The Theme of Death in the fiction of R.L. Stine
Child fiction unquestionably requires an extra surge of imagination on the author’s part and horror fiction requires an even more elevated form of that creativity. When one thinks of horror fiction writers there is a limited list of good authors. R.L.Stine undoubtedly tops that list and is widely renowned for his horror stories especially among teenagers. He shot to fame with his series ‘Goosebumps’ and the extensive use of plot devices in his stories set them apart from other works at the time. However there is an inevitability of including deaths and violence in stories that claim to be horror in nature and the simplistic plot devices soon gave way to the death and murders in his stories. This research paper aims to explore the existence of the theme of death in his works and sheds light on the need for gradual evolution and incorporation of this theme as the societal ideology of his time transformed. Moreover the paper elucidates the domains in which this theme is exhibited by Stine and in doing so, illuminates why Stine is declared to be the king of horror fiction.
For most of the early part of his career, Stine does not have any deaths in his series. He also refrains from incorporation of drugs, violence and degeneracy and focuses solely on the fictional plots of the stories. The situations balance precariously on near-death scenarios but Stine tactfully climaxes the story at that point and eradicates the occurrence of deaths entirely. Moreover the children in his novels were originally never put in scenarios that would be deemed to be too grave by parents and critics.
It is not until Stine moves on to his second set of famous stories that were published in the ‘Fear Street’ series that his writing began inclining towards more death related elements. By comparison the ‘Fear Street’ deaths have a horrid element to them than the ‘Goosebumps’, particularly in the sagas which were classified to have ghastly, bloody and gory deaths. The names of several of his books suggest the theme of death in Stine’s books and the increasing tendency of demises happening in the stories is also highlighted. For example the Fear Street Saga series have books titled ‘Door of Death’ and ‘Dance of Death’ while the ‘Give Yourself Goosebumps’ series have titles like ‘tick Tock, You're Dead!’, ‘The Deadly Experiments of Dr. Eeek’ , ‘Shop Till You DropDead!’ and ‘Checkout Time at the Dead-End Hotel’. Moreover the ‘Fear Street Super Chiller’ series that same out next had similar book titles like ‘The Dead Lifeguard’. Perhaps the most effective death themed title is’ Dear Diary, I'm Dead’ from the ‘The Nightmare Room’ series. ("R. L. Stine." )
Increasingly, the plots of Stine’s books incline towards the theme of death, perhaps in accordance with what the readers were demanding at the time or more so because of an evolution in his writing style. His first novel for adults, ‘Superstitious’ has a plot entirely anchored on the theme of death. It is a story in which the protagonist Liam’s superstitious nature is oddly received by the people of the town where he is a professor of folklore. In reality whenever Liam shies away from his superstitious acts a demon escapes and murders his acquaintances. The theme of death is recurrent in the novel with depictions of gruesome murders on the campus. Stine dwells in great detail how innocents were ripped apart, skinned, with their backs snapped in half. The details elicited feelings of empathy and horror amongst the readers. The novel moves on to describe his love and marriage to Sara and their eventual fight which results in her shattering one of the house mirrors with her shoe. Again the theme of death is highlighted in Liam’s fear of the demon being let out which would kill innocents. The story ends on a sad note with Liam sacrificing his life to save Sara’s. What strikes the reader is not only the fact that the ‘hero’ dies but also the fashion in which he dies. Stine describes vividly how the demon snaps Liam’s back in half over its knee and how all his inner demons escape at the moment. The readers are left with the sinking feeling of more and more deaths that these demons would now carry out making ‘Superstitious’ a perfect example of Stine’s adherence to death in his later novels. ("Superstitious”.) Similarly another of his books, ‘Dead end’ in the Fear Street series is the tale of Natalie and her friends who witnessed a car accident at the dead end. Slowly, all of her friends who were in the car that night begin dying and it dawns on Natalie that someone is desperately trying to hush up this secret forever. The book focuses on the individual murders of her friends with the element of death being in the face of the reader in the midst of the thrilling mystery.( "Dead End." ) Another example to highlight the theme of death differently is that of his novel ‘Welcome to dead house’ in which the protagonists Josh and Amanda face the horror of their lives when the zombies residing in the house vow to make the Benson family just as they are. Stine emphasizes how all these zombies died living in that very house and how the deaths will continue for anyone who attempts buying that house in Dark falls. The antagonists here are the living dead, and this idea is again a direct link to the theme of death that Stine chooses to follow in his work. ("Welcome to Dead House (Goosebumps #1)." The theme of death is also easily spotted in most of Stine’s book endings which indicate more deaths to come. This has been highlighted in the example of his novel ‘Superstitious’ before and is even more evident in his book ‘Say Cheese and Die!’ which is a story of teenagers who steal a cursed camera from ruins and the death rate of the people who are shot with it spirals out of control. The camera is returned to the original place however a new group steals it at the ending. With such an ending Stine makes sure that his readers are left in a state of horror that more deaths are to follow forever and that there really is no hope in the macabre world he has created.
