This paper will reflect over one of the classic literature works of King. It will reflect the interruptions of the one haunting message from the book. It will reflect over interviews and reviews regarding the book. Last it will prove why this book is a true haunting of horror and science fiction.
There will not be certain of events that will proceed. This will focus on aspects of the book that gave Goosebumps. The reason it is not being presented in chronological order of events for this is a reflection. The haunting of wheel of fortune was one that gave great terror.
The wheel of fortune did not have an ominous tone coming from it. It was the reaction from the character Sarah that made the wheel of fortune haunting. It was also the wheel itself, even though it seems friendly. The character Sarah was getting these visions from the main character Johnny. These visions that she was getting were like an eerie version of the Twilight Zones. She was described Johnny as having a personality coming over. The wheel of fortune had drawn the audience due to Johnny telepathic. A telepathic that Sarah did not understand for not even Johnny was aware of this ability.
It was not till the healing stage of the coma that he recognized better the abilities he had. There was the experience when the doctors were examined, and he recognized the location of the doctor patient mother due television. A vision that itself was haunting. It was haunting because how it occurred was not due to a specific pattern or form. It was a vision that gave him the ability to know ask for the picture of the doctor wallet. This was the only vision he had. He had a vision with the nurse, as well.
He grasped the nurse hand, not with cruelty but curiosity awe and told her that her son was going to be fined. It was like that his visions had the ability to feed into people sorrow and concerns. This was not always the case. When he helped, his physical therapist about the fire she did not want to believe. When she called her neighbor to inquire about the fire, she became a believer.
A believer is the ability of this book. It what makes these countless haunting aspects seem real? It seems so real that a person can feel they are like they are. It is defined people beliefs. It about the characters in the book; they define the novel and give the novel the real haunting.
The haunting of the book is due to the fact of the dreams of the main character. There needs to be clarification before going further. There are two main characters. One of these characters is Johnny, who has these visions all due to two brain injuries from childhood and a car accident. The other main character is a sinister monster that is devoted to the pleasures of insanity, and this is the character of the Mayor Stillian. He is a serial killer that we discovered in the novel. He is the one that has these bad headaches that drive him to insanity. He is the one that wears a mask so well, the rest of his town respect him. In the book, there was a part about one of the most prominent citizens nephew getting into trouble. This prominent citizen turns to the Mayor for help for his nephew. He had no clue on the monster that the Mayor really was. That is the genius of a good serial killer. They know how to blend in through their trickery lives of deceit.
Deceit is hardly the right word for Johnny’s mother, but that is what happens to her. She becomes so obsessed with the fact of religion that she is not longer able to tell right and wrong. There could be different meanings to understanding why this happen. This is more of the foundation and development of the cast of characters from this novel that made this book epic.
Epic is what is done throughout this novel. Again, it is the characters that make this happen. Even with the character of the Mayor, who is the meanest villain. When we meet him in the novel in the start, we see his true side when he violently attacks and kills a dog. It was done such in a way that would make even the strongest warrior cry. This caused an instant dislike toward this character. When learning more about this character, the dislike increased. Despite the Mayor sad childhood, it did not provide any excuses for the atrocities he committed.
While the Mayor’s mother was mental insane; this was a diagnosis that was confirmed by how this character previewed and interrupted the meanings of the life. It was a diagnosis that only a person of madness could have a vision of life like this. This is not a matter of judgment. All these characters, the good, the bad, the shadow, the inanity all define the foundation of the book. It brings the books into the ring of horror and then it brings it again into the science fiction as the same time. It was done in a great way for it wove many themes throughout the book.
Again, the many themes of the books are overwhelming but savoring. The insanity character runs to impulse actions and thoughts. They do not realization. They lose the ability. Again, the two primary characters of this book with this are Johnny’s mother and Mayor’s mother. Mothers are important especially in this book.
It seems that mothers are important for there is a lot of reflections on the different types of mothers through the different characters. The character Sarah who is Johnny’s former girlfriend becomes a wife and mother. She is a mother that becomes confused and conflicted.
Sarah has always been conflicted with her feelings of Johnny. There were many times if she felt she was scared of him. This was not due to because of him being an abuser. It was due to the fact of how Johnny could do these different things. He was able to process in a way that Sarah could not define logically. While Sarah eventually married and became a mother, she was a loving and devoted mother. Regardless, she still had feelings for Johnny that consumed her and caused her doubts if they could have been happy and if life could have been different for them.
These emotions make Sarah paralyzed throughout the book. It left her the ability of not being able to know how to explain what she was feeling. During her visit, Johnny told her where she could find her wedding ring. A ring that was lost and only she and her husband know about it. Sarah acquainted these feelings she had with Johnny with being sick.
Sarah threw up in the bathroom immediately leave Johnny’s room. Sarah reflects that the last time she saw him, she was also sick but there was the Wheel of Fortune. When Sarah goes homes and finds the ring according to Johnny description, it frightens her. She put the ring in her pocket and her feelings of confusing and scared increased. She throws the ring down the toilet while she was cleaning it.
Again, this experience haunts her. Haunting is the bitter struggle that Johnny has to encounter once recovered from the coma. His visions will increase. It led him to the meeting of the Mayor.
When they meet, Johnny gets a vision from the Mayor but it a vision of darkness. He sees in the future this Mayor starting World War III. He becomes obsessed with this Mayor. He then makes plans stop the Mayor. Things went wrong toward the end of the book. Johnny winds up not able to kill the Mayor as he wanted. He fails on this task. The ways he fails that leaves it symbolic and add more to the foundation of the novel.
Johnny‘s demise it did not give any proof to his character. It made him seem like a madman. The only good that came out of this was when the shooting started, and the Mayor grabbed a child and used that child for cover, it was caught on photo. That photo runs his career and any possible hope of every get back into political position. This is where seems ironic for Johnny did destroy the Mayor but not as planned. That is another important thing about this book.
The books give strong and countless rudimentary questions and reflections on what could each of these situations mean. There is no doubt that certain situations in the book have one meaning. Yet, this book challenges the reader with these questions and reflections by thinking outside the book. Again, this is where the connection of this novel being a horror and science fiction come into play. This brings into the circle why the book is called The Dead Zone. The character used this term to refer to the part of his brain that he cannot longer process or remember. This definition of the dead zone is also reflected in the characters. We meet this with every character, emotions that range deeply and run in different circles. These emotions bring to life the meaning of the Dead Zone.
The Dead Zone will always be a classical book of horror and science fiction. It has one message of haunting that makes the foundation of the book. Through the many characters of the books, it helps makes this foundation even stronger. This is not a reflection of King’s writing. This is a reflection of the haunting of the Dead Zone and characters that define this.
Works Cited
Haupt, Christopher Lehmann. “Books of The Times.” New York Times 17 August 1979, sec. Books: N. pag. New York Times Books. Web. 5 December 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/lifetimes/kin-r-dead.html>.
Hendrix, Gary. “The Great Stephen King, ReRead The Dead Zone.” Tor 6 December 2002: N. pag. Tor.com. Web. 5 December 2013. <http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/12/the-great-stephen-king-re-read-the-dead-zone>.
King, Stephen. The Dead Zone. New York: A Signet Book, 1980. Print.
Silver, Steven H. “The Dead Zone Review.” Silver Reviews n.d: N. pag. steven silver’s reviews. Web. 5 December 2013. <http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/king.html>.
