Strawberry Spring Stephen King Analysis

A horror story should have some elements to grab the attention of audience such as suspense and mystery. However, it is a challenge to achieve this goal especially in a short story, but that did not seem to be an obstacle for Stephen King, who is famous for writing horror fiction stories. Jeffrey W. Hunter, who is editor of Contemporary Literacy Criticism, believes that Stephen King is a marketing phenomenon for the large number of books he has sold. One of his first works was “Strawberry Spring,” which was published along with other short stories in a book titled Night Shift in 1978. In the same manner as other Stephen King’s writings, “Strawberry Spring” is a story loaded of mystery where death is one of the main components. The story begins with a narrator’s memory about what happened eight years ago when he was in college in 1968. The narrator remembers how a serial killer who was called Springheel Jack came into action during strawberry spring which is a natural phenomenon that only happens every eight years. Four young women were murdered in that year. Despite the efforts and investigations of police, the murderer was never caught. After eight years, the strawberry spring has come back and the killer, as well. Without a doubt, first person narrative point of view, setting, and symbolism are crucial elements that make “Strawberry Spring” a fascinating story.

"Where there 's a will, there 's a way" is a phrase often used here in America and it holds true to all walks of life including migrant workers. The desires range from the simple want to make an honest living to wanting to support the family to just wanting to live the American dream. However, the "way", does not always possess the same innocent light of the optimistic saying. In Eric Schlosser’s article, “In the Strawberry Fields” he discusses exactly that. Immigrants often end up doing the laborious farm work most Americans are unwilling to do with good reason. More specifically, he discusses the working conditions of migrant workers in strawberry fields, one of the most difficult row crops to grow. This work is largely done in California where the farming industry is allowed to bend laws as they please, routinely exploiting the vulnerability of immigrants’ legal states. Though, the concepts of small fruits and workers ' rights are not completely relatable to one another until we move past the happy connotation of the vibrant red, juicy fruit and into the grittier efforts that go into making them what we know in grocery stores. Many of us have the pleasant memories of the cool fruit on warm summer days but this image is quite the opposite to its production. Bent at the waist, hundreds of migrant workers, pick fruits under the sweltering summer sun and it would seem like a way a farming that vanished long ago but it is most certainly here. Though the conditions are worsened

My hands are murder-red. Many a plump head drops on the heap in the basket. Or, ripe to bursting, they might be hearts, matching the blackbird’s wing-fleck. Gripped to a reed he shrieks his ko-ka-ree in the next field.

Stephen King is the author of many novels and short stories with creepy settings; King admits that he fears bugs to add to the list of things that freaks him out. One of his earlier short stories from 1976, women at college fall victim to a “Jack the Ripper” style character. My analysis of King’s use of the literary elements, combined with his horror reflected in his short story, “Strawberry Spring”. (The Fact Site, 8 Apr. 2017)

Horror is an opportunity for us humans to face our fears. Reading Stephen King’s short story “Strawberry Spring”is a perfect example that we use horror to “show that...we are not afraid” (King, “Why We Crave” 1). We go to prove ourselves as brave. In comparison, watching horror movies is alike “daring the nightmare” (King, “Why We Crave” 1). In this case, the “nightmare” is facing our fears, considering horror films are equivalent to going through a literal nightmare. To point out, the narrator in “Strawberry Spring” is “enchanted by that dark and mist-blown strawberry spring, and by the shadow of violent death that walked through it…” (King, “Strawberry Spring” 1). As a matter of fact, we are all enchanted by the darkness in the story just as the narrator is. Additionally, King describes this process as riding a roller coaster by reason of “a really good horror movie may… surprise a scream out of us… the way we may scream when the roller coaster

King is mistaken in his claim that people see horror movies for personal pleasure. Not all people find horror movies emotionally soothing. According to King, “The fun comes from seeing others menaced – sometimes killed” (6). This statement is false since people aren’t generally amused by the sight of a dead

Furthermore, we watch horror in order to show others we are audacious. King already has his ways of giving us thrills through his twisted stories. In “Why We Crave Horror,” Stephen King explains we watch these movies “To show we can, that we are not afraid, that we can ride this roller coaster” (1). We are all prone to letting out a good scream when the roller coaster dives straight down, which is the same as as watching a scary movie. There are those who go with their friends and family to show they are not frightened by what they are watching, it’s to prove to others and themselves that they are strong willed and not weak. “We are all daring the nightmare” when we go to watch horror (King, “Why We Crave” 1). Sometimes when we get scared,

