In the following sections, I am going to attempt to dissect the novel Carrie by Stephen King. I will be discussing a summary of the book, each group member’s perception of the novel, our initial “reading for”, the intertextual codes found in the text, and take a closer look at the relationship between narrator and addressee.
Section 1: Summary
Before I begin diving into a summary of King’s novel, I want to address our the group’s initial “reading for” of this text. We each had some concerns while reading Carrie. Alexis had to face the genre of Horror. She states, “The issues that are at stake for me while reading this book is that it will be too gory or creepy for me to handle and that would make me want to put the book down.” We each had our own assumptions of what the book was going to be about in terms of genre. We knew there would be elements of horror. Some of us were more familiar with the storyline, but had never read the book.
The general consensus of the “reading for” in this text is that it is not a book that each of us would naturally reach for on the shelf at the bookstore. It is something “out of our comfort zone” as Alexis stated. I, for one, had only read one other novel by King, but I really enjoyed it, so I was excited to see how his first book was compared to the other that I had read. I think for most of the group, we became submissive readers to the text.
Brittany stated that ” she had seen many of his movies, including Carrie, and she was a little nervous about the book being hard to understand because as an audience you have to pay attention to the movies to understand the plot. As she began to read, she noticed it was not as difficult as she had assumed it would be. She states, “To my surprise, it really was not like that. I understood exactly what was going on and was eager to know what might happen next. The first couple of pages into the book, was almost set up like an investigation was taking place.” As we continued to dig deeper into the text, the entire book was set up as interviews about the “event” that occurred, giving hints to the audience that something major had impacted the town that involve Carrie White.
The story starts out with a main character, Carrie White, who is a young girl in high school. She is completely outcasted by her peers for being socially awkward because she is isolated by her mother. Her mother is very strict due to religious beliefs, that could be read as on the verge of mentally deranged.
As the story progresses, we see certain “powers” that Carrie possesses. It comes to light that when she was younger she made stones fall from the sky when she was angry. She is bullied by a certain group of girls in school, one in particular feels guilty about treating Carrie this way, so she has her boyfriend ask Carrie to prom. We start to notice dynamics in the story as Robert states in his blog,
“In essence it is a look into human behavior that, with its counterpoint of good and evil, still can cause disasters that could be prevented (such as being kind to Carrie would prevent a “disaster” as is hinted at so far in the book).”
This controlling value which is defined as “a value that controls your thoughts, likes, dislikes for an individual, character, etc..” can be seen throughout the text.
As a whole, I believe our group not so much read for the mimetic, which is the imitation of reality, because the storyline was a little far-fetched than our reality, but more for the thematic register, which is the theme of the story (in this case good versus evil.)
Above is Robert’s value graph for Carrie by Stephen King. He left out the purpose for the text, which I would like to extend. I believe the purpose is if you follow the way of righteousness you will be happy, good things will come, and you will be fulfilled. The context would be if you partake in negative things then you will fail, misery will accompany you, and you will never succeed.
Section 2: Form and Genre
As a whole, our group pretty much agreed that the genre of Carrie is horror literature. According to the Horror Writer’s Association, “Horror has once again become primarily about emotion. It is once again writing that delves deep inside and forces us to confront who we are, to examine what we are afraid of, and to wonder what lies ahead down the road of life.” Even though the plot of Carrie is not very realistic because non of our group members have dealt with a person who has telekinetic powers and ultimately murders almost everyone in the town, it still evokes something realistic because the general theme hits home for all of human nature.
As Robert states in his previous blog,
“The whole theme of Carrie is human nature, good struggling with evil. Except with Carrie there is the message “humanity is sick” with people trying to redeem.”
As people, we struggle with good versus evil throughout our own lives. Do we do what is right versus what is wrong? We deal with people being unjust and we either have to strive to walk away and be the bigger person or retaliate with revenge. Robert also says,
“And Carrie herself, positioned between being a “normal girl” and fitting in and getting back at life for giving her such short straws in terms of people in her life always hurting her (including her mother) has a lot of heavenly and demonic symbology to represent her own struggle between to love or destroy.”
