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Stephen King Paper Essay, Research Paper

Stephen King

“The most haunted of houses is the human mind.”

-Patrick McGrath

When you read that quote, what does it make you think? Well, it makes me think of one thing. It makes me think of all of the terrifying stories I ve read by the master of the macabre himself, Stephen Edwin King. His mind has conjured up countless novels and short stories to do none other than to scare you out of your mind. His style and vivid detail meticulously planted in every work he does is the reason for such reactions to his horrific books. I invite you to come and discover the man behind the horror and learn what inspires him to write such imaginative novels and short stories.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland Maine in the year of 1947(Beahm 1). He has led a very interesting life, and as you will soon see, he has also had his high and low points. The following documentation on King s life has changed my mind about King. I now think of him as a normal human being instead of someone higher than me.

One of the interesting things of his life is that at the young age of twelve King had begun his writing career. King and his older brother owned their very own newspaper. The paper sold for five cents a copy and was full of local news and fictional works by King (Beahm 2). I found this to be quite humorous. I can see two kids sitting at the mimeograph machine printing out their very own five cent newspaper.

When King was at the impressionable age of four, something occurred that King would hold with him for a very long time. King s family life was typical, for the fifties. King s mother stayed at home and took care of the home while the father worked. Stephen s mother and father loved both Stephen and his brother Danny very much. Although one night his father stepped out to buy a pack of cigarettes and he was never seen or heard from again after that night. This, as you can imagine, had a very profound effect on the young Stephen King. He recalled in his autobiographical work “Danse Macabre” that he hardly remembers seeing his mother for the next nine years after his fathers disappearance. His mother worked as hard as she could just to make ends meet (Beahm 1) . When I learned about this particular struggle in King s life I couldn t help but to empathize with him. I couldn t picture growing up without my father. I can t imagine how much emptiness he must have felt.

Stephen Said that he was first introduced to horror when he was a meager seven years of age. He sat, one night, in the hallway next to his mother s room and he was eavesdropping on a radio show that his mother faithfully listened to every week. The show was a radio adaptation of Ray Bradbury s story “Mars is Heaven.” He said that he was terrified (King 116). He said “I slept in the doorway where the real and rational light of the bathroom could shine on my face.” He also said that the radio show was worded in such ways that you actually “saw” what was happening (King 117). He says that he strives for that and from all of the works I ve read I can say he has done exactly that.

If you talk to most people they would say that King s first novel was “Carrie.” I had originally thought this too. But it is definitely wrong. King had wrote and submitted four other novels before “Carrie,” in 1974 (Winter 12). The four novels were written while King attended the University of Maine. The titles for the novels were, “Rage,” “The Long Walk,” “Roadwork,” and “The Running Man.” You might recognize these four books. They were the works written by the late Richard Bachman. Richard Bachman was actually just a pseudonym for Stephen King. King was settled in to multiple deals with publishers and had had three other novels in addition to the four mentioned above (Winter 12). The way he saw it those other books would not see print for at least five more years. So he came up with the idea of releasing them under a different name. He did this as an experiment. To see just how much of his best-selling books were because of his name. The “Bachman Books” as they were later called, sold alright on the bookshelves. When the information came out that Richard Bachman was actually Stephen King the books couldn t stay on the shelves for very long at all (Winter 12-13).

One of Kings most famous books, however, was “Carrie.” There is a pretty interesting story behind this first of many more published novels. King started the novel in 1975. When he started writing he liked the idea for the novel. As he progressed he grew tired of the ideas he had. He became frustrated and threw the work he had done right into the garbage can. Later that day while his wife, Tabitha, was cleaning she found the manuscript in the trash-can. She started to read it and she absolutely loved it. She persuaded him to submit it to the publisher. He did and to his surprise he received a book deal. His first contract was for Four-Hundred thousand dollars (Beahm 28-33).

Perhaps the most inspirational thing that King has is the good old state of Maine. If you notice, most of King s works take place in Maine. He once said, “I write about Maine because it s what I know best, but I also write about Maine because it s the place I love best……You have to spend a lot of time in a place before you start to catch the beat of the people s voices, their dialects, and the way they live.” From this quote you can see how much love he does have for the place in which he lives (King 97). It is this love gives King the drive to give back to the place he calls home. King has given over two point five million dollars to the Bangor Public Library. He is constantly contributing towards new things for the library. The library was dedicated in his honor (Beahm 81). In addition to the library, King found a way to give back to the

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