“Strawberry Spring” offers the reader an opportunity to “show that we are not afraid” of facing our fears (King, “Why We Crave” 1). After all, anyone who has heard of Stephen King will automatically know that reading one of his stories may result in a thrill. For example, near the beginning of the narrator’s encounter, “a junior named John Dancey” happened upon a “dead girl lying in a shadowy corner of the Animal Sciences parking lot” (King, “Strawberry Spring” 2). Accordingly, the explicit imagery used to reveal the brutality of Gale Cerman’s death is shocking! Most of us spend our entire lives avoiding our “hysterical fear” of death, and allowing us to read such a description really is “daring [our] nightmares” (King,

In “Why We Crave Horror Movies”, Stephen King discusses his view on why people go to the movies and watch scary movies. He starts with small and understanding reasons to bigger and more deeper ones. One was that people tend to want to dare themselves, to show that the can handle the scariness of the movie. Another reason was to feed and keep in check those deep dark thoughts that sometimes want to come out to play. Stephen implies that everyone in this world has a dark and crazy side to them.

It was a dark, cold, November night. The moon overlooked the lake as it mirrored its reflection. It was peaceful, too peaceful. I was on my way to my aunt’s, who lived a mile or so from my house. I didn’t want to go, but my mother made me. She was working a double shift at the hospital and she didn’t want me to be alone tonight. Tonight was the night my brother died two years ago. It’s a funny story how it happened, but that’s a story to tell another time. According to Stephen King’s essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies” he draws viewers into horror stories like the one above simply because we crave it. King claims in his essay we obsess over the wanting of horror as if we are daring the nightmare. The human condition is finally allows people

A Peculiar Sort Of Fun As a child, my mother told me about murderers sneaking into people's house and killing them. It is part of the human condition. That also is why we crave horror movies is so we can get scared and prepare for yourself if it happens to us.

It has come into question as to why as a culture we gravitate towards such a taboo genre where things such as torture, supernatural beings, and psychic phenomenon abound? Stephen King (2014) poses that since horror is so violent and insane, that it appeals to the worst in us all, bringing out or inner insanity. However, others have posited that there are functional reasons as to why we love horror such as fears and scary stories having evolutionary qualities, releasing emotions through catharsis and even providing a fictional space to master stressors in

Stephen King is the author of many novels and short stories with creepy settings; King admits that he even has a fear of bugs to add to the list of things that freaks him out. In one of his earlier short stories from 1976, several women at New Sharon Teachers' College fall victim to a “Jack the Ripper” style character with a mysterious fog that weighs heavy over the campus. King, the narrator, also a student, leads us on a twisted tale in a foggy New England town to search who committed the horrifying acts. My analysis of King’s use of the literary elements, together with his history of horror reflected from his short story, “Strawberry Spring” ( The Fact Site, 8 Apr. 2017)

As a child my mom told me about her ghost story it made me not want to think or watch scary movies. Just having the thought of knowing that something we can’t see could be watching me anywhere and everywhere gives us the chills.The fact when we think about it we crave to see horror films. Why is it that people feel normal when we watch scary movies? According to Stephen King’s “Why We Crave Horror” says that we aren’t normal and the things we feel towards movies are part of the “Human Condition” which means like to have a dark side or sadness, mad, happy etc. The fact that “ Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly”( Morticia quote). Stephen King rightly claims that us as humans crave horror to face our fears, get over the scary things, and to get the feeling of our adrenaline rush.

The purpose of a horror story is to entertain and scare the reader into believing that fictional stories could happen in real life. The ending to a horror story can either make the story or break the story, leaving the author with the task of creating an ending as horrifying as the story that was just read. There are many different ways an author can craft an ending to their horror story in order to accentuate the works’ horrific effects. The different endings are shown throughout four different authors and five different works. Different themes, motifs, and symbols have all been used in order to bring horrific works to life for the readers, but their effects all come together to induce fear and strengthen the endings of the stories, leaving readers and viewers with frightening images of the fate that found the main characters. The different works use themes of unavoidable fate, hopelessness, and ambiguity to strengthen the horrific effects in the endings of their stories.