3

Patriarchal Mediations o f Carrie'.

The Book, the Movie, and the Musical

Douglas Keesey

T he C urse: Telekinesis and M enstruation in Stephen K ing's Carrie

T he n o v e l’s birth w as alm ost as difficult as its title character’s. Conceived at the
su g g estio n o f a friend who challenged K ing to create a credible female character
(“ W hy are you w riting all o f this m acho crap? . . . Y ou d o n ’t have any feminine
sen sib ility at all"), the w ork was soon aborted when K ing realized ju st how
difficult the task o f writing a w om an's story could be (King, quoted in
U nderw ood and M iller, 85 86). K in g ’s wife Tabitha then retrieved the
m an u scrip t from the w astebasket, launching him again into the unfathom able
depths o f a w om an’s world but also, by answ ering his questions, helping him to
survive in that w orld; hence, the dedication: “ This is for Tabby, who got m e into
it— an d th e n bailed m e out o f it” (C arrie).' D espite his w ife’s collaboration and
the n o v e l’s successful com ing to term , K ing rem ains am bivalent about his
ab ility to create a believable w om an, fearing that he m ay have fallen into the
stereotypes identified by Leslie Fiedler in Love and D eath in the American
Novel'. “W hen I think I'm free o f the charge that m ost m ale A m erican writers
depict w om en as cither nebbishes o r bitch-goddess destroyers, I create someone
like C arrie—w ho starts out as a nebbish victim and then becom es a bitch
goddess, destroying an entire tow n in an explosion o f horm onal rage” (quoted in
B eahm , 38).
“ H orm onal rage” suggests the connection betw een m enstruation and
telekinesis that is the b o ok's m ain focus; as K ing readily adm its, Carrie is in
m any w ays the sexist nightm are o f an im m ature m ale who, like Billy N olan,
fears fem ale equality as a threat to his m asculinity: “Carrie is largely about how
w om en find their ow n channels o f pow er, and what m en fear about w om en and
w o m en 's sexuality . . . which is only to say that, w riting the book in 1973 and
only out o f college three years, I w as fully aw are o f w hat W om en’s Liberation
32 Im agining the W orst

im p lied fo r m e and others o f m y sex. The book is . . . an uneasy masculine

shrinking from a future o f fem ale equality” {Danse M acabre, 170). But K ing has
tried to g et beyond a m asculim st perspective and to bridge the gender gap: Not
o nly has h e given C arrie aspects o f h is ow n life as a child— K ing too w as “ fat.”
“ estran g ed from other kids my age,” “ deserted” by his “ father,” and prone to
“ v iolen t” feelings, “ particularly in m y teens” (King, quoted in B eahm , 27)— but
K ing has also attem pted to tell the story from a fem inist perspective, interpreting
his o w n “ m ale fears— about m enstruation and about dealing w ith wom en who
eat you u p ” as m isunderstandings o f nature, fears so strong that they become
se lf-fu lfillin g prophecies (K ing, quoted in U nderw ood and M iller, 95).
T h ough never explained, it is clearly no mere coincidence that the
aw ak en in g o f C arrie’s psychic abilities is tied to the onset o f her first period:
M en stru atio n and telekinesis are both referred to by an uncom prehending
so ciety as “ the curse,” and it is patriarchal society's very attem pt to repress the
p o w er o f fem ale sexuality, to keep the blood hidden, that causes the defiant
eruption o f C a rrie’s paranorm al pow ers. In Carrie, the supernatural rises to
assert the inevitability o f natural fem ale forces that society has tried to deny, if
C a rrie ’s p o w e r is a “curse,” it is one society has brought upon itself. The
fantastic elem ents in the book are thus an integral part o f its social com m entary:
T he m etap h ysical pow er o f m ind over m atter is the only channel o f force open
to C arrie in a society in w hich m en have m onopolized all the physically active
roles. A s K in g explains, Carrie is “ W om an, feeling her pow ers for the first time
and, like S am son, pulling dow n the tem ple on everyone in sight at the end o f the
b o o k ” (D a n se M acabre, 170). A t crucial m om ents in the novel (3 -4 , 7, 37),
K ing com pares C arrie’s psychic pow ers to the force o f a nuclear bom b,
suggesting that natural energy (fem ale or atom ic) will inevitably backfire on
society if th at energy is directed tow ard m isogyny or war. K ing likens so ciety 's
o ppression o f Carrie to a “chain reaction approaching critical m ass” : the
explosion o f C arrie’s fem inist rage. N ature has her laws and will not be denied.
T h e young w om en w ho bom bard Carrie with tam pons in the opening
show er scene display the “revulsion” and “disgust” (6) they have been taught to
feel a t the sight o f their fem ale natures. Even the gym teacher, M iss Desjardin,
w hose “n o nbreasted,” “ m uscular" physique and skill at “arch ery ” suggest a
fem inist identification2 and w hose close m other-daughter relationship helped her
feel prid e in her first period (5, 9 -1 0 ), is overw helm ed w ith “ self-sham e” when
she sees C a rrie 's bleeding and confesses that “ M aybe th e re’s som e k ind o f
instinct ab o ut m enstruation that m akes w om en w ant to snarl” (10, 16). As on the
day w hen she used a tam pon to apply lipstick (8), Carrie in the show er scene has
once again exposed an aspect o f fem ale nature that is consid ered unnatural and
u nfem inine. L ike her m enstrual blood, the fat, sweat, m ucus, and shit Carrie
exudes are all m ocked by a society that considers the body a threat and that
associates w om en w ith the body (7, 8, 13).
T h inking about it later, Sue Snell realizes that she an d the other young
w om en in the show er scene w ere unconscious participants in a social ritual:
 Patriarchal M ediations o f Carrie 33