Critics noticed a definite change in Stine’s work over the years especially in reference to the theme of death which began as a distant implied theme in the Goosebumps series but grew into a full-fledged described theme in his later works. For his time in 1990 when the Fear Street novels were published this kind of writing filled the readers with horror. The need to introduce themes like death and vivid violence hence increased as the readers’ mindsets and preferences changed over the decades. The new generation of readers was of those who had watched movies like ‘Saw’ and played videogames which were based entirely on imaginative ways of killing. For such readers the concept of reading a horror story was intertwined with the need to read about graphic deaths. An article posted by CNN rendered this increasing body count in Stine’s stories to be ineffective as subtlety was given higher weightage over the shock value of grisly deaths in young adult’s horror novels. Stine’s increasing reliance on death to attract the attention of more teens left less to their imagination through subtlety, rather excited them for a bit through its gruesome details of all the deaths. In the ‘Fear street’ series the theme of death not only became a recurrent one but perfectly embodied the changed definition of teen horror in Stine’s mind. For him the boundaries of horrors had been stretched with the influx of horror based television films and games. Death was no longer a plain deceasing of the individual but had to have disconcerting, visionary exhibitions of terror and anxiety, life-or-death circumstances, exhilarating shocks and gory details. The sources of death were developed by Stine to be external manifestations of teenagers’ innate insecurities and fears. It was this personification of death and horror that attributed to the wide relevance and immediate recognition of his Fear street series amongst the teenagers. The books continued to reflect Stine’s essential writing style of exalting the protagonist’s perspective but in order to classify them as ‘young adult fiction’ Stine added lengthy violent and more adult like details of deaths.("R.L. Stine’s ‘Fear Street’ Book Series Back from the Dead." )
Stine uses the theme of death in conjunction with themes that depict morals he wishes his readers to grasp from the novels. This can be seen especially in his renowned series, ‘The haunting hour series’ in which most of the stories can be considered to be morality tales. They may give out simple lessons regarding matters we overlook in our everyday lives such as lying, being mean to our siblings, or acting against the benefit of the team. While in real life these matters may go unnoticed often, in Stine’s horror books such themes are punishable by death or everlasting existential bane. This idea of using death to scare off teenagers and children from sins of varying degrees is actually ingenious and teaches long lasting lessons to the children by leaving an impression on their minds. This is apparent in his novels "The Red Dress," "Ghostly Stare," "Game Over " and “The Dead Body”. These lessons may or may not be in the favor of the protagonist. As seen in "Ghostly Stare", the themes of death in applied in juxtaposition to caring for siblings. It is about a girl Lauren who goes to the cemetery to save her brother’s spirit, after the ghost who inhabits his body traps him behind in the cemetery to be a ghost forever. This is actually one up for the protagonist who is doing a good deed. The plot continues to reveal how Lauren eventually succeeds in rescuing her brother but realizes that she has in turn become a ghost forever. Death has again overshadowed the plot of Stine’s novel. Similarly the "Nightmare Inn," is the sad story of a girl Jillian who is rather affected by her father’s recent demise. She constantly struggles to sleep with her nightmares and is in a deep depression. This element of suffering is once again juxtaposed with the theme of death when her mother decides that the best way for her to gain closure to her father’s death is to relive the horror of his death. The children are thus dragged out to spend the night at a haunted inn whose caretaker acts oddly and refuses to divulge any secrets. Again the moral is well learnt here; one must not grieve beyond bearing and closure is best achieved by accepting reality, but Stine’s fantastic writing comes into play when the ending involves werewolves and horrors. This again proves that R.L.Stine uses the theme of death recurrently to his advantage and even if the protagonists escape from the maze of horrors he lays out for them, the ending indicates doom or death. Stine makes sure that there is an unexpected twist at the end of the story, often related to death, which overrules the triumph over the horrors. (Webb, 2012)
