Report Of Stephen King

& Books Essay, Research Paper

Stephen King is a very well known writer who wrote many best-selling books. He wrote both horror and drama books, but even the drama books seemed to have a disturbing edge to them. Stephen Kings mind is probably very twisted yet very interesting judging by the stories he wrote. His creativity probably came from his childhood. As a child he grew up on a farm, giving him lots of time to use his imagination. His creativity started as a child. He would often play cruel pranks on his brother that would scare him for days, but these pranks where not normal childhood pranks, they where very much thought out and most likely took a lot of time to prepare. In his free time, when he was not trying to scare his brother, he liked to write. He often wrote short stories, coming up with one scary monster after another. This creativity and love of writing is still with him today. Many of the stories that he wrote turned out to be movies; Carrie, Cojo, The Stand, and Pet Sematary to name a few. The two books that I read by Stephen King are part one of The Green Mile: The Two Dead Girls, and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

Stephen king was born on September 21st 1947 in Portland Maine General Hospital. Stephen had an older brother who was born and adopted in 1945. Stephen was raised mostly by his mother Nellie Roth Pillsbury. His father Donald King went out for a pack of cigarettes when King was still a toddler and never returned. Stephen lived mostly between Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Massachusetts and Maine with his mother and her family. Finally King settled with his mother and brother in Durham, Maine. Here in Durham, Stephen and David started their schooling. As a child Stephen was fearful of many things. His three major fears were insects, rats, and most of all death. Many people feel that his fears as a child may have encouraged and inspired his writings. When Stephen was twelve years old he had his first experience with writing. He and his brother published a little newspaper that they called Dave s Rag . While King was in high school he published a collection of 18 short stories called People, Places, and Things . Also, while he was in high school he wrote his first short story that was seen by the public in a magazine review. The story was called I Was A Teenage Grave Robber and it consisted of 6,000 words. Then in 1966 King graduated high school and went to the University of Maine at Orono. His first year there he sold his fist novel called The Glass Floor for about 35 dollars. Then in 1970 King graduated from the university with a bachelor s degree in science and in English and certificate to teach in high school. Right after collage Stephen took many small jobs including pumping gas. During theses times he would continue to write his stories and soon he began to make money by selling them. Then on January second, about one year after he graduated collage, Stephen married a young women named Tabitha Jane Spruce. Soon after his marriage King took a job at Hampton Academy and they moved to Hermon, a small town just west of Bangor, Maine. King soon started to write a book about a young teenage girl named Carietta. This book he named Carrie. After a few pages he threw the book away. Luckily his wife found and read the story and encouraged him to finish it. When he completed the book they sent it to a company called Doubleday. Doubleday bought the book and soon hundreds of copies where sold. The money that they received for this book allowed Stephen King to quit his job as a teacher and become a full time writer. Stephen King wrote numerous short stories, novels, and series books. Many of his novels have become movies. Over 300million copies of his novels have been sold. Many people call him the master of horror.

Today King lives in Bangor, Main with his wife and three kids, Owen Philip, Joseph Hillstrom, and Naomi Rachel. Today Stephen still writes, and is coming out with a new book called DreamCatcher. This will be his first full-length novel in three years.

The first story I read was part one of The Green Mile: The Two Dead Girls. This story took place in a jail for the murders and rapists that were sentenced to death. The Green Mile was the hallway with the dirty green rug that the prisoners had to walk down to get to the electric chair. The story was about a very large man named John Coffey. John Coffey was a little slow in the head. He was brought to the prison and sentenced to death because he raped and murdered two young girls. As he said he did not mean to do it and he couldn t stop him self. This was true. One night he went out and took too little girls of the back porch where they were sleeping and brought them into the woods. When the parents woke up and found them missing they got a police and a bunch of dogs to track him down. When they found him he was sitting in the woods crying with one bloody girl under each arm. He was very confused and did not try to run for fight when they arrested him. They took him to the jail and put him up to walk the green mile. This book basically introduced the characters and setting for the other five parts. Another character introduced was Mr. Jingles, a small mouse which, every one watches with interest. One of the cellmate’s says that he owns and trained Mr. Jingles. But, this of course in not true.