w om en finding a place in patriarchal society by projecting their own

u n acceptable fem ale traits onto C arrie and m aking her the scapegoat for them.
T o rise in society, Sue m ust see through m en’s eyes, oppressing undesirable
fem ales like C arrie and repressing the undesirable fem aleness w ithin: W earing
h air ro llers an d taking birth-control pills, Sue ensures that h er body will be
p resen tab le to the m ale gaze (34). Sue com es to realize that her social popularity
is b o u g h t at a high price; in ostracizing Carrie, she is not only denying
sisterhood, she is also repudiating her ow n fem ale independence: “A nd having
so m eth in g she had alw ays longed for— a sense o f place, o f security, o f status—
she fo u n d that it carried uneasiness w ith it like a darker sister” (33).
F or h er own sake as w ell as C arrie’s, Sue attem pts to reintegrate
fem aleness b a c k into the social body before it surfaces vengefully as a “dark
th in g " to destroy the society that denied it light. First she reintroduces a female
aw aren ess o f the body into her relationship with Tommy. W hereas earlier she
h ad v iew ed th e ir relationship through society’s eyes ("they fit together w a lk in g
. . . she co uld look at their reflection in a store window and think, T here goes a
h and so m e cou p le” ), now she begins to see things from her o w n perspective:
H av in g sex to gain social advancem ent is not true love but a brutal, unfeeling
act: “ [S]he h ad let him fuck her (do you have to say it that w ay yes this tim e I
d o ) sim p ly because he was Popular” (3 3 -3 4 ). Only when T om m y stops trying to
score an d adm its to her that he got the rubber on w rong, only w hen she stops
trying to be the perfect m odel she thinks he w ants her to be and confesses that
the first tim e w as painful, do they really m ake love. Sharing w ith each other
th eir d oubts ab o u t the future, Sue and Tom m y find that an adm ission o f bodily
w eak n ess b rin g s not repudiation but a m utual recognition o f their com m on
h u m an ity . It is no accident that Sue finds the sight o f T om m y “looking pensively
o u t the b ack w indow with his pants still dow n around his ankles” both “com ic
an d o d d ly endearing” (32): The m ale m ind that adm its to physical vulnerability
is m ore attractive than a sham o f invincible intellect.
S u e ’s second step tow ard reintroducing a female acknow ledgm ent o f
the phy sical is to undo her earlier scapegoating o f Carrie and ask T om m y to take
C arrie to the prom in her place, thus claim ing h er own ability to do w ithout
so cial affirm ation and giving Carrie a chance at the acceptance she h erself has
had. T o m m y ’s acquiescence to S u e ’s request show s his unchauvinistic regard
fo r Sue and her need to atone for h er cruelty tow ard C arrie; it also shows
T o m m y 's truly m asculine w illingness to face society’s censure at his association
w ith C arrie in a rom antic setting.
L ike dark doubles o f Sue and Tom m y, Chris H argensen and Billy
N o lan also chafe at social conform ity, but only w ork their w ay in deeper in an
effo rt to get out. C h ris’s conform ist assault on Carrie (and refusal to atone fo r it
by d oing the gym exercises set as penance) has gotten her barred from the very
p rom to w'hich Carrie has now been invited. The ferocious zeal o f C hris’s
co n fo rm ist assault has backfired, excluding her from her place as leader o f an
ad o lescen t rite o f passage (Q ueen o f the Prom) and alienating her from her
34 Im agining the W orst

form er entourage, w ho agreed to subm it to the punishm ent prescribed by

authority. C h ris’s overzealous attem pt to conform is both a sign o f her deep
insecurity about fitting in and an indication o f a fem ale independence trying to
get out: C hris has channeled all her nonconform ist rage into being an
ex cep tio n al conform ist, a standard o f standardized w om anhood; in Chris, the
go od y -g o o dy and the bad girl are one and the same.
L ike Sue, Chris finds that packaging h erself for m ale consum ption
m akes h e r attractive to society m en, but the sex that ensues is also prepackaged,
already program m ed, a sim ulacrum o f feeling betw een a com m ercial-perfect
couple, a consum m ate joining o f gender stereotypes. H aving stereotyped herself
to b e attractive, C hris finds th at she can attract only stereotypes: These m en love
h er only for her im age, an im age they had her create only to reinforce their
im age o f them selves. C hris’s “passivity” during intercourse m akes them feel
m ore actively virile; they d o n ’t w ant an individually responsive w om an. The
fact th at C hris later “ achieved h er ow n solitary clim ax w hile view ing the
incident as a single closed loop o f m em ory” (94) shows b oth her isolation in a
w o rld o f conform ity and her desire for personal fulfillm ent, even if this m ust be
m erely m asturbatory o r through a voyeuristic fantasy.
S eeking the real in a w orld o f sim ulacra, Chris is understandably
attracted to B illy N olan, w hose “old, dark” 1950s car prom ises delivery from the
false light o f the new , the “ m achine-stam ped, anonym ous v ehicles” o f her 1970s
b o y frien d s (95). C h ris’s nostalgia is for a genuineness she has never know n, a
p assionate individuality that w ill b rin g out her own; as the “ first [lover] she
could not dance and dandle a t her w him ” (94), Billy seem s m ore than ju st a
stereotype responding to h er stereotypical beauty. U nlik e her white-collar
yuppie boyfriends, sw eaty, gTease-m onkey Billy seems at hom e with physical
labor, w ith fluids, and w ith the body. N ot having cordoned h im self o ff from the
facts o f life w ithin a “v entless” car sm elling o f “plastic seat covers and
w m dshield solvent” (95), w indow s-open, fast-driving Billy gleefully faces death
and loves to get his hands dirty. A s C hris exhorts him to “Feel m e all over. Get
me d irty ,” B illy ’s unrepressed physical desire and the m em ory o f their “sudden
brush w ith death” in the car thrill C hris with the feeling th at at last she has
b roken o u t o f her society’s m andate to conform , its repression o f natural instinct
(96).
B u t B illy ’s dirty m achism o is as m uch a stereotype as the yuppie
lordliness for w hich it is d esigned to com pensate. B illy’s craftsm anlike pride in
m aking th ings w ith his ow n hands is tainted by vengefulness: H is father failed in
the gas station business, and B illy ’s independent w orkm anship is used to m ake a
special to o l to break into the school building and set up the b lood bath for Carrie
(1 0 0 , 102). A fter running aw ay in disgrace, B illy’s father w as replaced in his
m o th e r's affections by a man nam ed Brucie; Billy runs over stray dogs w ith his
car and p lans to dum p blood on C arrie, im agining that the dogs and Carrie are
B rucie (161). His rough sex w ith C hris is a way o f getting back at her m oneyed
fath er and all the men with their “ plum p, glistening dad d ies’ cars” w hom he
 Patriarchal M ediations o f Carrie 35

