Skip to content
1882
Volume 73, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 0017-0461
  • E-ISSN: 2507-0401

Abstract

Abstract

Mythology has undoubtedly had an inestimable influence on most modern thought, art, and literature. Although myths are ubiquitous and often serve as the texture of modern storytelling, their manifestations and use in the works of Stephen King have largely gone unnoticed. The approach taken in this essay for is twofold in design. Firstly, the essay examines myths in King’s work. These instances are reviewed not only according to content and context but also analysed through the lenses of scholarly commentary written on these passages. The second part uses the work of René Girard, especially his examination of the scapegoat mechanism that was first developed in his 1972 (Paris: Grasset). This application of Girard’s ideas and theories allows for a fresh reading of King that recontextualises and reinterprets the ritual violence that humans inflict on each other, as found in King. This article establishes parallels between the violence in King to those mythological stories that may shed light on shared universal and transcendent themes.

Abstract

La mitologia ha indubbiamente avuto un’influenza inestimabile sul pensiero, l’arte e la letteratura moderni. Sebbene i miti siano onnipresenti e spesso fungano da trama della narrazione moderna, le loro manifestazioni e il loro utilizzo nelle opere di Stephen King sono in gran parte passati inosservati. L’approccio adottato nel presente lavoro è duplice per impostazione. In primo luogo, il saggio esamina i miti nell’opera di King. I casi esemplari sono passati in rassegna non solo in base al contenuto e al contesto, ma vengono analizzati anche attraverso le lenti fornite dai commenti che gli studiosi hanno scritto su tali passaggi. La seconda parte fa uso del lavoro di René Girard, in particolare del suo esame sul meccanismo del capro espiatorio che è stato sviluppato per la prima volta nell’opera (Paris: Grasset) del 1972. Tale applicazione delle idee e delle teorie di Girard consente una nuova lettura di King che ricontestualizza e reinterpreta la violenza rituale che gli esseri umani si infliggono a vicenda, così come si trova in King. Q uesto articolo stabilisce paralleli tra la violenza in King e le storie mitologiche che permettono di far luce su temi condivisi universali e trascendenti.

© Brepols Publishers NV
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1484/J.GIF.5.126020
2021-01-01
2025-12-05

