‘Plug It Up!’: The Traumatic Female Coming-of-Age Story in Stephen King’s Carrie and It

ABSTRACT This article interrogates the idea of female puberty being presented as a traumatic experience in Stephen King’s Carrie (1974) and It (1986). As a point of contrast, there is a brief examination of how King portrays the coming-of-age tale in ‘The Body’ (Different Seasons, 1982) for his young male protagonists – even when death or the supernatural is concerned, coming of age is depicted as an exciting adventure. There is an examination of how King portrays female coming-of-age as traumatic, as girls’ bodies transformed into sites of monstrosity. Referring to the works of Barbara Creed and Sherry B. Ortner, there is a focus on how Carrie White’s inability to hide her menarche leads to her status as the monstrous feminine. This article examines the correlation between menarche and incestuous sexual abuse in relation to It, with reference to King’s Gerald’s Game (1992), and how young girls will blame their developing bodies for their fathers’ predatory behaviour within the novels. There is a focus on how the male characters of It can repress their traumatic memories, but the one female main character is unable to do so due to the insidious nature of her trauma and its inherent connection to her body. This article argues for a more comprehensive understanding of King’s gendered approach to coming-of-age narratives.