b lam es fo r doing in his own father (101). Finally, his association w ith C hris is
both a w ish-fulfillm ent fantasy o f being accepted into a society that had rejected
h is fath er and also his w ay o f taking revenge on that society, and on his mother,
for his fath e r’s rejection (82). His interest in Chris is no m ore personally
affectionate than his m asculinity is individual or affirmative: From his “stuffed
crotch” to his m assaging o f C h ris's shoulder as if he were “testing a cut o f b e e f ’
(54), B illy is a w alking stereotype o f a m an puffing h im self up and scapegoating
w om en for w hat goes w rong in a m a n 's world.
E ven if Billy w ere w hat she w as looking for, indications are that Chris
is too in secure about losing her position in society to date him for long. In the
end, sh e finds her inability to control him m ore o f a threat than a thrill, and plans
to w ith h o ld h er sexual favors as punishm ent for his independence: “ [W jhen this
is o ver y o u ’re going to get it buddy m aybe y o u ’ll go to bed w ith lover’s nuts
to n ig h t” (117). He, in turn, plans to rape her, as his ow n insecurities about his
m asculinity g et the better o f him and his nightm are o f rejection becom es a self­
co nfirm ing prophecy: “ W hen this was over he w as going to have her until every
other tim e s h e ’d been had was like two pum ps w ith a fag ’s little finger” (121).
“ W hen this w as over”— in each case Billy and C hris tem porarily channel their
hatred o f society, each other, and them selves onto Carrie: The b lood bath at the
senior p ro m is thus the (un)natural extension o f the scapegoating that occurred
in the bloody show er scene.
Just as the actions o f Billy and Chris and o f Sue and Tom m y can best
be u n d ersto o d w ithin a larger fam ilial and social context, so C a rrie’s unnatural
acts can be seen as the consequence o f her p arents’ and grandparents’ failure to
reconcile natural desires and social strictures. Turning to religion for consolation
at the loss o f her father, M argaret W hite also uses religion as a w eapon to get
back at h er m other for seeing another m an in her father’s place, accusing h er of
“ living in sin” w ith a boyfriend (44). In reaction to w hat she sees as her m o th er’s
in fid elity and in line w ith certain fundam entalist attitudes tow ard the body,
M arg aret co m es to view all sex as sinful and any fem ale desire as a tem ptation
that m u st be resisted, as her m other did not. W hen M argaret and her husband
R alph find them selves giving in to their sexual urges, R alph runs o ff and is
su b seq u en tly killed in an accident that strongly suggests that he sim ply could not
live w ith his ow n bod y ’s tendency to break out o f its religious confines: Ralph
dies “ w h en a steel girder fell out o f a carrying sling on a housing-project jo b ”
(10). So that sh e can still believe in R alp h ’s purity and in her ow n w orthiness as
h is sinless w ife, M argaret attem pts to forget the fact that they ever had
in terco u rse and to deny responsibility for the child grow ing w ithin her: “M rs.
W hite b eliev ed , from her fifth m onth on, that she had a ‘cancer o f the w om anly
p a rts’ a n d w ould soon join her husband in heaven” (11). D espite her self-
m ortify in g need to live up to R alp h ’s and G od’s expectations, M argaret stops
h erse lf from aborting the child and allow s her m aternal nature a m om entary
trium ph o v er paternal law.
36 Im agining th e W orst

B ut the fear that her dau g h ter Carrie may one day give w ay to sexual
d esire cau ses M argaret to conceal from her all know ledge o f female nature.
A lth o u g h C arrie insists that the real sin w as her m other’s keeping her ignorant
o f the facts o f life, M argaret view s C a rrie ’s m enstrual flow as itself a sin, a sign
o f fem ale desire that Carrie could have w illed not to express. A s Carrie begins to
show a n atural interest in boys and to assert her supernatural pow ers against her
m o th e r’s social strictures, M argaret’s m aternal instincts intensify in an ironically
p atriarch al and conform ist direction. Like the goody-goody bad girl Chris,
M arg aret asserts her fem ale independence by her overenthusiastic adoption o f a
social role: She becom es a fanatical fundam entalist, an extrem e version o f
p atriarch al religion’s idea!— the piously protective mother. In attem pting to save
h er d au g h ter from m en with lust-inciting “ Roadhouse W hiskey” on their breath,
m en like Ralph w ho “ took” M argaret in a m om ent o f w eakness (70), C arrie’s
m o th er associates m en, sex, and death in her daughter’s m ind. It’s true that
M a rg a re t’s father died in a “ R o adhouse” shootout, but M argaret represses the
fact th at th is very roadhouse ow ned by her parents w as also probably the site o f
h er ow n conception, ju st as C arrie w as conceived the night Ralph cam e home
w ith “ road house w hiskey” on h is breath (43, 154). C arrie’s attem pt to shock her
m o th er into a recognition o f her fem ale nature— “ ‘You FU C K !’ Carrie
scream ed, (there there o there it’s o u t how else do you think she g o t you o god o
g o o d )” (42)— can only be heard as a curse, a blasphem y from her m o th er's
b ody-fearing, fundam entalist perspective.
C a rrie’s natural interest in sex threatens M argaret’s sense o f her own
purity: I f she cannot protect h er daughter from fem ale desires, then she must
d efend h e rse lf to ensure her ow n salvation and m arriage in a m ale heaven: “ ‘It
says in th e L o rd ’s Book: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Y our father did
the L o rd ’s w o rk ’” (71). The sight o f “ M om m a holding D addy Ralph’s long
b u tch er k n ife” (67), the nightm are vision o f her m o th er as the insane
em bo d im ent o f patriarchal relig io n ’s ideal o f m otherhood, greets Carrie when
she retu rn s from the prom , and the knife descends as M argaret carries out the
religious im perative she feels is her duty: Thus the m other com m its the very
rape and m urder from w hich she had hoped to save her daughter. The m other’s
fear grew fantastic enough to becom e reality.
M argaret’s m urder o f her daughter at the end is d oubly ironic in that,
by the tim e Carrie returns hom e, she is truly her m other’s daughter: The blood
bath at th e prom has m ade her as fearfully destructive o f society as her mother,
seem ing to confirm all her m other’s w orst nightm ares about the outside world.
From K in g ’s point o f view, C arrie is no m ore responsible for the terrible
direction her fem ale pow er takes than is her m other for her m urderous m aternal
instincts; in interview after interview , K ing insists on the social cause behind
C a rrie ’s actions, on society’s responsibility for its own destruction: “ I never
view ed C arrie as evil. I saw h er as good. When she pulls dow n the house at the
end she is not responsible” ; “ w hen she perpetuates destruction on her
h o m eto w n , it’s because sh e’s crazy. She doesn’t want to m ake fires any m ore
 Patriarchal M ediations o f Carrie 37