The heavenly and demonic symbology is something that maybe everyone cannot relate to, but as for struggling when “life gives you the short straw” that is something that almost everyone can connect with.
The horror genre is about exploring what would happen if the evil side of nature conquered the righteous. In this novel, we see the detrimental effects of evil rising above resulting in many deaths.
As for the different forms that can be seen , Alexis states,
“Qualitative progressive form is said to be “a commonplace literary trope that employs qualitative progression is ‘foreshadowing.’” This form also is supposed to evoke moods that are supposed to allow the reader to enter another mood that might follow. This can be seen in Carrie; the story is not a straight plot and there are many case studies and flashbacks of a mysterious event that happened and the reader only gets glimpses of what happened as the story progresses.”
I agree that there is definitely a mood that is evoked in this novel and the “foreshadowing” of what is to come is leaked to the audience through these flashbacks.
Although I agree with Alexis, I also think that the Syllogistic form can be seen, which is defined as “the unfolding of the steps of an argument, such that the conclusion follows as a matter of necessity once the premises are laid out for the reader.” I believe this can be seen because the audience understands the theme of good versus evil in the text. We have two major events that occur, such as Carrie attending the prom and the pig’s blood being thrown on her as she is crowned queen. The reader wants to know what is going to happen, whether or not Carrie is going to seek revenge or walk away. The progression is when Carrie reacts with rage and starts to murder the people trapped in the school. Then, she walks through the town destroying everything in her path including her mother, and ultimately destroys herself.
One of the most influential parts in the book is when we think that all the madness is over by Carrie dying in the end of the text. The audience believes that because Carrie has died, the threat has also died with her, but as we learn from a letter from Amelia Jenks, this is far from the truth. It states,
“The other day wile she was playin in the dirt beside the house I sneeked around and saw the funnyest thing. Annie was playin with her brothers marbles only they was mooving around all by themselfs. Annie was giggeling and laffing but I was a little skared” (290).
By this passage in the story, the reader is yet again evoked with horror because we just witnessed a terrible ordeal with Carrie and now there is a chance that this is to happen again.
Section 3: Intertextual Codes
As we begin to explore even further, we notice that there are intertextual codes woven together into the text. As it is stated, Barthes claims,
“that a series of five codes coexist within any given text, and that reading these codes allows the text to transform from a “readerly” text into a “writerly” one.”
Since we have distinguished the controlling values and themes of the text, it can be more easily seen that these codes are generated within the novel. Alexis addresses in her blog how the hermeneutic code is present within Carrie. This particular code is broken down into ten parts (although not all ten must be present) . It “proposes, maintains through numerous delays, and ultimately resolves enigmas.”
As Alexis discusses the structure of King’s writing is not “linear”, he leaves subtle hints through flashbacks and interviews, and ultimately leaves the audience in need to figure out the outcome.
Alexis gives a great example of how King accomplishes this when she writes,
“An example of this is when Susan Snell writes in this fictional book:”
“In the wake of two hundred deaths and the destruction of an entire town, it is so easy to forget one thing: We were kids. We were kids. We were kids trying to do our best…” (King 95).
In this example he tells the audience exactly how many deaths occurred, but leaves just enough mystery, even though we know it involved Carrie White, the audience is not quite sure how and why this event happened.
Although I did not write about this specific code in my previous blog, I completely agree with Alexis that this code is present in the text. I discussed the cultural code, which is “something that we have seen or experienced that bring to light ‘truths’ in our own culture.” I see certain aspects of man and woman and how the text refers to women as being lesser than men (even evil). I used an example from the text when I state,
“For instance, the opening of the book is Carrie menstruating for the first time. This is a representation of the womanly body and it is discussed as something dirty and wrong by her mother. There is a part in the novel when Carrie asks her mother why she didn’t tell her what was happening to her body. Her mother hit her and responded, ‘ Get up, woman. Let’s us get in and pray. Let’s us pray to Jesus for our woman-weak, wicked, sinning souls'” (62).
