Religion wasn’t the only factor in how Carrie was being raised by Margaret White. Research has shown how a mother’s lack of affection and focus on authoritarian-style parenting could cause her child to internalize their feelings, ultimately causing anxiety and depression in the child. This authoritarian style of parenting is defined by low levels of warmth and high levels of control, discipline, and punishment.16 This absolutely describes the White parent-child dynamic. The ideal style of parenting, according to experts, is an authoritative approach. This includes a high level of warmth; nurturing and communication, with a high level of control; setting clear expectations and following through with fair discipline. Even though Margaret may have been raised in a household and culture that influenced her parenting style, this doesn’t mean that she couldn’t have changed her behaviors for the benefit of her daughter. Culture can explain behavior but doesn’t excuse it. In an ideal world, Margaret would have sought out resources for help in balancing her parenting style to help Carrie succeed and gain more self-control.
Another theme in Carrie is the psychology of bullying and conformity in high school. Studies have found that bullying in high school is more likely to occur in classrooms and situations in which the norm has been established to support the bullying behaviors.17 Teens spend most of the day with their peers and will tend to engage in bullying rather than intervene when an incident occurs. Chris Hargensen, as the main perpetrator of Carrie’s torment, has a lot of influence over the other girls in the novel. They willingly go along with her actions and are rewarded for their conformity. A 2016 study found that adolescents will often try to avoid negative evaluations from others by keeping their opinions and behaviors in conformity with others.18
What sort of long-lasting effects do those who are bullied, or bully, suffer? A study that looked at the psychology of those who were victims and perpetrators of bullying found that:
Kids who had been victims only (who never bullied others) had greater risk for depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, generalized anxiety, panic disorder, and agoraphobia as adults. But worse off were kids who were both bully victims and bullies—they experienced all types of depressive and anxiety disorders, and suffered most severely from suicidal thoughts, depressive disorders, generalized anxiety, and panic disorder, compared with the other groups of participants. In fact, about 25 percent of these participants said they had suicidal thoughts as young adults, and about 38 percent had panic disorder.19
If the characters in the novel had survived, they would ultimately have lived with the effects from their actions.
The novel ends with Carrie dying from the wound inflicted by her mother, the ultimate bully. “Blood was always the root of it, and only blood can expiate it.”20 Carrie was powerless but became powerful. She harnessed the strength of her telekinesis to get revenge on those who had wronged her. Although King isn’t completely pleased with the novel, it seems an appropriate first venture into publishing. Sometimes the least expected person can come out and surprise everyone in the end.
CHAPTER TWO
The Shining
Since Stephen King came into the literary scene in the 1970s, he has inspired numerous fellow authors. A new generation is finding his writing, thus creating their own brand of horror with odes to King and his impressive body of work. So, it begs to reason that King himself has found inspiration in the authors who came before him. Not surprisingly, he has been quite vocal about the importance of reading if one wants to become a writer. “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”1 He further explains how finding inspiration is a good thing. “You may find yourself adopting a style you find particularly exciting, and there’s nothing wrong with that. When I read Ray Bradbury as a kid, I wrote like Ray Bradbury—everything green and wondrous and seen through a lens smeared with the grease of nostalgia.”
In honor of their favorite sci-fi author, the crew of Apollo 15 named a crater on the moon “Dandelion” after Ray Bradbury’s novel Dandelion Wine (1957).
It is, in fact, a Ray Bradbury story that first motivated King to form the first buds of what would become The Shining. Bradbury’s science-fiction short story “The Veldt” published in the 1951 anthology Illustrated Man centers on the Hadley family who live in a future where their house does everything for them, including providing a sort of virtual reality that creates your dreams. This concept, of someone’s dreams coming true, was at the forefront of King’s creation of the novel. King started the story, centering on a psychic boy in an amusement park, in 1972, but was inspired to change the setting when he and Tabitha visited the historic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. One night, King walked the empty hotel as his wife slept. Later, he recounted a strange nightmare:
That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in a chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of the book firmly set in my mind.”2
It’s estimated that 1.6 percent of the adult US population has borderline personality disorder, but that number may be as high as 5.9 percent and nearly 75 percent of people diagnosed with it are women.
It’s amazing to think that The Shining, such an indelible mark on modern horror, would’ve never existed if King hadn’t visited the Stanley Hotel and been struck with a bad dream! In our book The Science of Monsters (2019), we researched the effect of isolation on humans in relation to the Torrance family’s long winter in the fictional Overlook Hotel. In fact, there are many fascinating avenues to discover in a novel of ghosts, psychics, and the fracturing of a seemingly all-American family. At the heart of the novel is patriarch Jack, who, like many of King’s characters, is a writer and teacher. While the Overlook Hotel may be a catalyst for murder, it is clear that Jack not only has a history of abusing alcohol but also abusing his family. This taboo subject is dealt with subtly in the novel, as well as in the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film adaptation. In his article “The Shining: The Hellish World of the Tyrannical Patriarch,” Jacob Derin delves into both Freudian and Jungian theories to further understand the character of Jack. From a Freudian perspective:
Classic psychoanalytic thinking focused quite heavily on the pathologies born in the cradle of dysfunctional families. Within this context, The Overlook Hotel’s claustrophobic environment represents a dysfunctional household dominated by a dictatorial patriarch who holds sway over a helpless mother and child. Seen in this light, the setting draws us into the insulation and increasingly unhealthy psychological landscape of that family.3
And from the archetypal, Jungian perspective, Derin goes as far to say that this “tyrannical patriarch” exists on a larger scale, as countries are often led with such abuse of power.
As an adult, Stephen King has no memory of his friend being hit by a train. But, after the accident, four-year-old Stephen refused to talk for the rest of the day. His mother described him as “pale as a ghost.” These are classic signs of shock.