than she w ants to w et her pants” (quoted in Underw ood and M iller, 202). Like a
m adw 'om an w ho in the extrem ity o f her fear loses control o f her bodily
functions, C arrie can no longer contain her female pow ers from drow ning the
w orld in the very blood it w ould disow n. M irroring her m o th er’s ow n murderous
assertion o f a blood tie, Carrie brings M argaret's heart to a dead stop, taking
revenge an d at the sam e time fulfilling her m other’s m asochistic desire to cut
out th e evil body so that her purified spirit may ascend to heaven.
P laying to the hilt her assigned role as bloody female, Carrie vengefully
b ecom es patriarchal society’s w orst nightm are concerning w om en and their
bodies: M other N ature as a force greater than m a n ’s o r G od’s. I f the
supernatural is m erely an extension o f the natural, then w hat chance has society
to w in redem ption from death through scapegoating? D espite its attem pt to place
the blam e for C arrie's actions on another w om an— Sue is the preferred
scapegoat (58)— the W hite (m ale) Com m ission will eventually have to
ack n o w led ge its ow n responsibility in the creation o f a Carrie, o r the next girl-
child to be bom will grow up to be a “ w orld-beeter” in the literal sense (181).
B elieving that “M om m a w anted her to be the A ngel’s Fiery Sword, to destroy”
(164), C arrie turns a m ale society’s stereotypes against itself and w reaks a
terrible revenge on behalf o f her m other and other sisters in oppression.

The T ransform ation o f C arrie: N ovel into Film into M usical

B ecause o f K in g ’s subsequent reputation for w riting slangy, fast-paced horror,
readers tend to forget that Carrie, K in g ’s first novel, is highly experim ental in
form . W hereas his later w orks display the predom inantly linear plotting and
linguistic transparency typical o f m uch nineteenth-century realism , C arrie's
collagist ju xtap o sitio n o f disparate print-form s is closer to m odernism or
p ostm o d ern ism in style. K ing’s verbally conspicuous conjoining o f new spaper
clippings, book and letter excerpts, investigative hearing transcripts. Associated
P ress w ire reports, classroom desk graffiti, slang definitions, and a death
certificate function like a Brechtian alienation effect to m ake readers question
custom ary m odes o f representation. By em phasizing the literariness o f his
literature, K ing dem ystifies print, m aking readers read the w ords on the page not
as som e natural, transparent reflection o f the truth, but as a personally and
p olitically m otivated refraction o f reality. A s Sue Snell m uses on the
n ew sp ap ers' transform ation o f C arrie into a story, “ T hey’ve m ade her into some
kind o f a sym bol and forgotten that she was a hum an being, as real as you
reading this, w ith hopes and dream s and blah, blah, blah. U seless to tell you that,
1 suppose. N othing can change her back now from som ething m ade o ut o f
new sprint into a person” (9 7 -9 8 ). “ H opes and dream s and blah, blah, blah”
suggests the rapidity with w hich real hum an em otions becom e sentim ental
clichés w hen they are put into w ords, and “she was a hum an being, as real as
you reading this” describes S u e ’s and K ing's effort to counter this tendency, to
38 Im agining the W orst

