SOURCE: "The Individual and Society: Narrative Structure and Thematic Unity in Stephen King's Rage," in Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 27, No. 1, Summer, 1993, pp. 171-78.

[In the following essay, Pourteau discusses the struggle of the individual against society in King's Rage.]

The seemingly popular conception among literary critics that Stephen King's writing ability is somehow "less" than those writers usually considered "great writers," or "literary writers," stems from the "considerable comment and controversy" about his "prodigious popularity and productivity." A primary thesis of Mark Schorer's essay, "Technique as Discovery," establishes that writers who may be properly termed "artists" are those writers who consciously craft their works. Schorer says that, unlike H. G. Wells (whose over-confidence and disregard for the artistry of his profession necessitated his present-day obscurity), these artists will endure. The crafting of the work, according to Schorer, is what gives the work meaning; thus, through analyzing an artist's technique, we may discover the meaning of the work. In recent years, Stephen King has been granted Schorer's title of "artist" by such critics as Anthony Magistrale, Joseph Reino, and Douglas E. Winter. Despite his "prodigious popularity and productivity," King's reputation as a "literary" writer grows daily.

Anthony Magistrale argues that "The theme of innocence betrayed … unifies the major work of King's canon." Children, particularly, become victims as their characterization naturally implies a more innocent, corruptible state. As Magistrale suggests, "In King's novels and stories, there are few heroes; at best his major characters endure, but they seldom prevail … King's people are not superhuman, but ordinary, flawed, and vulnerable." Thus, King's works are often morality plays between good and evil, though his characters are not easy to pigeon-hole into moral categories.

Bernard J. Gallagher calls King's novels "psychological allegories," arguing that "external social pressures from the public world have led to a debilitating psychic fragmentation" of some of King's characters. As Gallagher suggests, the primary tension in King's work stems from the battle between the individual and society to control the individual's freedom:

King believe[s] that the individual's relationship to his environment and to other individuals is based upon a complex interchange in which external events affect the unconscious which in turn disturbs the balance of the id, ego, and superego, which in turn disturbs the individual.

Gallagher, states that "he [King] may be nothing less than a closet Freudian who has chosen to abandon the Freudian emphases on infantile regression and the Oedipal conflict." Though Gallagher may go too far when positing King's abandonment of the Oedipal conflict, particularly when we see that conflict expressed so dramatically in Rage, he nevertheless recognizes the important psychological tension between the individual and society in King's works.

Looking at King's adolescent character types more specifically, Tom Newhouse says,

King's novels and stories that depict teenage life are profoundly critical of the parental expectations, conservative values, and peer pressures which teenagers must face. In addition, King's teen protagonists come into awareness engaging the contradictions between the logical realm of routine activity and the darker regions of violent, destructive impulses. They are often outsiders who turn to violence as a response to exclusionary social environments which deny them acceptance, or who resort to destructive attitudes that they believe will advance them upward.

As Newhouse defines it, King's "brand of fiction" combines "social realism and archetypal horror, exposing deficient institutional and social values and the flimsy rational biases on which they are founded." In his analysis of Rage, Newhouse describes the novel as a treatise against authority, and, "though Charlie's revolt has a basis in genuine madness," the real motivation behind Charlie's civil disobedience is the "all too familiar" repression of the individual by society. Accepting Newhouse's assertion that this theme of the individual vs. society is the primary tension running through Rage, an examination of the structure of the novel should show, as Mark Schorer suggests, that this theme is evident in the technique of the novel.

In his essay, "The Concept of Point of View," Mitchell A. Leaska offers three classifications for narrative point of view: 1) omniscient narration, in which the writer controls and has access to all points of view in the narrative, 2) limited narration, in which the perspective of the storyteller is limited either to first or third person and sometimes colored by the interpreter's own psychological condition, and 3) non-narrated presentation, in which the character presents, in present tense, the reality of the text directly to the reader. King, to some extent, employs all three narrative techniques in Rage.

In Chapters 10 and 35, we have direct, present-tense addresses by Charlie to the reader. Chapter 10 is a discussion of "sanity," with Charlie standing "(metaphorically speaking …)" before the reader and telling us that he is "perfectly sane." Chapter 35 is Charlie's sign-off chapter, i.e. his last address to the reader, and his final announcement: "That's the end. I have to turn off the light now. Good night…." The two chapters engender in the reader a sense of proximity to Charlie. Both chapters indicate examples in Rage of an obliterated narrative; Charlie has obliterated his own narration, for no longer are the readers separated from him by the narrative construction of the very past events he has described.