Lastly it must be kept in mind that it’s not only the protagonists who are tied to theme of death by Stine. Death is a supernatural occurrence in his novels and extends to those the protagonist has known, leading to complicated mysteries till the very end, which comprises of a climax scene with a deathly scenario for the heroes. If one analyzes this observation with reference to the novel ‘The Dead Girlfriend’, the concept is made crystal clear. The Dead Girlfriend is a novel on the love triangle between a boy, a girl and the boy’s ex-girlfriend who decided to not go down that easily. When the reviewers of a fiction books examined the content of the book they concluded that in terms of mature subject matter such as death, the book scored six on a scale of six with sex being the highest value. This category not only included death of children but also their family members, pets or friends. For instance in the book someone kills Annie’s cat Googles by putting the cat in boiling water. Moreover death by suicide being considered, attempted or completed ranked a whopping three on the scale of six. The book gives constant references of Louisa having died from suicide and the police verifying this claim. ("Facts on Fiction: Book Review for The Dead Girlfriend by R. Stine")
It is safe to conclude that R.L.Stine, being a horror fiction writer inevitably incorporates the theme of death in his writing due to the demand and preferences of the readers. From just twists in the plots to thrill the children to gruesome bloody murder descriptions in his works for young adults, he diversifies his style as a writer. Moreover the theme of death is not limited by Stine. Death triumphs over the protagonists, is left as a doomed ending to horrify the readers and at other times simply spills over to other characters such as pets and friends introduced by Stine. Thus Stine gradually incorporates death in his works but as he does so, he stays true to his writing style and continues to savor the limelight of being the most renowned author of horror fiction.
Works cited
"Dead End." Google Books. N.p., 1 Jan. 1995. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. <http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Dead_End.html?id=80kIAAAACAAJ>.
"Facts on Fiction:Book Review for The Dead Girlfriend by R. Stine." Facts on Fiction : Book Review for Dead Girlfriend, The by R. Stine. Scholastic, Inc., 1993. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. <http://www.factsonfiction.org/books/review/677>.
"R. L. Stine." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Nov. 2013. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._L._Stine>.
"R.L. Stine’s ‘Fear Street’ Book Series Back from the Dead." FOX31. CNN Wire, 25 Nov. 2013. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. <http://kdvr.com/2013/11/25/r-l-stines-fear-street-book-series-back-from-the-dead/>.Bottom of Form
"Superstitious." Goodreads. N.p., 14 Sept. 1995. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. <http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/176257.Superstitious>.
Webb, Charles. "5 Terrible Things You'll Learn From 'R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour'" MTV Geek RSS. N.p., 20 Sept. 2012. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. <http://geek-news.mtv.com/2012/09/20/r-l-stines-the-haunting-hour/>.
"Welcome to Dead House (Goosebumps #1)." Goodreads. N.p., 1 Sept. 2003. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. <http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125553.Welcome_to_Dead_House>.