m ake the reader conscious o f the reading process and o f how most print
derealizes p eople even as it seem s to convey the truth about them.
I f “ The W hite C om m ission R eport” is published by “Signet Books,”
then so is the paperback version o f K in g ’s novel (130). T he Com m ission
attem pts to w hitew ash C a rrie 's story, circum scribing her terrible power within
scientific ja rg o n ("A V iew T ow ard Isolation o f the TK G ene w ith Specific
R ecom m endations for Control P aram eters” ) and w riting it o f f as a “once-in-a-
lifetim e p henom enon” or the m ore colloquially reassuring “ flu k e” (165, 179,
165). A g ainst the bureaucratese o f the “ State Investigatory B oard,” which
concludes that “ we find no reason to believe that a recurrence is likely or even
po ssib le," K ing juxtaposes the letter o f a near-illiterate w hose report o f a
frightfully telekinetic young “A n n ie” rises like a return o f the repressed to
disturb the sm ooth surface o f official narrative’s secondary revision (180).
K in g ’s self-reflexive fiction w arns against the norm alization o f horror, so ciety ’s
tendency to translate w hat it cannot b e a r to look at into m ore acceptable terms,
as in “ S lang T erm s Explained: A P aren ts’ G uide,” with its neat definition o f “to
rip o f f a C a rrie” as “T o cause eith er violence destruction; m ayhem , confusion;
(2) to com m it arson” (179). A s D ouglas E. W inter puts it, “ Carrie has been
d efin ed aw ay as a com fortable colloquialism , m em orialized for her act rather
than h e r s e lf ’ (33).3 In the w ar o f the w ords K ing dram atizes betw een an
oppressive/repressive official discourse and an uncannily resurgent speech, we
can see the beginnings o f a literary m ode that w ill becom e a K ing tradem ark:
stream o f consciousness, that form closest to the unvarnished truth o f prim ary
process m entation In parenthetical run-on sentences w ith low er-case I ’s— “(i
killed m y m om m a i w ant her o it h u rts)” (170)— King sets a fluid, feelingful
language o f the unconscious, both C arrie’s and the to w n ’s, against the
officialese that insists on distinguishing high from low, victors from victim s, and
the inn o cen t from those (scapegoated as) responsible.
B oth this com m unal stream o f consciousness o f prim ary and prim al
truths sim ilar to Ju n g ’s universal archetypes o f the collective unconscious (as
C arrie m ay be likened to the anim a o r vengeful dark side o f an unacceptm g
p atriarch y ) and K ing’s use o f co llag ist technique or dialogic form serve to
challenge society’s pretended m onopoly on truth. A nd y et the n o v el’s
m u ltip licity o f perspectives m ay also be read as a sign o f psychic splitting:
W hereas a part o f K ing clearly identifies w ith Carrie and understands her pow er
as the vengeful return o f natural fem ale energy that patriarchy is responsible for
h av in g repressed, another part o f K ing shares patriarchy’s horror at w om en,
am p ly em bodied in the novel’s m isogynistic officialese. A sked by a Penthouse
in terv iew er about his “greatest sexual fear,” K ing responded, “The vagina
dentata, th e vagina w ith teeth” ; his second greatest, K ing said, w as represented
in a “ h o rro r story . . . about a p regnancy” (quoted in U nderw ood and M iller,
189). T h at K in g ’s first novel is evidence o f a horror at w hat terrible pow ers
castrating w om en m ay give birth to is som ething King readily admits: “Carrie
exp resses a lot o f m ale fears— about m enstruation and about dealing with
 Patriarchal M ediations o f Carrie 39

w om en w h o eat you up” (quoted in Underw ood and M iller, 95). A s openly
confessio n al in his first novel as he is in later interviews, K in g ’s split form
d isplays b oth his patriarchal gynephobia— his fear o f the “ bitch goddessf’s] . . .
horm onal rage” (quoted in Beahm , 38)— and his feminist social satire, his
sincere d esire to depict women in sym pathetic and nonstereotypical ways. The
form al experim entation o f Carrie represents the ideological conflict in K in g ’s
p syche an d society.
Ju st as K in g ’s novel departs from the conventions o f narrative realism ,
so B rian D e P alm a’s film version o f Carrie (1976) m arks a spectacular
d ivergence from the standard practices o f classic Hollywood cinem a. W hereas
m ost H olly w ood horror occludes its m eans o f production by hiding its film
technique so as to further identification betw een viewer and victim (o r betw een
voyeur an d victor), De Palm a’s m ovie keeps flashily calling attention to its style.
The open in g show er sequence is shot in soft focus and slow m otion, dollying
lyrically by a scene o f high-school girls cavorting like nym phs in various stages
o f un d ressed innocence; this is follow ed by a fluid dissolve to Carrie in the
steam y g ym shower, caressing her breasts and thighs. T hough logically
im possible, the entire scene seem s to be presented as if from C a rrie's p o in t of
view, a w ish-fulfillm cnt fantasy o f laughing female com m unity and innocent
sensuousness. A bruptly, the tem po jolts from slow to regular m otion as dream
turns to nightm are: Carrie bleeds, fears she is dying, and encounters a shocked,
asham ed, and contem ptuous circle o f sexually repressed young w om en w ho jeer
at her an d p elt her w ith tam pons like stones.
B ut the unusual slow m otion and the unusually public view o f young
w o m en ’s p rivate spaces have distracted m ost viewers from im agining this
opening sh ow er sequence as depicted from C arrie’s point o f view ; instead, the
scene is m o re often criticized as voyeuristic, as the typical m ale director’s and
v iew er’s eye-rape o f fem ale characters. The fact that a previous shot has
revealed this to be “ Bates H igh” and that the scene o f C arrie in the show er
quotes shots from Psycho can 't help but rem ind us o f voyeuristic N orm an Bates
(Tony P erkins), who stabs the Janet Leigh character in the show er. T hus De
P alm a’s film ic allusiveness and his conspicuously “P eeping T om ” cam era4
counter the suggestion that this scene m ight be taken from a w o m an ’s
perspective: T he diegetic focalizer may be sym pathetically and innocently
fem ale, b ut the extradiegetic eye seem s distanced and predatorily m ale. The
w om en characters in this scene are both sex objects and sexual innocents as the
v ie w e r's vantage shifts betw een C arrie as naive perceiver and Carrie as
salaciously perceived. (O ne m ight com pare M ilton’s presentation o f E den in
P aradise L o st, first seen from S ata n ’s cynical, destructive perspective b u t also
alternately from that o f prelapsarian A dam and Eve.)
De P alm a’s urge to identify wdth girlish innocence seem s at odds with
his fear o f m ature female sexuality as evil; the director’s cynicism pulls back
from idealism as if in horror at the prospect o f being victim ized along with
w om en or b y women. De Palm a seem s to participate in the dizziness o f first
40 Im agining the W orst

