Inside the Dark tower series : art, evil, and intertextuality in the Stephen King novels PDF
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Inside the Dark Tower Series This page intentionally left blank Inside the Dark Tower Series Art, Evil and Intertextuality in the Stephen King Novels PATRICK MCALEER McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA McAleer, Patrick, ¡980– Inside the Dark towerseries : art, evil, and intertextuality in the Stephen King novels / Patrick McAleer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-3977-5 softcover : 50# alkaline paper ¡. King, Stephen, ¡947– —Criticism and interpretation. 2. Fantasy fiction, American—History and criticism. I. Title. PS356¡.I483Z783 2009 8¡3'.54—dc22 2008052460 British Library cataloguing data are available ©2009 Patrick McAleer. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover photographs ©2009 Shutterstock Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com This book is dedicated to my folks, Lee and Denise. Thanks for opening the door(s) for me. Acknowledgments THEBOOKCONTAINEDHEREINcould not have been accomplished alone. And although there will certainly be many names I forget to include in the following list of individuals to whom I owe a debt of gratitude, I do extend a heart-felt thanks to everyone named hereafter (and those not named who undoubtedly have been of help and inspiration). First, I would like to thank Mary Findley who encouraged me to write this text and connected me with the editors at McFarland. Mary, your influence, guidance and friendship are treasured and valued more than you know. Next, I thank my parents Lee and Denise, to whom this book is dedi- cated, as they introduced me to the world of Stephen King as a child. I also extend my appreciation to my friends Matt Campbell and Kim Socha, whose support (and editing) has been invaluable. I would also like to thank Tony Magistrale, who has been an excellent source of infor- mation and scholarship on Stephen King as well as a very helpful col- league. Thanks to my extended family, namely Candace Dunlop, Jennifer McAleer, and Art Novosel, as well as my friends Joel McKinney and Sandy Krenkel, is also given. Next, I would like to acknowledge all the students who I have taught over the last several years as they not only were subjected to, from time to time, my musings on King, but also pro- vided insights and suggestions to me alongthe way. And I thank the many friends, family members, and teachers who not only have been there for me and have nurtured my interest in King in their own ways, but who also have been a pleasure to know—while your names are too many to list, I am sure that you know who you are. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments vi Preface 1 Introduction—The Dark Tower: A Literary Anomaly, an Experiment in Horror, or a True Mark of Literature? 5 ✦ CHAPTER 1 ✦ The Ending Is Only the Beginning: Genre and Its Influence on Climax 27 ✦ CHAPTER 2 ✦ Illustrating Imagination: The Infringement (and Evolution) of Visual Elements in the Dark Tower Series and The Gunslinger Born 71 ✦ CHAPTER 3 ✦ The Face of Evil: Behind the Hood and Under the Cowboy Hat 107 ✦ CHAPTER 4 ✦ Repetition, Integration, Immersion, and Intertextuality: A Tale of At Least Two Stories 137 Conclusion—“Time is a face on the water”: or Will The Dark Tower Endure? 173 Works Cited 183 Index 189 vii This page intentionally left blank Preface ASSTEPHENKINGISCONSTANTLYtypecast as a horror writer, The Dark Tower series seems to be a drastic departure for King’s Constant Reader as well as those who have seen King’s films and have been swept up in the horror label attributed to him. The discrepancy between King’s bet- ter-known fiction and The Dark Tower instigates several questions, including those which ask why King decided to write outside of his des- ignated genre. The resulting initial reluctance from readers to approach The Dark Tower, along with the harsh criticisms from book reviewers and scholars, suggests that these texts hardly reflect King’s best writing. And although King himself says, “I know—none better, alas—that it [The Dark Tower] has not been entirely successful,” the perceived faults of the series should not be seen as motive to either condemn the books or avoid reading them (The Dark Tower 845). To the contrary, even though The Dark Tower may not be King’s most representative work or wholly indicative of the skill and craft observed in his other novels, it is the cornerstone work for an oeuvre that consists of over forty novels and hundreds of short stories. It is with this in mind that this book has been written—not only does The Dark Tower call for attention and study as the center of King’s fictional universe, but also with no purely scholarly- oriented texts available on Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, the need for a book like this is evident. I became immersed in the world of The Dark Tower in the mid 1990s just before Wizard and Glass was published. While I am by no means a fanatic of fantasy tales, I do consider myself a fan of story, and King’s Dark Tower books certainly provide an abundance of story. Like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Ursula LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea books, The Dark Tower immerses readers with a taste for the expansive and even the epic, tales which focus on the imaginative and 1
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