credit Doubleday, first edition
I'll be honest, I'm struggling to write an introduction here. Carrie by Stephen King has been in my life since I started reading big boy books with chapters and no pictures. I went right from Goosebumps and Fear Street to King and never looked back. Being a nerd who loved the library and television, I went to the circulation desk and said "Whose that guy on TV with the subscription book series of horror?" They knew I was talking about the Stephen King Library and pointed me to the K shelf where a dozen of his books sat.
I did not read Carrie first. I went for Salem's Lot because I like vampires. But then a few books down the line I realized they were connected, so I went back to the beginning. To the one that's not really connected to anything. Being honest again, I have no idea what I felt about this book when I first read it. Until about thirty, I just read things without reflection, even through my degree in English. Books were meant to be consumed and consumed I did, internalizing rather than parsing. They were food rather than fine meals.
Saying all that, book hits pretty hard today. Sure there's regular school shootings now and bullying has changed to a more passive global spectacle rather than the targeted abuse of one kid on one kid, but the feelings of isolation and public ridicule remain. While the shy introverted religious kid has a youtube or twitch following now, they still remain quiet and uniformed about basic sanitary habits. The themes of Carrie resonate still because, shit, growing up sucks.
Check it out.
Plot Summary
Carrie White has a secret and it's that she's a sheltered and abused child from a hyper religious mother. Wait, no, everyone knows that and picks on her anyway because the world is kinda shitty when you think about it. Shit, she kills everyone at the prom and destroys the town.
Characters
Carrie White - a young abused and religious girl learning about her body voted Most Likely to Have Telekinetic Powers
Miss Desjardin - school gym teacher who is new at teaching and at learning how sheltered some kids can be voted Most Improved Teacher
Mr. Morton - Assistant principal who knows how things should go and forces things he does not understand into boxes and voted Most Likely to Die in a Fire
Mama (Margaret White) - Carrie's mother and a violent religious person who has gone as far as she ever would in life and voted Worst Mom of the Year
Sue Snell - Carrie's classmate and generally nice person who goes on to write a book and voted Most Likely to Write a Book About Prom
Chris Hargensen - Carrie's classmate and bully voted Most Likely to Become a Far-right Influencer
Mr. Gayle - School principal who finds out he has a backbone after all voted Most Likely to Disappear from the Book
Tommy - Carrie's classmate and Sue's boyfriend and a really nice guy voted Prom King
Billy - Chris's boyfriend and a Stephen King bully voted Most Likely to Die in His Car on Fire
Setting
Chamberlain, Maine - small town so normal it doesn't even notice when there's damn rocks falling from the sky onto only one house
High school - Where most of the children go to school to torment Carrie White and learn algebra and go to prom
Favorite Scenes
Initial shower scene - a classic of horror storytelling that begins the tale as Carrie screams because she thinks she's dying and everyone else thinks it's absurd she does not know she's getting her period. Strong imagery from the girls yelling and throwing tampons to the bloody handprint on the teacher's shorts, everyone in disgust.
Mr. Morton and Carrie - Some hands on deck as the vice principal and Miss Desjardin work to protect Carrie but he's also wanting to sweep it all under the rug. A bureaucrat who cares so little he calls her by the wrong name multiple times to her face.
Carrie and Mama's first fight - Carrie confronts her mother about having a period. Her mother never prepared her for the adult world and views Carrie's period as sin. Ends with the closet and Carrie letting go with her will, both in power and actions.
Mr. Grayle and Chris's father - A good scene of authority and where it does the most good. Mr. Grayle does the honorable thing and sticks up for Carrie, showing that Chris's bullying stretches far back. Of course that's also pretty sad, seeing how the school has been aware of the bullying of Carrie and others and only stands up when frontally assaulted.
Chris's father, a lawyer, tries to flex his muscle but learns his authority is misplaced and that his daughter is a shithead. Tree, meet your apple.
The many subtle ways the book teases the end, from the mentions of the town not being there and the number of the dead. Builds anticipation very well.