love w hen he has Carrie and T om m y w hirl w ildly in their p ro m dance together,
b u t the dancers begin to spin so fast that the viewer is m ade aw are o f their
turning as technique or trope, as conspicuous m etaphor fashioned by a director
b oth w ithin and outside the fantasy o f first love, both identifying with Carrie in
T o m m y ’s arms and looking on as tw o actors revolve on a rotating platform .5
S oon after, the show er scene’s slow m otion is resum ed as T om m y and Carrie
progress to the stage to be crow ned K ing and Q ueen o f the prom ; as before, our
en tran ced identification w ith C a m e is broken as the blood falls (this tim e p ig 's
blood from a bucket overhead), and the film speed reverts to real time, befitting
a postlapsarian world o f fem ale victim ization. But this is also a w orld o f bloody
fem ale revenge, o f the “bitch goddess” and her “horm onal rag e.” The division in
D e Palm a betw een a fem inist sym pathy for w om en’s right to fight back and a
p atriarch al horror o f the fem ale sex as destructive is now spectacularly in
ev idence as a split-screen effect: O n one side is C arrie, b lo od-spattered and
blood-spattering; on the other, her victors turned victims. L ike a visual trace o f
the d irecto r’s schizophrenia, a line splits the screen, show ing up identification as
p roblem atic— divided and unstable.6 A t one point C arrie’s side slides from right
fro m left: W e are uncertain w ith w hom to identify, by w hom to be repulsed;
v icto r an d victim seem displaced, displacing each other, unplaceable.
The film ’s m ost lasting im pression o f formal division as ideological
contradiction comes in its co ncluding dream sequence. A s in the preceding
show er an d dance scenes, here v iew er identification is ostensibly w ith another
“ good girl,” Sue, w hose barefoot, slow -m otion progress in a w h ite dress beside a
w hite p ick et fence to C arrie’s g raveside seems another exam ple o f cinem atic
free indirect discourse, o f a scene im bued w ith S u e’s ow n sensibility: She
sym pathizes with the w ounded innocent in Carrie and brings flow ers in
com m em oration o f that innocence to lay on her grave. B ut the soft-focus in this
scene is strangely insistent; S u e 's w alk is peculiar and the m ovem ent o f cars in
the background seems odd; even the sunlight appears som ehow unnatural.
Suspicious spectators— view ers w ho know De Palm a— w atch w ith a cynical
eye, som ew hat distanced from S u e ’s perspective and from h er idealization o f
C arrie. W hen Carrie’s bloody hand reaches out from the g rav e to grab S ue’s
w hite arm as the film jolts back into the m isogynist nightm are that is real time,
w e are shocked—but not entirely. Previous shocks— and D e P alm a’s style-
d isturbing content, his identification-troubling technique— have partially
prep ared us. W hen the scene m atch-cuts from C arrie’s grip on S u e's arm at the
graveside to S ue’s m other holding her in bed, we are only partially identified
w ith Sue the victim; another p art o f us cranes up and aw ay w ith De Palm a the
director who, in his coolly cynical self-control, knew better than to trust in
fem ale innocence. De Palma shot the dream sequence night for day, w-ith special
lighting and filters to sim ulate the sun, and he shot it in reverse, w ith the actress
playing S ue walking backw ards. In the final version, nothing is quite convincing
(th e m ovem ent o f the cars seem s odd because they’re going backw ards), ju st as
 Patriarchal M ediations o í C a rrie 41

for De Palm a w ish-fulfillm ent fantasies have lost much ot th e ir cre d ib ility : His
film exposes their unreality.
K ing’s com m ents on De P alm a’s film are interesting for w hat they
reveal about the psychosocial and stylistic conflict registered by b o th auteurs.
A rguing that “ hum or and horror exist side by side in |th e m o v ie ), playing off
one another," K ing notes that “ M uch ol De P alm a's film is su rp risin g ly jo lly ,
but we sense his jocoseness is d angerous" (D anse M acabre. 170). Both the
hum or and the horror seem particularly to do with the film ’s w o m en :

The girls laboring over their calisthenics |in an amusing scene] were the same girls
shouting "Plug it up. plug it up. plug it up!" at ( ‘arrie not long helore. . |D e Palma)
sees this suburban white kids' high school as a kind of matriarchy. No matter where you
look, there are girls behind the scenes, pulling invisible wires, rigging elections, using
their boyfriends as stalking horses I think the film unconsciously takes the attitude
that all men are cat's paws. (Danse Macabre. 171. 172; King, quoted in I 'nderwood and
Miller. 95)

W hereas De Palm a would like to see w om en as a certain so u rce ot hope and

leavening hum or in the w orld, he is continually uncoverin g th e ir o th er side:
horrible, dangerous, violent, m atriarchal— cats playing with th e ir m ale victim s.
Like the film ’s divided tone o f hum or and horror, its fem ale c h a ra c te rs are two-
faced, double-dealing, putting on an innocent, frolicsom e front w h ile secretly
plotting behind the scenes to gain control over men. O r p erh ap s w e sh o u ld say
that it is King and De Palm a w ho are divided: betw een a c o n s c io u s desire to
identify w ith fem ale innocence and an unconscious g y n ep h o b ia. W h en K ing
says that “ De P alm a’s film is kind o f light and frothy and he g ets you at the end
when you think it’s all over," we see again .Sue’s w hite arm b ein g grab b ed by
C arrie’s bloody hand: the film ’s representational sc hizo p h ren ia in regard to
illusion and supposed reality, the dream o f fem ale in n o cen ce b etrayed by
shocking duplicity (King, quoted in C onnor. 12).
T h e ideological tensions im plicit in the split form s o f th e novel and
film versions o f Carrie becam e m ajor rifts in the stage m usical (1 9 8 8 ). B ecause
this dram atic version o f Carrie is virtually unknow n, so m e b ackground
inform ation m ay be in order. R epresenting the first joint v en tu re e v e r o f British
and A m erican equities, Carrie, the M usical, ran for tw enty-five p erfo rm an ce s at
S tratford-upon-A von before its transfer to Broadw ay. T he d ire c to r, som e crew ,
and several cast members were regulars o f the Royal S h ak esp ea re C om pany,
w hich hoped that Carrie w ould follow in the line o f successful B ritish im ports
like Cats and The Phantom o f the O pera, helping to fund fu tu re p la y s by the
Bard (Shakespeare, not Stephen K ing). Carrie m ade its B ro ad w ay d eb u t on 19
M ay 1988 and closed just five perform ances after its o p en in g night; the
production lost $8 m illion, becom ing the biggest flop in B ro ad w ay history or. as
one outraged investor put it, "the biggest flop in the world h isto ry o f the theater,
going all the way back to A ristophanes" (H enry. “T he B iggest." 65).
42 Im agining the W orst

