King’s horror stories hit the ethical and psychological buttons

I've never met legendary horror author Stephen King. But I'd like to. Because I'd like to tell him my theory.

The fall of 1975. A Saturday. I am an undergraduate freshman in Flagstaff, Ariz., on my lunch hour from my job at a hardware store. I'm at a convenience store when this book cover catches my eye.

Solid black. The outline of a child's face. A small drop of blood dripping from one corner of the mouth. I buy the book on the spot solely because I like the cover. I lie on my dorm room bed after dinner, and stay up until midnight finishing "Salem's Lot," the story of a town corrupted from the inside out by Kurt Barlow, a vampire.

Then I spend the next 30 years reading everything Stephen King writes. He's the kind of writer who can make me hear things, smell things, taste things. He wrote the only sentence that has ever made me spontaneously heave a book out of my own grasp in sincere, startled terror: "The woman in the tub had been dead a long time ..."

I'm a huge fan of horror -- great ghost stories and well-crafted monsters both supernatural and real. But it's my theory that makes me the ultimate card-carrying Stephen King geek: King's genre is horror, but he's really an ethicist, a theologian and a mesmerized student of depth psychology.

"Pet Semetary" is a creepy retelling of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," the moral of which is really bad things happen when you mess with the boundaries of life and death. "The Stand" is King's version of biblical Apocalypse. "Needful Things" is a spot on theology of the devil -- the way he confuses within us the difference between pride and need.

"The Green Mile" is a Jesus story -- the execution of all that is good and innocent in service to fear. "Christine" is a haunted automobile that manifests the rage of every nerd/geek teenager who has ever suffered the relentless bullying and humiliation of The In-Crowd.

"Thinner" is one of my favorites. It reads as the story of a man fighting a gypsy curse. In truth, it is a story of justice. We curse ourselves when we dodge accountability for our own moral failures. The day is saved only when the cursed man sits down and "eats" (you'll have to read it) his own culpability.

"It," "Firestarter," "Salem's Lot," "The Shining," "The Body," "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" -- children routinely suffer in King's books. They are abused. Exploited. Disrespected. Afraid. Humiliated. Savagely murdered. But, ironically, it is a child's innocence and lack of guile that routinely saves the day in these same stories. In King's books, evil both hates children and is afraid of them, because their spontaneous authenticity so quickly recognizes evil as evil.

Grown-ups are a much easier target.

"Cujo" begins with a little boy beset by bad dreams. The loving father composes an incantation that drives monsters away. But Cujo is a real monster, a rabid dog. The father's best efforts can't save his son from a random encounter with a diseased dog. I recognize myself. I have many times assured my frightened children in the wee hours of morning that I will never let anything hurt them. As I return to bed, a voice says: "Liar. Some monsters are real, and there is no guarantee your children won't meet them."

"Rose Madder" is about the psychological journey a woman must traverse to be truly and finally free of domestic violence. She must find her anger. She does not wait for a man. She descends into the labyrinth herself to face the twisted masculine minotaur who would devour her.

In "Gerald's Game," a woman handcuffed to a bed frame becomes a metaphor for the adult consequences of childhood sexual abuse. Likewise "The Library Policeman," what with its Freudian exploration of a boy's horrific sexual abuse, his repression of that abuse, and the evil which arises and feeds on the now adult man's fear of remembering the abuse.

I think "Misery" is King's professional autobiography. King is the Paul Sheldon character, a famous author who tries to write outside of the genre for which he was famous. King's fans are Annie Wilkes, the psychotic who punishes and tortures Paul for daring to expand his artistic horizons.

OK, I admit my theory is convenient, because I'm an ethicist, a theologian and a mesmerized student of depth psychology. So, maybe all I'm saying is the ultimate compliment to any artist: I see myself and my life's work clearly in the writing artistry of Stephen King.

Still, I'd love to know what he thinks of my theory.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. His columns appear on Tuesdays and Sundays. Questions for the Asking Human Matters column or comments can be e-mailed to skalas@review journal.com.