FREE-FALLING DESCENT INTO EPIPHANY OR APOCALYPSE STEPHEN KING – A FAIRY TALE

Abstract

Stephen King has published more than 70 books, many of them adapted to the cinema and television, some original series with no published scenario, except Storm of the Century in 1999. His reach is a lot wider than plain horror. He systematically mixes the various genres of horror, fantasy, suspense, mystery, science fiction, etc. I will only consider his latest stand-alone novel with no co-author, and not part of a series like Gwendy’s Final Task, also published in 2022, co-authored with Richard Chizmar. I will show the style uses some patterns to build the architecture of the story, in this case, ternary structures at all levels of story and style. This ternary pattern is borrowed from the Bible and many fairy tales collected by the Grimm Brothers. The ending brings up a problem: it locks up the two deep and deeper levels with a concrete slab, thus breaking the ternary topography. Is it meaningful about Stephen King’s fiction, or is it only suspending the situation in order to produce a sequel by reopening the passage under the concrete slab, or when Gogmagog manages to escape the deeper level and to invade the human world? That’s Stephen King’s mystery. His fiction is so popular and has been so much exploited on the various screens that we wonder if this multifarious fiction will survive the author, even with his two sons to promote and prolong the fame of his fiction when it becomes necessary.