M ost o f the review s were enough to frighten prospective theatergoers

aw ay, w ith headlines like “ Bloody A w ful," “ B lood and N o G uts." “(jetting All
Fired Up o v er N othing, C arrie’ blazes, c a n 't bring dow n the house."
"S h ak esp earean s' tling with King disastrous." and “ S taging a H orror on
B roadw ay.” Critical com m entary certainly focused on the m u sical's horrible
aspects, d escribing it as "dreadful," "hideous." “ghastly." "g ro tesq u e." “coarse."
“d isg u stin g ," and “ in the worst possible taste." T he most phobic reaction to the
show p robably com es from the review er who wrote: " 'C a rrie ' is not merely
problem atic. It is not sim ply a m iscalculation. It is stupendously, fabulously
terrible— ineptly conceived, sleazy, irrational from m om ent to m om ent, the rare
kind o f production that stretches W'ay beyond bad to m ythic lousiness" (W iner).
M any critics thought that the w hole thing was sim ply a terrible idea from the
very beginning: "A show about a girl w ho discovers she has diabolical pow ers
related to her menstrual cycle is not ev erybody’s idea o f a m usical," warned one
(K issel), and the N ew Yorker critic com m ented, in inim itably fastidious fashion,
that "A m o n g those w orks one m ight consider adapting for the musical stage. I
w ould have thought that a story w hose plot is set in m otion by the onset o f the
h ero in e’s first menstrual period belonged pretty far down the list— only a notch
or tw o above John C hadw ick's ‘The D ecipherm ent o f L inear B ” ' (Kram er, 85).
Stephen K ing him self was only slightly m ore sanguine about the sh o w 's
prospects, saying “ Look, if they can do a m usical about a d ictator in A rgentina
and a b arber in Fleet Street, this m ight work, too” (quoted in “ Broadw ay” ). It
seem s that this play w ill live on in m em ory, if at all, as a colossal m istake; the
April 1991 issue o f S py m agazine, for exam ple, lists Carrie, the M usical am ong
what the ed itors call “ great lapses of com m on sense through history," ranking it
up there w ith “ E speranto." “ open m arriage." and "the electric carving knife"
(C ollins, 48). Carrie, the M usical, w as not videotaped: no cast album was made;
the m usic and lyrics w ere never published.
A ct I opens w ith a scene o f the adolescent girls in calisthenics class,
their aerobics exercises presum ably intended as a sign o f youthful exuberance
and natural high spirits. At odds with this im pression are the chorus-line high
kicks, professional acrobatics, and tow ering hum an pyram id the girls build with
their o bviously tw enty-five-year-old-and-up bodies, w hich continually rem ind
those in the audience that they are attending a show y B roadw ay musical and not
m erely eavesdropping on an average high-school day in the gym . As one critic
noted, “ ID ebbie] A llen 's choreography isn 't about joy or striving or aspiration,
it's about 1'. & A.— a sort o f sexualized aerobics: balletoporn” (Kram er. 85).
T h e girls then strip dow n before hitting the show ers and, in appraising
them selves from an im agined m ale point o f view, they sing o f hating their
bodies. But there are actual m ale spectators in the theater audience, and the
g irls’ u n dressing is played less as introspection than as a striptease in the com e-
hither style o f the hookers’ line-up in Sw eet C harity (the choreographer is a Bob
Fosse veteran). O ur identification with these girls' insecurity o ver their bodies is
further ham pered by the fact that, as one review er put it, “Since these young
 Patriarchal M ediations o f Carrie 43

w o m en h ave the w orld’s greatest bodies, the show im m ediately leaps into a
logical q u andary” (K roll, 73). As with the schizophrenic style o f De P alm a’s
film v ersion, this “ logical quandary” consists o f a conflict betw een lyrics calling
for a fem ale-identified view er and other insistent theatrical devices that hail the
sp ectato r as a m ale voyeur w ho w ill appreciate a burlesque-house am biance,
g rin d -sh o w costum es, and peekaboo routines with tow els and sem itransparent
scrim s set u p as show er stalls.
E v en the set design prevents us from losing ourselves in the characters,
d istractin g us both from fem inist sym pathy and from b o y s’-night-out lechery.
R alph K o lta i’s sets are neither here nor there, not a girls’ gym and show er n o r a
bu rlesq u e show /bordello. K oltai’s abstract design presents the “ g ym ” as a black-
an d -w h ite form ica cube like a M ondrian box. As the set changes from “g ym ” to
“ sh o w er,” brilliant w hite enamel panels revolve sm oothly under com puter
control. The stylized and depersonalized look o f K oltai's design seem s to set the
play in som e perfect future, far rem oved from the girls’ adolescent angst or from
th e ir pro fessional titillation o f $50-a-seat theatergoers. A s one review er
rem ark ed , “ [The] sets are nervy, but their highly kinetic high-tech sleekness has
little to do w ith establishing a realistic am biance from w hich the supra-real
g o in g s-o n could startlingly take o f f ’ (Sim on, “Blood,” 60).
T h e show casts black actor-singer-dancer G ene A nthony Ray from
T V ’s F a m e as bad boy Billy, thus inadvertently perpetuating the racist
asso ciatio n o f blackness with evil, and o f interracial couples w ith d ev il’s pacts
(th e p la y ’s C hris is w hite). (T his unfortunate stereotyping is only partially
co u n terb alanced by the casting o f black singer D arlene L ove— also from
F am e— as th e kindly gym teacher.) C om poser M ichael G ore an d librettist Dean
P itch fo rd , w ho won Best Song O scars for the m ovie F am e, im pede both
au d ien ce identification with the sym pathetic characters and spectator shock at
th eir evil doings. The extraordinary conventionality o f the m usic and lyrics
k eep s retu rn in g our attention to the fact that we are w atching a Broadw ay
m u sical, distracting us from our w ould-be involvem ent in C a rrie’s plight (she
sings: “ W as it his voice? Was it his sm ile?/I haven’t felt so w onderful in quite a
w h ile” ) and severely m itigating the effect o f the horror (the evil Chris sings:
“ I t’s a sim p le little gig./Y ou help m e kill a pig”).
T h e m ost effective scenes in the musical are the L ulu-inspired operatic
duets b etw e en Carrie and her m other, the latter played b y B etty B uckley, who
w on a T ony for her perform ance in Cats (she sang “M em ory” ). B uckley’s
“ hau n tin g , burnt vibrato” (W iner) and “vinegar and m olasses v oice” (Barnes)
w o rk p o w erfu lly to convey m aternal anguish, and we in the audience are draw n
in. A s C arrie, seventeen-year-old Linzi Hately, who “has a b elter’s voice in the
reig n in g (and am plified) English rock-m usical m anner” (h er only previous credit
is as an o rp han in Annie) (Rich, C3: 1), tends to be more alienating, b u t she does
su cceed in com m unicating her w onder at her female pow ers in a marvelous
scen e w h ere sh e telekinetically anim ates her hairbrush, pow der p uff, party dress,
an d shoes, w hich com e to life, dance, and help her get ready fo r the prom . (This
44 Im agining the W orst