The classification of limited narration will only be mentioned briefly here, as it is obvious and occupies 32 of the novel's 35 chapters. At least two levels of this narration occur in Rage: the first is Charlie's relation of the events on that May morning to the reader; the second is when Charlie tells us of relating his autobiography to his classmates while he holds them hostage. While, in one sense, he is Leaska's first-person observer (for example, during the camping trip with his father when he hears the older men denigrating his mother and all women in general), he is also the narrator-participant during the primary narrative. His present state of mind, filled with the tension of his struggle with society, is reflected in his presentation of authority figures:

School administrators and teachers are seen as hollow bullies, deluded by an authority that belies a weakness which is ultimately revealed during the tense confrontation, and parents are portrayed either as insensitive brutes or dark sexual monsters, like Charlie's Navy recruiter father.

The presence of the omniscient narrator is a debatable one, but, perhaps, an inescapable conclusion when examining Chapter 33 of the novel. Chapter 33 is an interoffice memo describing the catatonic mental state of Ted Jones, the classroom representative of the social norm, who, as a result of his "humbling" by Charlie's teachings and the class's physical assault, has retreated into that state. Yet, since it is learned (in Chapter 34) that Charlie's mail is censored by his own psychiatrists (he was committed to Augusta State Hospital on August 27, 1976), and the memo (dated November 3, 1976) is presented alone, without comment by Charlie, the reader may assume Charlie's ignorance of both the memo and Ted Jones's fate. Such an assumption, however, implies the presence of an outside controller of the narrative. The only solution to the problem of control in Chapter 33 (other than an outside fictional compiler, of which the reader is given no evidence since Charlie's narrative is, apparently, a direct, spoken address to the reader), is an omniscient narrator. Though we never hear the "voice" of that narrator, its presence is the only way to explain the inclusion of the memo in the novel. This shifting point of view reflects the individual/social tension thematically developed by King and structurally developed in the narrative; Charlie's struggle with society is mirrored by a struggle for control of the novel itself.

Rage is divided into 35 chapters (forming 170 pages), varying from half a page to 12 pages in length. The events of 29 of those chapters occur two years before Charlie's "present" (when he is telling the story), and entail the events taking place between the hours of 9:05 am and 1:00 pm on the day Charlie takes over his class. With the exception of Chapter 33, as noted above, the reader can assume that Charlie has a varying measure of control of the narrative throughout the novel.

His intrusions in various chapters of the narrative serve a specific purpose. Chapter 5, in which he transcends the primary time of action to a prior time of action, the camping trip with his father, sets up the Oedipal tension played out within the theme of individual vs. society in all Charlie's rebellions against authority. Chapter 10, as described earlier, allows Charlie a non-narrated, dramatic presentation of his theories on sanity. Chapter 15 represents a dramatic pause between Charlie and the reader as he briefly describes the class's silent reaction to his tale of Oedipal tension described in Chapter 14. Chapter 35 is Charlie's revelation that his rebellion, perhaps, was not as successful as he had at first hoped; it shows his own vulnerability and the final clamping down of society on Charlie, the individual.

A dual purpose of these chapters remains consistent throughout all four of them. They share a common characteristic: they break-up the flow of the narrative, allowing Charlie to control the presentation of the events to the reader. In Chapter 5, Charlie decides to obliterate the narrative restraints he had set for himself by telling of the camping trip with his father which occurred when Charlie was a boy. In Chapter 10, Charlie steps completely outside the narrative structure to theorize on the concept of sanity. In Chapter 15, Charlie's dramatic pause allows the reader to assess the effect of his Oedipal conflict on his secondary audience, his classmates. In Chapter 35, the reader learns from Charlie that society, for the moment at least, has beaten him, and it is ironic that he briefly retakes control of the narrative to prove that point. Except for this last chapter (the control of which is debatable since the reader learns of the ultimate failure of Charlie's struggle and that he must end the narrative because he must "turn off the light now," a restraint placed upon him by the society which has conquered him), these explicit examples of Charlie's narrative control occur in the first half of the novel.

