Stephen King’s Carrie (Historical Significance Paper)

Stephen King: the ‘king’ of horror fiction. He is the master of the gore, the wicked, and the otherworldly.  Most readers have heard his name, but have never dared to read his works. Those who have been ambitious enough to look into his stories may be surprised to what they’ll find. Not every book King has written is about senseless violence and bloodshed; each story has its own meaning and it’s amazing how deep their significances will go. A fine example of a book with great implications is Stephen King’s Carrie. Even though this novel is entirely fictional, it goes deeply into both historical and social issues during America in the 1970’s.

Carrie White, a quiet seventeen-year-old girl is a social outcast because of her strange behavior, shy reputation, and her physical appearance (skin, weight, hair, etc.) She is constantly being bullied by her peers and has been bullied ever since she had entered the Chamberlain school system in Maine. Carrie has nowhere to be accepted, not even at home with her mother, Margaret White, also referred to as Momma. Carrie’s bizarre behavior at school gets her bullied, and her religious-crazy mother beats her and locks her in closets to pray for hours, and tells Carrie that she should be ashamed of every aspect of her womanhood, including menstruation. This is where we get introduced to Carrie herself. Young Carrie White starts her period one day during P.E. , completely horrified and under the impression that she is bleeding to death. Her fellow classmates throw sanitary napkins at her yelling comments like “Plug it up!” and “PER-iod” at poor Carrie, making the situation that much worse. Carrie is sent home early to recover from her traumatic experience. When Momma finds out about her daughter’s period, Carrie is scolded and forced to pray to God in ‘the closet’ for the sin her body has committed. 

 In the end, Sue Snell (one of Carrie’s classmates who pitied her), had set Carrie up to go to prom with her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, so Carrie would be able to have a fun night and not have to deal with her lack of a high social status. Even this wasn’t enough, for prom night was a malicious and bloody disaster, leaving hundreds of people dead and a once small but lively town left in ruins. No one would ever quite recover. While Carrie is a completely fictional novel, its theme shouldn’t be ignored. Carrie’s plot is wild, unrealistic, and scarily horrifying, and those who read the book can get a lot out of it. There is both a historical and social significance behind this horror fiction, and it’s not hard to tell what they are.