Carrie was Stephen Kings first published novel, debuting in 1974. In honor of reading his first novel, I wanted to talk a little about King himself. Most of this information is coming from his introduction to Carrie, which I found very interesting. King was a high school teacher in Maine when Carrie was published, but was also doing odd jobs to help support his wife and kids, like working in the industrial laundry service (the same job Carrie’s mother works in the novel) and submitting short stories to be published in newspapers and journals. He describes how his wife would tell him to “get writing” whenever an emergency or illness would come up that they’d have to pay for. When starting Carrie, King initially threw the pages away, and it was his wife who took them out of the trash, read them, and convinced him to tell the rest of the story. It’s a good thing she did, because Carrie is attributed to his breakthrough into horror and full-time writing!
The 15 year anniversary edition of Carrie (the one I read) also has an introduction by Margaret Atwood, which I was thrilled to see! If you don’t know, Margaret Atwood is a feminist icon who wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, which I highly recommend reading if you haven’t already (they also turned it into a great series on Hulu). She discusses how Carrie addresses feminist issues and how it was published during the second wave of feminism, which affected its reception. Her introduction was very well written; she discussed the different first reactions to the book and how well King was able to capture the real horror: How terribly real human beings treat each other, especially children. The one grievance I have with her introduction is that it basically spoiled the entire book and I didn’t know it would do that! So from now on I think I’ll read book intros after I finish the actual book.
Now, before we get into the book, I want to mention how it’s structured. The book is told both from Carrie’s perspective and through the reports and books written about the event afterwards. For example, for every main event in this book, we experience it through Carrie and then get a synopsis of the facts and what people think caused and affected the events through newspaper articles, committee hearings, and biographies from survivors. Nothing is spoiled by reading the reports made afterwards because they only discuss what is going on in line with what we see with Carrie. For this summary, I’ll go through all of what Carrie experienced and then summarize the reports afterward.
Summary:
The sequence of events in Carrie happens rather quickly, I believe within a week or less. We start off with Carrie, a 17-year-old high school student. She is quiet, awkward, and keeps to herself. She is presented as the girl everyone always picks on. This is actually one of the things I find unrealistic in Carrie: after going to school with Carrie for years, the other students at Ewen High School seem not to know anything about her other than that she’s the weird girl. I find it strange and hard to believe that throughout their whole academic career, they’ve never talked to or gotten to know Carrie in the slightest. The book starts off when Carrie gets her first period at the end of gym class in the shower room (communal showers, *shudder*). All the other girls notice, and it quickly becomes apparent that Carrie doesn’t even know what menstruation is. The girls are all disgusted, and after hurling insults at Carrie, they physically throw feminine hygiene products at her until she is crouched naked in the corner of a shower. The teacher, Miss Desjardin, comes in and is at first very rude to Carrie (I think she even slaps her, a common gesture in this book for some reason) until she realizes the girl thinks she is bleeding to death. Carrie is sent home and Miss Desjardin discusses disciplinary action for the other girls with the principal.
We find out that Carrie lives alone with her mother, who is, to put it in a slightly indelicate way, a religious nut. Her mother uses religion as justification for abusing and tormenting Carrie. Her mother never taught her about menstruation because, in her words, it is a woman’s curse for after she has sinned. After Carrie gets home, her mother slaps her and makes her pray for forgiveness. She is constantly being put in a small closet with a grotesque crucifixion until she has come to Jesus. We also learn about the time Carrie was three and went over to talk to the neighbor girl who was sunbathing in a bathing suit. Her mother called her a whore for wearing such clothing and screamed at Carrie for talking to and looking at her. When she takes Carrie inside, the whole neighborhood begins to hear screaming and things being thrown around the house. They believe it is the mother throwing things but we find out it is actually Carrie who has some telekinetic abilities. At the same time, rocks begin to fall from the sky, just on Carrie’s home, leaving residents terrified. With the start of her period, it seems her telekinetic powers start to grow, and Carrie is aware of this.