The second book I read was The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon this story takes place in the woods with a young girl and her arguing mother and brother on a long hike. The young girl, whose name is Trisha, Trish for short, decides to take a break from her mother and brother who are constantly arguing, and goes into the woods to pee. When she is through doing her business she decides to take a short cut to get back to her family and she gets lost. She figures if she goes in a straight line she will get back to the trail but she is going in the wrong direction. To keep herself company she imagines that Tom Gordon is in the woods with her and she talks to him. Tom Gordon is her favorite baseball player who plays for the Red Sox. By the second night in the woods she feels like she is being stalked. And the feeling is correct. This feeling stays with her, on and off, for the entire time that she is lost in the woods. By the fourth night she is starting to hallucinate due to some of the stuff that she ate. She even sees Tom Gordon in the woods next to her, and he talks to her. This is very comforting to her. Also to keep herself company she listens to the Red Sox games at night on the little walkman that she brought with her for the hike. After a little over a week in the woods she finally finds a path in the woods and follows it. It leads to an old abandoned road. She follows this road for a while. Then night comes and she sleeps in an old broken down truck. In the morning she gets up and walks for a while. In the afternoon the feeling that she is being followed comes back and this time she knows that it is coming for her. Then the creature, or the special thing as she calls it, comes out of the woods and she sees it s a black bear. She decides not to run and faces the bear. Trish is about to through her walkman at it when a poacher shoots the bear and it runs off. Trish is taken to a hospital and reunited with her family.

The two books were similar in their style of writing. They were both horror books and had the same theme of trying to survive. The settings in both stories are completely different. One takes place in a prison and the other takes place in the woods. Also the characters are very different. In The Green Mile the characters are all large, full-grown men. In The Girl Who Love Tom Gordon the main character was a young girl. Both, Trisha from The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and the characters in The Green Mile had to face the thought of death. Only, Trisha actually had a chance of surviving, and the prisoners had no chance at all.

Stephen King read the Dr. Doolittle books by Huge Lofting as a young child. This is what got him into writing in the first place. Also as a young child he read the book I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. This book is what got him into the idea of writing horror along with a bunch of other books and stories he found among his father s collection of pulp horror-fantasy novels. He wrote his first short story at the age of seven because of his father leaving on night and never returning. Stephen Kings fears also contributed to his writing. His fear of rats led to a couple of books. The Graveyard Shift, a series of books he wrote had a couple of rat encounters. As far as I know he never wrote a book completely about rats but they jump out at people once in a while in a few of his books. Another fear that he had was insects. Also like the rats insects appeared in his books once in a while. Insects crawling on people or swarms of bugs attacking people. Another rear he had, this fear probably contributed to most of his writing, was the fear of death. Every book that he had published and sold had something to do with death on way or another. Another thing that contributed to his writing was just living in a small town with a few people around. This gave him time to let his mind run. This is probably where he got his creativity. Even his pets influence him to write. The book Cojo was about a rabid dog that terrorized people in the town. This novel was based oh his won dog who s name was Cojo.

For the Green Mile, The Two Dead Girls, Boston Globe said King surpasses our expectations, leaving us spell bound and hungry for the next twist of plot. And Will satisfy even the most jaded horror devotee. And Entertainment weekly says (the Green mile) has everybody talking (Kings) best fiction in years A prison novel that s as haunting and touching as it is just plain haunted Over all people say that this book is as scary as it is realistic. And it is very realistic, right down to Mister Jingles the tame mouse. Every body had something good to say about this book. I did not find any criticism that said anything bad about this story. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon USA Today said A delightful read, a literary walk in the woods, and not just for baseball fans. And the New York Daily News said a fast, scary read King blasts a homer (HE) expertly stirs the major ingredients of the American psyche- our spirituality, fierce love of children, passion for baseball, and collective fear of the bad thing we know lurks on the periphery of life. And Entertainment weekly says plenty of thrills (King s) an elegant writer and a master of pacing. Over all people also liked this book a lot. They felt that it was gripping and horrifying. They liked that it was a quick easy read.

I also found The Green Mile to be an intense and realistic story. I also agree that it was haunting and touching story. It really made you feel sorry for John Coffee and it scared to think that things like this happen. I feel this book is good for both people who love horror and for people who like or of intense stories. I felt that The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was and intense and horrific story that was easy to read and not to long. It really made you feel for the little girl in the woods. This book can appeal to most anyone s taste. Is had to do with baseball for sports fans, and It s a good horror story to read.

Over all both of these stories were great. Both the stories where thrilling and intense. Also they really made you feel for the characters and it makes you feel sorry for what there going through. In The Green Mile you feel for John Coffee because he is put in jail and it wasn t something that he could control. And in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon you fell sorry for this little girl who is lost in the woods at the age of 9 who is being stalked by what we found out to be a bear. Once I started to read these stories I could not put it down. They were both pretty easy reads and page-turners. I highly recommend both of these stories. I feel that Stephen King is an extremely good writer and has lots of talent. And I, Also, believe that his writings reflect somewhat on his life. I think that everyone should read some of his stories at some time in their life.