D isn ey esq u e sequence is rem iniscent o f the sorcerer's apprentice scene from
F a n ta sia .)
Y et the p la y 's climax pushes us away with the strenuousness o f its
effo rt to d ra w us in, and it elicits cool derision w here it wants to provoke active
fright. As B illy sim ply walks up to C arrie and em pties a bucket o f red confetti
on h er head, we are not moved by pity or fear: underw helm ed, our attention
w anders to consider w hether it is the director or the dram atic m edium itself that
is in adequate to the staging o f this scene. Carrie then ascends on a pedestal so
slo w ly th at we have tim e to realize that it must be hydraulically pow ered. The
red laser beam s that blast from her fingertips shoot out over our heads to points
at the b ack o f the theater, a special effect that, probably because we are so
accu sto m ed to lasers now, serves m ainly to rem ind us that we are in an
electrically w ired theater w atching a “ Broadway spectacular." not at a school
prom b ein g terrified by C arrie's flam e-throw ing revenge. T h e crashing chords
and w h izzing lasers seem as fam iliar and as retro as disco o r a 1970s rock
concert, and, as characters below C arrie “tum ble about confusedly behind a
sm o k e-screen scrim lighted in red to sym bolize fire,” w e’re so busy trying to
figure out w hat is happening that the veil between us and the characters'
em o tio n s m ight as well be opaque (K ram er, 85). As one critic wrote, “ the
g y m n asiu m Gotterclammerunj> is all m etaphor. It is just sm oke and Hashing
lights and lasers asking to be transform ed by the au d ien ce’s im agination"
(H enry, “ G ettin g ,” 80). As in the novel and the film, the conspicuousness o f the
B roadw ay m u sica l's devices splits ou r attention betw een pity at fem ale suffering
and fear o f fem ale revenge, ultim ately distancing us from both. Rather than
resolve the ideological contradiction that divides “Thank heaven for little girls"
from “ D ing! Dong! The witch is dead," each new patriarchal m ediation o f
C arrie seem s to take us deeper into form al conflict, as if unsure about w hether it
w ants in o r out o f the girls' gym.

NOTES
1. All subsequent quotations from King's novel Carrie will be identified by
parenthetical page citations within the essay.
2. The identification of certain female body-types and athletic abilities with
feminism is one of many ways in which King's novel is a product of the historical period
in which it was written—the early 1970s.
3. Winter is one of the few critics who actually talk about Carrie's form as if it were
something other than merely transparent.
4. Compare the opening sequence of De Palma's Sisters, the film on the basis of
w-hich King recommended that De Palma be chosen to direct Carrie.
5. John Simon's negative reaction to the extravagance of this whirling scene may not
be too far from the mark insofar as it points out how De Palma's obtrusive style ends up
disturbing viewer identification with the characters: "Worst of all arc the big effects,
drawn out to impossible lengths and shot with trashy blatancy. as when a couple whirling
about a dance floor arc dwelt on with a monomaniacal insistence that gives the viewer an
acute case of nausea" {Reverse Angle. 2X0).
 Patriarchal M ediations o f C arrie 45

6. Compare Pauline Kael’s comment about how this film device disturbs clear
viewer identification with (or o f!) character: “There are only a few places where the film
seems to err in technique. . . . [T]he split-screen footage is really bad: the red tint darkens
the image, and there’s so much messy action going on in the split sections that the
confusion cools us out’’ (212).
7. By contrast with the ill-fated musical, the De Palma film was an outstanding
success, garnering Oscar nominations for Sissy Spacek (Carrie) and Piper Laurie (her
mother), earning over S I5 million in domestic film rentals, and establishing King’s
reputation as a bankable author (Wood, 38).

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King, Stephen. Carrie. New York: Doubleday, 1974.
. Danse Macabre. New York: Everest, 1981.
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Rich, Frank. “ ‘I Just Want to Set the World on Fire.'” New York Times, 13 May 1988, C3,
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Simon, John. “ Blood and No Guts.” New York, 23 May 1988, 60.
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Underwood, Tim, and Chuck Miller, eds. Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror with
Stephen King. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.
Winer, Linda. “ ‘Carrie’: Staging a Horror on Broadway.” Newsday, 13 May 1988.
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Wood, Gary. “King’s Boxoffice Bite.” Cinefantastique 21,4 (February 1991): 38.