The punishment for the other girls in the shower room is a weeks detention, and if they don’t show up they are banned from attending the spring ball (or prom) that weekend. Chris Hargensen is furious, berating Miss Desjardin and having her lawyer father threaten to sue the principal. Thankfully, the principal stands his ground and threatens to countersue for the harassment of Carrie. On the other side of the spectrum we have Sue Snell, who participated in the teasing but feels immensely guilty for it. She starts to feel bad for Carrie for all the awful things people have done to her over the years. What is Sue’s solution to her guilt? Maybe going and apologizing to Carrie and actually including her in things from now on? WRONG. This girl feels guilty so she asks her boyfriend Tommy to ask Carrie to the prom that weekend. I’m sorry, what? In no world would anyone ever do this. Unrealistic element number two, but I suppose the story must go on. Tommy asks Carrie to the prom and while hesitant at first, Carrie agrees. Carrie’s mother is absolutely furious, convinced Carrie is sinning and will be going to hell. Carrie starts to resist against her mother though, telling her she will go to the prom with Tommy, despite her mother’s wishes. Her mother slaps and punches herself in the mouth drawing blood, but Carrie is unrelenting (Carrie’s mother inflicts pain on herself several times in the book to try and get Carrie to do what she wants, I find this man, manipulation to be really weird…).
While Sue is getting her boyfriend to ask Carrie to prom, Chris is getting her boyfriend to go collect pig blood so they can dump it on Carrie. They come up with a plan to get all the seniors to vote for Tommy and Carrie for prom king and queen. When they are up on the stage, Chris will be able to pull a rope and have buckets of pig blood fall onto them. At this point, you might think Chris is the main antagonist, and on some level, you’d be right, but as the story progresses, I believe the true evildoer is Chris’ boyfriend, Billy Nolan. Chris is angry that she’s been called out for being a jerk and a bully, so she comes up with this plan to get back at Carrie. Horrible, yes, but pretty standard behavior. Billy, however, takes the idea to a whole new level. He is invested in this prank even more than Chris and makes it known he doesn’t care who wins king and queen, he will dump the blood on anyone, even Chris. I believe if Billy were removed from the equation, Chris might back out of the plan entirely (I’m not trying to justify Chris’ behavior or say she’s not a bad person, the point I want to make is that Billy is a really bad guy, and I believe he’s the real reason for the towns eventual destruction).
At the prom, Carrie is beginning to come out of her shell. People tell her her dress is very beautiful, and she explains that she made it herself and enjoys sewing. This is the point in the book where I start to feel really bad for everyone involved, because without the pig blood prank, things are really looking up for Carrie. She is socializing and putting herself out there, the other kids are treating her better, and she’s starting to stand up to her abusive mother. She is a senior, so she could potentially escape her mother and go on to live a happy life. But after the prank, everything changes for the worst. As Carrie and Tommy are elected prom queen and king, Chris and Billy pull the wire connected to the buckets and all hell breaks loose.
After being drenched in pig blood, Carrie is confused and at a loss for words. She is disgusted and secretly blaming herself for going to prom and expecting things to be fine in the first place. The bucket above Tommy actually strikes his head and kills him. This is quick and relatively painless, and this turns out to be the best thing that could have happened to him (apart from getting to live a full life of course). Compared to what everyone else is about to experience, he got the easy way out, which I’m glad, because he was trying to do Carrie a kindness and he treated her with dignity and respect the whole night. At first there is silence from everyone else at prom (no one else knew this was going to happen) but then people start laughing at the unpredictability of it all. I don’t think they were laughing directly at Carrie, but just the crazy scenario unfolding before them. Once they start laughing, they can’t stop. Carrie gets a hold of herself and starts to leave the gym. Someone trips her and she has to crawl part of the way. Once she leaves, she goes outside and cries. After a few minutes her sadness turns to anger and hatred and she becomes determined to get back at everyone who wronged her (which, as we will see, she believes is the entire town).
What follows is a truly horrific and gruesome scene that King writes incredibly well: Carrie goes back into the school and uses her telekinetic abilities to close all the gym lobby doors. When people hear the slam, they start pushing and shoving to try and get out. Meanwhile, Carrie is there on the other side of the doors, smiling at them (The chaperones come over and start slapping kids for pushing and shoving, because a good slap will solve anything apparently). Pretty much everything Carrie does from this point forward is with her mind. She turns on the sprinkler system in the gym and everyone gets soaked. Because of the electrical band equipment and the water, students everywhere start to get electrocuted. A few students make it out a back stage door, but most are trapped in the gym and electrocuted/burned to death. Eventually, the fires started will burn down the whole school with almost the entire junior and senior classes inside.