We see representation of this cultural code throughout the entire novel. Even the gene for telekinesis is only dominant in women, suggesting that women carry the “evil gene.”
Although Robert did not state that he connected the text to the symbolic code, which “generate unresolvable oppositions (antitheses) that structure conflict, and ultimately reinforce dominant cultural codes using the controlling values,” I believe that his statement on dualism correlates well with this specific code.
He states,
“When portraying his cast in Carrie, King has a habit of using intertextual codes for good and evil in the same character, sometimes even one after another.”
He uses examples of this when he says, “Sue Snell switches from “Mean Girl” at the beginning to becoming altruistic.” We see this with many other characters, as well. For example, my first thought was with Carrie, herself, when she is first portrayed as a timid outcast and then becoming this evil monster killing almost everyone in the town. There is a constant battle between good versus evil in this entire text and the where human nature lies on that spectrum.
Brittany refers to the semic code in her previous blog. This code “defines characters, objects, and places through repetitively grouping a number of signifiers around a proper name.” Although she did not go into much detail about the code, I can see the interaction between the semic code and the culture code (which I discussed). There are places within the text that the audience see distinguish, for example, Margaret White. She is constantly being grouped together with religious signifiers.
All the intertextual codes are intertwined together in one way or another throughout each text. We can see them all present throughout Carrie.
Section 4: The Rhetoric of Narrative
In this section, we will take a closer look between the characters, the narrator, and the intended audience. What was King trying to accomplish while writing this novel? The specific structure he uses for this novel allows the readers to submit to the text and undergo a transformation that releases the addressees to becoming the type of reader that King intends.
Alexis poses a great questioning her blog when she quotes Rabinowitz. She states,
” I want to go back to the question Rabinowitz asks in his article, “Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences,” which is “what sort of person would I have to pretend to be—what would I have to know and believe—if I wanted to take this work of fiction as real?”
She goes on to discuss what type of reader she would have to be to allow this work of fiction to be real. She says,
“In the case of Carrie, I feel like in order to be the person who takes this work of fiction as real, I would need to get into the mindset that the phenomenon of telekinesis is a real thing, not just something that we read about in books or see in movies. Once I get to that point, I feel like I could grasp the rest of the story or at least submit to it.”
I believe that not only does the reader have to let go of all hesitations of telekinesis being non-existent, but you also must look beyond and see the relationship between the characters in the text.
As Robert states, “Compared to King’s other books the characters are surprisingly not as developed.” He is much more familiar with King’s other works, but because Carrie is only the second book that I have read from King, I found that the relationship between the characters were crucial to the story.
The relationship between Carrie White and her mother is one example that King uses to grasp the audience’s attention. Without the relationship with Carrie, her mother would not have been such a developed character. The audience would never see the symbolism between good versus evil that is surrounded by Margaret White.
I found the same to be true for Sue Snell. She would have never developed as a character because she follows the crowd in the beginning of the story. She allows herself to take part in making fun of Carrie and then becomes more of a martyr.
Although, Robert makes a great point when he states,
“The book is hyperfocused on the events leading up to and following the murderous prom night, making the story more plot focused than character focused.”
I do agree with this statement, even though I believe the characters play a major part in the plot development. King focuses highly on the plot. He uses the structure of flashbacks, interviews, news reports, etc… to lead up to the events of the crucial moment, prom night.
Over all, I believe the entire group became submissive readers to this text. The theme of good versus evil, right versus wrong, is something that we see in our everyday lives to some extent. We all had to let go of our own projections about the impossibility of supernatural powers in order to be authentic while reading this text. This came naturally for most of us, even with our hesitations toward the horror literature genre.
fourtheloveofreading 