Stephen King: A Literary Analysis

Stephen King is a man of many talents and personalities; not only is he able to scare his readers immensely, he is also able to make them laugh. I chose a passage from Stephen King's On Writing for this assignment; the passage stuck in my mind for a long time after I finished the book. His writing style is unique compared to the other autobiographies I have read over the years. Everything that a person writes has a meaning or purpose whether it's a letter or an essay and voice, tone, and style play a very important part in how the reader views the piece of writing. King manipulates the rules of writing in order to emphasize the meaning of the passage, which is to describe an early childhood experience, so the

Do like Stephen Kings stories or dislike them? His stories are pretty good, it doesn’t seem like there are many flaws in his writings.

Stephen King said, “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They’re inside us, and sometimes, they win.” This quote sums up the arguments made in the article “Why We Crave Horror” and what King believes. Stephen King makes three correct claims saying that humans crave horror to have a peculiar sort of fun, face our fears, and reestablish our feelings of normalcy.

I remember as a child the weekly trip to the public library. Our town was a typical small town in the Midwest and a trip to the Carnegie Library on Main Street was always an adventure. I remember the high ceilings and the slowly turning steel gray fans which hung from elaborate plaster medallions. I remember the smell of wood, of leather and paper covered in printers’ ink. I remember dust lines on the shelves in some sections, and I remember standing in lines behind children in others. Yet, most of all I remember the wonder and the excitement waiting to pick the perfect book with the perfect story to fill a need of adventure in the coming week.

Do you ever wonder why you or other people take delight in watching horror movies? What makes them so interesting? Why does the general society enjoy entertaining themselves with the horror genre? Well, Stephen King might have the answer to that. Mr. King strongly agrees with the idea that we might all have a little craving for watching such morbid scenes or reading about them, and creating our own gruesome scenario. Stephen King believes that humans crave horror for the purpose of facing our fears, to reestablish our feelings of normality, and to have an unusual type of ‘fun’, and he’s right.

It was rare for me to see my extended family, but I remember always being intent on getting my Aunt Diane’s attention. When I did go to her house, she would envelop me in her arms as I peeked into her tutoring room, stacked with books and bowls of jelly beans and cashews. Ostensibly for students, she would encourage me to steal a handful. Soon, the warmest of interrogations would begin: “What book are you reading?”, a question for which I learned to prepare. We discussed characters who broke her heart—“could you believe how Dorian Gray turned his back on Basil?”—or those she fell in love with—isn’t the first line, ‘Howard Roark laughed’, so enthralling?”. She ingrained in me how books open up new worlds and that “the great reader of literature is destined to become a great reader of life.” With infectious passion and the kindest of smiles, she was the one who encouraged me to read books, and to love

Jack also liked exploring books. His mother and father loved to read, and they saved all their books. They filled the New House with books – books in the study, in bedrooms, and on the stair landing, books in the attic piled up to Jack’s shoulders.

Personally, I did not enjoy the “Reading to Write” passage by Stephen King. The passage was not very interesting so I had a hard time getting myself to read it. It reminded me of the dull passages I had to read in high school, because it’s nothing I would ever choose to read outside of class. However, I did learn a few things, for example, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: Read a lot and write a lot” (King 221), a person can learn the most from the really bad written books, most of the time an author can use one specific word to many times, and that someone can always find the time to read. If I had the option to read more on this passage I probably wouldn’t read it, just because it’s not something that

Stephen King’s: IT, is a story which is set in the small town of Derry, Maine; it is illustrated as the most oministic place in the book where everyone in the town acts so strange when kids start to go missing strangely. It happens every 27 years, by a mysterious creature that lives beneath, of Derry, and starts to target seven unlikely group of characters that come together to defeat the mysterious beast so IT can never harm the town anymore, and 27 years later the seven friends get a disturbing phone call that tells them that IT has come back and they will need to finish off their promise. But the story itself is a coming of age, which is these characters learn what it is like in the real world when, even if your a kid you can’t really depend on the grown ups to help “Eddie discovered one of his childhood’s great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought” (King, 814). and if they are going to defeat the creature they will have to face their fears.