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Alexander 1979 = A. E. Alexander, Stephen King’s Carrie – A Universal Fairytale, The Journal of Popular Culture 13 (2), 1979, 282-288.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Antonelli 2015 = E. Antonelli, Little Red Riding Hood: Victimage in Folktales and Cinema – A Case Study, Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture 22, 2015, 107-132.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Beahm 1989 = G. Beahm (ed.), The Stephen King Companion, Kansas City – New York 1989.
  4. Beal 2019 = K. Beal, Monsters at Home: Representations of Domestic and Sexual Abuse in Gerald’s Game, Dolores Clairborne, and Rose Madder, in Simpson – McAleer 2019, 61-82.
  5. Bloom 2006 = H. Bloom (ed.), Stephen King, updated edition, New York 2006.
  6. Brintnall 2002 = K. L. Brintnall, The Gospel According to Carrie: A Girardian Explication of Female Spectatorial Pleasure, MA thesis, Berkeley: Pacific School of Religion, 2002.
  7. Bufkin 1965 = E. C. Bufkin, Lord of the Flies: An Analysis, The Georgia Review 19 (1), 1965, 40-57.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Burger 2016 = A. Burger, Teaching Stephen King Horror, the Supernatural, and New Approaches to Literature, New York 2002.
  9. Buxton 1999 = R. Buxton (ed.), From Myth to Reason? Studies in the Development of Greek Thought, Oxford 1999.
  10. Camus 2011 = C. Camus, The Outsider: Neil Gaiman and the Old Testament, Shofar 29 (2), 2011, 77-99.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Chaplin 2017 = S. Chaplin, The Postmillennial Vampire Power: Sacrifice and Simulation in True Blood, Twilight and Other Contemporary Narratives, Cham 2017.
  12. Chen 2012 = F. Chen, A Representative and a Scapegoat: Analysis of Tessie Hutchinson in The Lottery, Theory and Practice in Language Studies (2) 5, 2012, 1022-1026.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Chow 2006 = R. Chow, Sacrifice, Mimesis, and the Theorizing of Victimhood (A Speculative Essay), Representations 94 (1), 2006, 131-149.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Ciuba 2015 = G. M. Ciuba, Exposing the Victim and Victimizing the Exposé: Persecution and Parody in O’Connor’s “The Partridge Festival”, Flannery O’Connor Review 13, 2015, 60-77.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Clasen 2014 = M. Clasen, Evil Monsters in Horror Fiction: An Evolutionary Perspective on Form and Function, in Packer – Pennington, vol. 2, 2014, 39-47.
  16. Cohen 1990 = A. Cohen, The Collapse of the Family and Language in Stephen King’s The Shining, in A. Magistrale (ed.), The Shining Reader, Mercer Island 1990, 47-60.
  17. Cowan 2018 = D. E. Cowan, America’s Dark Theologian: The Religious Imagination of Stephen King, New York 2018
  18. Cowdell – Fleming – Hodge 2015 = S. Cowdell – C. Fleming – J. Hodge (eds), Mimesis, Movies, and Media: Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, volume 3, New York 2015.
  19. Crews 1962 = F. C. Crews, E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism, Princeton 1962.
  20. Cueva 2004 = E. P. Cueva, The Myths of Fiction, Ann Arbor 2004.
  21. Daniel-Hughes – Tappenden – Rice 2017 = C. Daniel-Hughes – F. S. Tappenden – B. N. Rice (eds), Coming Back to Life: The Permeability of Past and Present, Mortality and Immortality, Death and Life in the Ancient Mediterranean, Montreal 2017.
  22. Desmond – Kavanagh 2003 = J. Desmond – D. Kavanagh, Organization as Containment of Acquisitive Mimetic Rivalry: The Contribution of René Girard, Culture and Organization 9 (4), 2003, 239-251.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Ferrell 2000 = W. K. Ferrell, Literature and Film as Modern Mythology, Westport 2000.
  24. Finley 1965 = M. I. Finley, Myth, Memory, and History, History and Theory 4, 1965, 281-302.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Frear 1992 = G. L. Frear, Jr., René Girard on Mimesis, Scapegoats, and Ethics, The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics 12, 1992, 115-133.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Gibson 1984 = J. M. Gibson, An Old Testament Analogue for “The Lottery”, Journal of Modern Literature 11 (1), 1984, 193-195.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Girard 1972 = R. Girard, Violence and the Sacred, translated by P. Gregory, Baltimore 1972.
  28. Girard 1974 = R. Girard, The Plague in Literature and Myth, Texas Studies in Literature and Language 15 (5), 1974, 833-850.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Girard 1977 a = R. Girard, Violence and Representation in the Mythical Text, MLN, 92 (5), 1977, 922-944.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Girard 1977 b [2005] = R. Girard, Violence and the Sacred: René Girard, translated by P. Gregory, Baltimore 2005 (originally published in 1977).
  31. Girard 1979 = R. Girard, Mimesis and Violence: Perspectives in Cultural Criticism, Berkshire Review 14, 1979, 9-19.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Girard 1993 = R. Girard, A Venda Myth Analyzed, in Golsan 1993, 151-179.
  33. Golding 1954 = W. Golding, Lord of the Flies, New York 1954.
  34. Golsan 1993 = R. J. Golsan, René Girard and Myth: An Introduction, New York – London 1993.
  35. Graf 1987 [1993] = F. Graf, Griechische Mythologie, translated by T. Marier, Baltimore – London 1993 (originally published in 1987).
  36. Hatlen 1990 = B. Hatlen, Good and Evil in Stephen King’s The Shining, in A. Magistrale 1990, 81-104.
  37. Heehs 1994 = P. Heehs, Myth, History, and Theory, History and Theory 33, 1994, 1-19.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Jackson 1948 = S. Jackson, The Lottery, New Yorker 24 (18), 1948, 25-28. The version of the text used for this essay can be found at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/06/26/the-lottery.
  39. Johnston 2017 = S. Iles Johnston, (Un) Happy Returns: Ancient Greek Concepts of a Return from Death and their Later Counterparts, in Daniel-Hughes – Tappenden – Rice 2017, 17-36.