The narrative of Chapters 16-31 is told in past tense but is set entirely within the classroom. Though some characteristics of the narrative are similar to the first half of the novel, the authorial control Charlie established by sectioning off the narrative before Chapter 16 is nonexistent thereafter. One characteristic shared between the two halves of the novel is Charlie's account of his relationship with his father. These descriptions which occur in the second half of the novel, in Chapters 16, 29, and briefly at the end of Chapter 22, however, do not break the primary time of action as it is broken in the first half of the novel. These stories are again told to the reader during that time, for they are stories which Charlie tells to the class while he holds it hostage. By getting rid of the quotation marks which ordinarily characterizes his dialogue with his classmates in these chapters, Charlie places the reader in the classroom with the rest of his hostage audience. Thus, Charlie is not narrating a story second-hand to the reader about his revelations to his classmates (and their subsequent revelations to him); the reader is, instead, placed within the classroom and experiencing those revelations first-hand, as they happen.

Though Charlie maintains some control over the narrative in the second half of the novel, he cannot step outside its boundaries and becomes obligated to his peer audience. He must shape his narrative based on their reactions and despite the fact that his peers, with the exception of Ted Jones of course, support him after their initial shock of Charlie's murder of Mrs. Underwood and Mr. Vance, Charlie must gauge their responses and mediate his actions accordingly. While giving a treatise on individual rebellion against an oppressive system, Charlie, ironically, finds himself reliant on his new society's (his peers') acceptance of him in order to "teach" them.

The last four chapters of the novel, Chapters 32-35, reaffirm society's control over the narrator, each in its own unique manner. Chapter 32 is a transcript of the court writ establishing Charlie's conviction of two murders, its judgment of his insanity, and its sentencing of him to Augusta State Hospital. Though Charlie's awareness of the writ gives him control over its presentation (his comment after the transcript confirms his awareness of it), the court's decision is the first step in society's final subjugation of the individual. Chapter 33, the interoffice memo, as already noted, is outside Charlie's narrative and, thus, not controlled by him.

Chapter 34, however, is a bit more ambiguous. This chapter is a transcript of a letter, evidently from Charlie's best friend, Joe McKennedy. After a first reading of the letter, the reader might think it would please Charlie, for in it we learn that Joe has become a successful undergraduate at Boston University, that Charlie's friends are still "pulling for [him]," and that those of his classmates whom he has influenced toward self-reliance have become productive, though independent, members of society. Thus, on the surface, all has turned out for the best—for everyone but Charlie.

The subjugation of the individual by society is presented here in at least three important ways. First, McKennedy's text has been replaced in several instances by "[Following has been censored as possibly upsetting to patient]"; thus, the hospital controls what Charlie may read, what version of reality he may receive from the outside world. Second, the letter has no signature, simply ending with a "With love, your friend," and a blank page. The reader has to guess that McKennedy wrote the letter based on his self-reference as an "old buddy" of Charlie's, and the only character who qualifies for that position, based on Charlie's narrative, is Joe McKennedy. Whether McKennedy chose not to sign the letter (which seems unlikely) or the hospital censored his name, the obliteration of the signature takes away the personal identity of the letter's writer. Third, the letter writer warns Charlie that, "It would sure be a loss to the world if you clammed up and just scrunched in a corner all day." Taken in the context that Charlie's confession to both the reader and his classmates had provided him with some measure of freedom, this warning is especially significant. Indeed, it foreshadows the next chapter, where the reader learns that Charlie is happy to be able to keep a secret again from the hospital staff. Thus, Charlie has lost the liberating capacity he had found, the ability to confront and defeat his personal weaknesses through confession.

Chapter 35, as noted before, is Charlie's final, questionable attempt to control the narrative. Ultimately, however, the power to continue speaking is not his. His need to keep a secret again, to internalize his struggle for individuality, is particularly dramatic when the reader realizes that Charlie is in the ultimate situation of social control, psychiatric observation. It seems that Charlie himself knew this might happen, for, in Chapter 31, the last free act of his narrative is making a false grab for his gun, hoping that Philbrick, the police officer who has come down alone to the classroom (at Charlie's request) to personally escort Charlie out, will shoot him dead. Though Philbrick shoots him three times, Charlie survives and is tried for his crimes.

Thus, Rage exhibits a common theme of King's fiction, the struggle of the individual against society. As Mark Schorer suggests in his definition of the artist, thematic unity should extend itself to King's technique, and, indeed, the narrative structure parallels that struggle. In the first 15 chapters of Rage, Charlie Decker maintains some measure of authorial control by moving away from his primary narrative three separate times. Between Chapters 16 and 31, however, he is locked within the framework of his own narrative and must tailor his actions within the narrative, and portions of the narrative itself, to his audience. The final four chapters, each representative of the social repression of the individual, lock Charlie's cell and throw away the key. Though Charlie regains control of the narrative in the final chapter, it is only to tell the reader that he has lost his struggle for individualism.