Post+Modernism-+Stephen+King

media type="custom" key="9465878"media type="custom" key="9561502" Stephen King’s work is loaded with postmodern ideals. In many of his most famous novels, the plot is constantly in turmoil, the readers suffer the same narrowed vision as the characters.(Gale) With no asides to clues them in on the horrors to come, dreams and reality begin to merge into one nebulous dream-state, and the people (or creatures) that are introduced into this maelstrom of chaos usually do little to clear up the tangled web the main characters have found themselves ensnared in.(Gale) This is perfectly shown in kings book “The Regulators”, in this tale, published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, a neighborhood is isolated from the rest of the world by mysterious supernatural means. There is no hope for escape, and no sign that anything is wrong until a bizarre vehicle straight out of a child’s cartoon drives down the street with guns blazing, killing two residents.(King 38) The people living in the neighborhood never found out what caused this brutal attack, even after the demons were stopped, and did nothing to ring such devastation down upon themselves. There was no fated reason for their death or survival, only the whims of an evil force and the courage of average citizens to fight for their lives. In this Story one can see the rejection of the modernistic, organized, viewpoint, instead focusing on each of the characters individual struggles with danger. This exemplifies the postmodern viewpoint, a rejection of conventional streamlined narrative in favor of a grittier, more broken story to better drive home the crushing danger King’s characters find themselves in time and time again.(Gale)

Coming away from this paper, there has been a distinct representation of Stephen King’s work and its connections to the postmodern movement. With this knowledge hopefully future insights into the mind of this most prolific author, and a heightened enjoyment when deconstructing his work, will be found. Mr. King is truly a prodigy in the burgeoning postmodern movement and will surely reinforce this assessment of him as he continues to write his glorious prose.(Gale) In closing this paper, it has been shown that Stephen King is mot definitively the quintessential writer of the postmodern period.