  40. Kaplan 2016 = G. Kaplan, René Girard, Unlikely Apologist: Mimetic Theory and Fundamental Theology, Notre Dame 2016
  41. King 1974 = S. King, Carrie, New York 1974.
  42. King 1977 [2013] = S. King, The Shining, New York 2013 (originally published in 1977).
  43. King 1978 = S. King, Night Shift, New York 1978.
  44. King 1980 = S. King, The Mist, New York 1980.
  45. King 1981 = S. King, Cujo, New York 1981.
  46. King 1989 a = S. King, 1983 interview by Eric Norden, in Beahm, 1989, 19-45.
  47. King 1995 = S. King, Rose Madder, New York 1995.
  48. King 2008 = S. King, Duma Key, New York 2008.
  49. Magistrale 1990 = A. Magistrale (ed.), The Shining Reader, Mercer Island 1990.
  50. Magistrale 2010 = A. Magistrale, Stephen King: America’s Storyteller, Santa Barbara – Denver 2010.
  51. Martin 1965-1966 = J. S. Martin, Mrs. Moore and the Marabar Caves: A Mythological Reading, Modern Fiction Studies 11 (4), 1965-1966, 429-433.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. McAleer 2009 = P. McAleer, Inside the Dark Tower Series, Jefferson – London 2009.
  53. Most 1999 = G. Most, From Logos to Mythos, in Buxton 1999, 25-50.
  54. Mulvey-Roberts 2001 = M. Mulvey-Roberts, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, in Thomson – Voller – Frank 2011, 389-398.
  55. Nash 2006 = J. W. Nash, Postmodern Gothic: Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, in Bloom 2006, 167-176.
  56. Nazare 2000 = J. Nazare, The Horror! The Horror? The Appropriation, and Reclamation, of Native American Mythology, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 11 (1), 2000, 24-51.
     [Google Scholar]
  57. North 1985 = R. North, Violence and the Bible: The Girard Connection, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 47 (1), 1985, 1-27.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Packer – Pennington 2014 = S. Packer – J. W. Pennington (eds), History of Evil in Popular Culture: What Hannibal Lecter, Stephen King, and Vampires Reveal about America, volumes 1-2, Westport 2014.
  59. Paik 2015 = P. Y. Paik, Apocalypse of the Therapeutic: The Cabin in the Woods and the Death of Mimetic Desire, in Cowdell – Fleming – Hodge 2015, 106-117.
  60. Palaver 2013 = W. Palaver, René Girard’s Mimetic Theory, East Lansing 2013.
  61. Reino 1988 = J. Reino, Stephen King: The First Decade, Carrie to Pet Sematary, Boston 1988.
  62. Sanders 1999 = J. Sutliff Sanders, Closure and Power in Salem’s Lot, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 10 (2), 1999, 142-154.
     [Google Scholar]
  63. Schopp 1997 = A. Schopp, From Misogyny to Homophobia and Back Again: The Play of Erotic Triangles in Stephen King’s Christine, Extrapolation 38 (1), 1997, 66-78.
     [Google Scholar]
  64. Sears 2011 = J. Sears, Stephen King’s Gothic, Cardiff 2011.
  65. Sedgwick 1985 = E. Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, New York 1985.
  66. Shields 2004 = P. J. Shields, Arbitrary Condemnation and Sanctioned Violence in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, Contemporary Justice Review 7 (4), 2004, 411-419.
     [Google Scholar]
  67. Simpson 2014 = P. L. Simpson, A Brief Guide to Stephen King, Philadelphia 2014.
  68. Simpson – McAleer 2019 = P. L. Simpson – P. McAleer (eds), The Modern Stephen King Cannon: Beyond Horror, Lanham – Boulder – New York – London 2019.
  69. Smith 1997 = J. Rosier Smith, Writing Tricksters: Mythic Gambols in American Ethnic Literature, Berkeley 1997.
  70. Staels 2009 = H. Staels, The Penelopiad and Weight: Contemporary Parodic and Burlesque Transformations of Classical Myths, College Literature 36 (4), 2009, 100-118.
     [Google Scholar]
  71. Steblin-Kamenskij 1982 = M. I. Steblin-Kamenskij, Myth, translated by M. P. Coote, critical introduction by E. R. Leach, epilogue by A. Liberman, Ann Arbor 1982.
  72. Strengell 2003 = H. Strengell, You Can’t Kill the Goddess: Figures of the Goddess Artemis in Stephen King’s Fiction, Studies in Popular Culture 26 (1), 2003, 47-64.
     [Google Scholar]
  73. Strengell 2005 = H. Strengell, Dissecting Stephen King: From the Gothic to Literary Naturalism, Madison 2005.
  74. Thomson – Voller – Frank 2011 = D. H. Thomson – J. G. Voller – F. S. Frank (eds), Gothic Writers: A Critical and Bibliographical Guide, Westport 2011.
  75. Uphaus 1977 = S. Uphaus, The Centaur: Updike’s Mock Epic, The Journal of Narrative Technique 7 (1), 1977, 24-36.
     [Google Scholar]
  76. Vickery 1974 = J. Vickery, The Centaur: Myth, History and Narrative, Modern Fiction Studies 20, 1974, 29-44.
     [Google Scholar]
  77. Vickery – Sellery 1971 = J. B. Vickery – J. M. Sellery, The Scapegoat: Ritual and Literature, Houghton Mifflin 1971.
  78. Voller 2001 = J. G. Voller, Bram Stoker, in Thomson – Voller – Frank 2011, 389-398.
  79. Weller 1990 = G. Weller, The Redrum of Time: A Meditation on Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Children and Stephen King’s The Shining, in Magistrale 1990, 61-78.
  80. White 1971 = J. J. White, Mythology in the Modern Novel: A Study of Prefigurative Techniques, Princeton 1971.
  81. Wiater – Golden – Wagner 2000 = S. Wiater – C. Golden – H. Wagner, The Complete Stephen King Universe: A Guide to the Worlds of Stephen King, New York 2000.
  82. Wilson 2014 = E. Wilson, Warring Sovereigns and Mimetic Rivals: On Scapegoats and Political Crisis in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Law and Humanities 8 (2), 2014, 147-173.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1484/J.GIF.5.126020
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field.
Please enter a valid email address.
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An error occurred.
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error:
Please enter a valid_number test
aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYnJlcG9sc29ubGluZS5uZXQv