Tommy asking Carrie to prom - In the middle of all the mess, a genuine heartfelt scene. She knows he's just doing it as some kind of recompense, a way for at least him and Sue to say they are sorry for all she's been through, and in a way that makes it sweeter. Carrie is not just a dumb girl unfamiliar with how people work; she has her eyes open and can be hopeful that things will work out okay. Makes everything later that much more painful, especially later when waiting for Tommy to pick her up and wanting a "happy ending."
Billy and the pigs - Not just his friends are pigs. The killing of the pigs is a turning point in the novel. A sacrifice made to some dark god to bring down punishment on the wicked but made by the wicked. The punishment instead is a monkey's paw that turns back on them in righteous fury, not only punishing Carrie but turning Carrie herself into a weapon unleashed on everyone.
The normality of the prom - The way everyone treats Carrie "normal," either because she's with Tommy or because they finally saw her as a real person, hits home that this could have always been the way. The girls laugh with her at the boys, the boys smile and make fools of themselves, and there's a general air of respect at the prom. It's a beautiful canyon river heading for rapids.
When everyone starts laughing - We all know that laughter. Some of us who have seen some shit have laughed at inappropriate things before or have been caught up in a group laughing because otherwise you scream or light the place on fire. It's a mirror of the shower group-think in the beginning. Everyone just reacting, not to be mean but because a reaction is all they can do. Horror from the blood and then ole Carrie fell again, at least her falling is normal, and we are used to laughing at Carrie. Doesn't make it right but it makes them human and consistent.
Again, the slow drop of information about the town - We learn the town was destroyed earlier, but it almost sounds like people just moved away. Then we get Carrie's path of destruction; her instinctive and profound talent for knowing how to kill and destroy is awesome in the old school, Biblical wrath of god kind of awesome. But we do not get a play by play as she does it. Various townspeople review when certain gas stations or tanks exploded or when a power line came down and people stepped on it. From the his first book, King could set and stage a world, not just plot and characters. His town is real because his characters are real, so the horror is that much more.
"They've hurt Carrie for the last time" - Sue and Chris and all the people Carrie "touches" that night are all lumped in for me. The book click click clicks uphill until it hits a climax when the blood drops and it's all turns and twists and holding on to the safety rail until the end. They know her name because of a psychic shout, a force they can no longer ignore. She's part of the town because however briefly she touched every mind in it.
Book to Film differences
So, confession time. I meant to watch the De Palma film and maybe the new mini-series by Mike Flannagan before I put this out, but I didn't. Anyway, maybe I'll update this later cause I'm supposed to see the '76 film on the big screen in a week or so, but for the meantime, here's what I can remember has not been accurately shown. I also watched the 2013 version when it came out and won't be referencing that at all cause I was drunk and life is short to rewatch movies you barely remember because it might be good when everyone else says "eh."
Obviously, the movie is a linear retelling focusing on Carrie. There's no future Sue Snell or telekinesis books the movie refers back to often, although seeing Carrie as a talking head documentary with cell phone footage would be facinating.
The rocks falling on the house are not shown.
While Sissy Spacek is excellent, she feels a little too ugly duckling to book Carrie's neglected image.
When Carrie lets loose in the book, she destroys the town. In the movie its much more contained to prom.
Mama's death after a violent struggle is more slow and sad in the book where Carrie stops her heart. In the movie it's flying knives.
Carrie's death happens right after the flying knives in the book beside her mom. In the book she makes it out of the house to where Sue finds her, and they have a psychic link. Carrie is also physically drained by her powers and the fight with her mom.
There's no hand popping out of a grave in the book.
Discussion Questions
Have you ever been bullied? Was it because you were a bad person and everyone saw it? How did that work its way into your art degree?
Has an adult ever stood up for you? Have you ever stood up for a child? Have you ever thought "fuck this" and hit a bully with a two by four?
If you had telekinetic powers, would you stay in Maine? In high school? What circus would you try to join?
If you were going to adapt Carrie, what would you change for today's audience? Would there be more Instagrams and TikToks? Would you add a school shooting so Carrie could save the day and prove that abused and bullied kids are not violent? Wait, don't answer that, I'm writing that down.
Carrie White grows up in a religious family and ends up causing a massive amount of destruction. Discuss.
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