It almost seems as though it were yesterday when I would shut off the lights, slam the door, ferociously hop on my bed, and read my favorite book until my eyelids simply couldn't handle their own weight. Of course my parents would make a routine check in my room to tell me goodnight so I had to read with great caution, for if my mom were to catch me reading after bedtime, there would certainly be consequences. Though through my little and inexperienced mind, I believed this risk was well worth it, because this turned out to be the first chapter book I had enjoyed from beginning to end: Among the Hidden.

It was a blasé Saturday evening when twenty-four year old Christopher Jackson was driving home from an extensive day of work. Fortunately, the drive from his work to his abode was only a five minute drive. Christopher was anxious to get home because he was planning on reading a book. Most people could not relate to Christopher’s obsession with books. He was a true bookworm. Once at his house, Christopher quickly pulled into his driveway and parked the car. He then walked into his two-story house and went straight to his personal library to pick a book to read. Christopher’s eyes scanned down every aisle of his library. His library was in perfect alphabetic order, and he had twenty-two aisles of, as he believed it to be, bliss. His library

For most people, as children they start out reading picture books or short stories. But as they age people mature and engage in books that fulfill their interests and taste. Although it’s not the most unique process ever, well thats how I slowly became the writer I am, with a little help of my best friends. After I got into 5th grade I noticed that my school had a colossal library! I automatically felt the need to venture into it. I started wandering through each aisle but I felt a shock of disappointment. I remembered that I didn't know what kind of books I liked to read. I was so used to having other people assign me books to read that I never thought about reading books for fun. With that thought in my head, I rushed to get my best friend at the time, Makayla. When I told her about my setback, her face lit up like the sky on the fourth of July. All of a sudden she grabbed my wrist and pulled me through the halls until we arrived at the library. She started rummaging through the shelves and tossing out every other book she saw. After she grabbed almost half of the books, she stood in front of me as I had books piled to my nose. “That should be enough don't you think?” she beamed with a goofy smile on her face. I had to try not to laugh so the books wouldn’t fall to the ground. Because it was against school policy I could only check out three of the books but Makayla checked out two more for me and one for herself. After we raced back to class before the bell rang, and as I sat down in my desk I skimmed through the pages and observed what kind of books Makayla picked out for me. The books were supernatural books. I never read books like that before but I thought there's a first for everything. I got home that night and I sat down on my bed and started reading one of the books. I didn't know how long I was reading for because I got so caught up in

One of the most well-known modern writers, Stephen King has become a master of weaving minute details together to form intricate plots and settings. To the average reader Stephen Kings works of horror are the epitome of greatness and fear as far as books and writing is concerned. However to a literary critic the unorganized story lines and the overwritten plots become a hassle to read. Many critics are stunned to see how successful King has become based off his simple prose and messy writing. Kings success is directly related to his ability to paint pictures in the readers head. King is very descriptive in his scenarios and settings which draw the reader in.

My entire childhood was surrounded with books. Weekly trips to the library were exciting adventures, and books could always be expected as gifts during birthdays and holidays. My personal collection continued to expand as I grew older, but it was nothing compared to the massive amount of books that my parents had collected over the years; construction manuals,coffee table books, novels, and reference books littered almost every room of the house. Among the numerous volumes that consisted of my home library were fascinating books from my mom’s childhood, books with yellowing pages and weak spines that I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to finally read. Inhabiting a bookshelf in the basement, these books were full promise to me. The prospect of unread adventures and mysteries within my own house made me

It had never occurred to me before that a story was more than its plot, or that anyone would ask me “Why did the author write that way?” instead of “What did the author write?”. The question of intention recreated me as a reader. I used to think that I was so important I might as well have invented the words in a story as I read them, but in reality, every page in a book is a result of conscious choices made by the author. Once I understood this, the idea of a book changed for me. Eighth grade was the first time I made distinctions between things that I had read and stories that were important to me. This process became the foundation of the type of reader I continue to be today, consequently, introspection, rather than attention, is the center of my reading experience.