE to WIZARD AND GLASS (the fourth Dark Tower novel). Complete with new photos taken especially for this edition and reprints of little-seen King pictures unearthed from archives, this book is a textual and visual treat and a "must" for king's millions of readers.
Author: Lois H. Gresh
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0471782475
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
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."
Author: Erin Mercer
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100093019X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
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.
Author: Michael J. Blouin
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793635803
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
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.
Author: Joeri Pacolet
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351181149
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
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.
Author: Jason S. Polley
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040039308
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 158
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Book Description
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.
Author: Marcia Amidon Lüsted
Publisher: ABDO
ISBN: 9781616135362
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 116
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Book Description
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.
Author: Michael J. Blouin
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1786836475
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
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.
Author: Tony Magistrale
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100009300X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
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.
