Note to the reader: Im having to stop every 15 pages due to the number of reader response posts needed and the big build of the book (the book is a delux edition that has King's novels "Salem's Lot" and "The Shining" along with "Carrie"), so the natural numbering of the novel is off.
The story starts off in a town called Chamberlaine which is probably in Maine, the state in which most of King's stories take place. It begins with an article, which is an ongoing theme within the novel, from a news paper from Westover, Maine called Enterprise which reports a rain of stones that fall on the house of one Margaret White causing damage to her house and risking the life of her then 3 year old daughter Carietta, or Carrie, the main character. On the second page it full on admits that Carrie has telekinetic powers, which means she can do things with just her mind. She is not socially accepted and is a chunky brown hair, brown eyed girl with acne all over her body. The entrance of their gym teacher Miss Desjardin offers the description that she has somewhat of a manly figure. And so the story of Carrie begins with an omniscient point of view which has no singular speaker. It also cuts back to an article, this time from a book that was written about her called "The Shadow Exploded" which reveals that she has extreme potential as a great and powerful telekinetic or TK as it is later called. Her powers, though, only seem to come out in times of extreme stress. Carrie is 16 years old when she unfortunately starts her period in the gym shower, and in turn is open to extreme ridicule by all the girls that see it to the point were they start throwing sanitary napkins and tampons at her whilst yelling "PLUG IT UP!!!". Carrie goes into extreme shock and falls back into the corner of the shower stall. This strikes a chord with me because I've also had to deal with bullying when I was younger and I hate that nothing has changed since the 70s when this was written to now because of the simple fact of human nature. Miss Desjardin, though, proves to be a white knight in the situation and helps Carrie out even though she doesn't quite understand whats going on with Carrie. Carrie knows nothing about things of that sort and is extremely naieve thanks to her overly religious mother who is a character that also strikes a chord with me because that character type is the most hated for me. The fact that whenever they are interviewing students in the article they always referred to them as "surviving student" which I find very suspicious and a foreshadow to an upcoming event. When Miss Desjardin has to slap Carrie across the face it shows that she has an optomistic view on teenagers because she hated having to slap Carrie and it said in the book that "she still believed all students were good". Carrie tried to blot her lipstick with a tampon further proves her naivete because of her not knowing what it's for. And as expected everything starts falling and breaking. When Carrie is taken into the principals office the assistant principal, Mr.Morton, tells more about Carrie's mother and builds more on the erratic behavior that is her mother, like when her mother was a teenager she beat a fellow student with a handbag because she saw them smoking a cigarette. The first 15 pages end with Desjardin telling Mr.Morton that she will severely punish the girls who harassed Carrie, which is my favorite part in the story because the concept of revenge is extremely appealing to me.
Rogers , TS . "Stephen Kings Carrie ." Online Image.Teaessare Illustration and Design . March 17, 2010 . July 9,2011 <http://teaessare.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html>.
Ah many themes running amuck here! Please Ms. BW tell me, how is it that a mother--who obviously has had and may still have a period--neglects to inform her daughter about it's advent. Biologically she should have had her first period at 14 in general so why not have that conversation. Furthermore, is there anything besides her appearance that leads the female community to hate her? Also, what commentary do you think King is trying to make about the nature of innocence, religion, femininity, womanhood, society, human nature, revenge and redemption?
ReplyDeleteYes very many themes lol. And judging from her mother's character type its probably because she thinks that her having a period is a sin just as her developing breasts is a sin which I am to blog about later. And the whole thing with Carrie getting it late is probably because of her telekentic powers or maybe even mind over body because I know Carrie wouldnt have wanted to start her period if she knew it was a sin. And as far as people hating her it wasn't just the female community it was all of her piers who maliciously bullied her most if not all of her life, and I believe it's because Carrie is so different from everyone else in her manners and the way she acts, which could be partly blamed on her mothers dictatorship over her which I am also to blog about later. As far as what King's view on innocence it seems to me he's portraying that there's certain levels on innocence, like Carrie being at one level, and Ms.Desjarin being at another, Chris being at another and so on because they all end up portraying their certain traits of innocence along with certain traits that are not so innocent; religion it seems to me King is saying to handle it with care because of the eratic way Margaret White acts is an example of religion getting out of hand,also in my next blog. Femininity and womanhood is shown through all the different female characters and some of the feelings and experiences they go through which is typical of a woman coming of age and the different ways a girl becomes a woman (ei Carrie comes into woman-hood differently than say Chris which is a popular girl whom is going to be later on). King also does a good job with portraying the dog eat dog side of human nature and the way we, as humans, sometimes crave revenge like when Carrie gets angry in the assistant principal's office and breaks (with her mind) his ash tray because he repeated saying her name wrong. Lastly, I don't really see where redemption really plays a role yet.
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