Carrie then makes her way towards town. In an effort to slow the fire department down, she dismantles several fire hydrants, draining them and creating more standing water throughout the town. She bleeds the gas station pumps and opens the gas main in town which causes massive explosions, one which destroyed several blocks at once. At this point, the town siren is going off and emergency vehicle are being called in from surrounding areas. People, wondering what is going on, wander out into the streets as they start to glow with the spreading fire. Massive amounts of people are walking down the street when Carrie snaps the overhead power lines. The power lines fall, causing mass hysteria. As people try to run for safety, they are electrocuted and set ablaze. Houses catch fire and spread the flames. Most of the attention is on the school, so no fire trucks come to extinguish the downtown and residential areas.
Carrie makes her way home, causing as much chaos and destruction as telekinetically possible. Little does she know that her mother is waiting for her with a knife. She reveals that she tried to kill Carrie twice before but was “too weak” to follow through with it. She is waiting in the kitchen with a knife for Carrie to return home. When Carrie arrives, she pleads with her mother for help, to which her mother replies, let’s pray together for the last time. As Carrie is kneeling beside her mother, she sinks a kitchen knife into Carrie’s back. In response, Carrie slows her mother’s heart until it stops. After she leaves her home, the spreading fire engulfs the neighborhood.
After dropping the buckets of blood, Chris and Billy go back to a roadhouse to wait out the joke. When they realize what is going on in town, they get ready to try and cover their tracks. When they go out to their car Carrie is there, bloody and ready to take revenge. After Chris and Billy get into their car, Carrie takes control and forces it to drive full speed into the roadhouse. The gas tank then explodes. Carrie falls to the ground, exhausted and with the knife still in her back. Sue Snell makes her way to Carrie, being drawn to her for some reason, and they talk telepathically before Carrie dies. Carrie probes Sue’s mind and finds she had no idea about the prank and is not to blame. Carrie, completely drained, dies while trying to look up at the stars.
The Reports/Other Accounts:
The reports that are referenced throughout the book are pages from the White Commission (White being Carrie White), a body set up to investigate what happened on prom night. Other scientific journals are mentioned as people start to study the “TK” or telekinetic gene. Interviews from people who had experiences with Carrie, or people who survived prom night are interviewed, like an old neighbor of the Whites, or other residents of the town. Sue Snell’s autobiography is also referenced.
Throughout the reports, a great deal of time is spent on the genetics of Carrie’s ability. During the autopsy, they found enough significant alterations to her brain to conclude that if she had this supernatural ability, it would be genetic. They were interested in tracing back her family tree to try and find other instances of people with the TK gene. The report suggests testing school children for this gene so we would know if anyone else had this ability, but then the question of what to do with those children arose. There is no “cure” for telekinesis, so if a child was found to possess it, they could only lock them up or kill them, which would be wildly unpopular. They don’t find any solution to this problem.
The White commission also spent a lot of time trying to pin the blame for prom night on Sue. This is ironic because Sue was the only one actually trying to be nice to Carrie throughout the entire book. They were skeptical that Sue had no contact with Carrie even though she was able to find her after she destroyed the town. They were also very interested in the role Tommy played, whether or not he was in on the prank. Character witnesses ultimately rule this possibility out. Chris and Billy are not mentioned in the White Commission’s reports. Sue Snell’s autobiography deals a lot in trying to push the blame off of herself, by simply stating the facts as she knew them, including how she treated Carrie in the past and how sorry she felt for that.
Carrie ends with over 400 people in the town being killed. The scene after prom night is very bleak. Businesses close down and decline to reopen, and people begin selling their homes in droves. No one wants to stay and live in a town where such a tragedy has occurred. It is interesting to me how this whole town, one with a long history and many generations of people, could have been destroyed by a 17-year-old girl who undoubtedly wouldn’t have even called it her home. It’s crazy how the course of history can be changed in just the blink of an eye.
My Thoughts:
For being such a quick story (both in overall length and in the timeline), Carrie was packed full of both real-world and supernatural horror. For Kings first novel I would have expected something lesser, but Carrie is all there. Of course, please go read the book if you want to experience Carrie in its entirety; my summary is unfortunately not able to capture the level of detail King is known for.
Most of my thoughts were included within the summary for this book! The next book review will be of Less by Andrew Greer. Keep readin!
-Atlas
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