Stephen King, The King of Horror
and
H. G. Wells, one of the Fathers of Modern Science Fiction
#onhisbirthdaytoday
21st September
[Cosmic pessimism, Vehicle
for Social Commentary, The Most Terrifying Monsters, Bestselling Bestseller, the
Stephen King Phenomenon, King’s Constant Reader, King’s Imagination]
Two literary giants – doyens in their own right – in their chosen field - have their birthdays today!
To H. G. Wells considered one of the “fathers of modern science fiction,” the use of futuristic and scientific concepts in his novels, are not just for entertainment but a vehicle for social commentary. For example, in The Time Machine, the Eloi and Morlocks represent a grim future of class division taken to a terrifying extreme.
Same with Stephen King, who is often called the “King of Horror!”
His work is far more than just scary stories. His work often suggests that the most terrifying monsters aren’t from another world but are the ones that lurk inside people, like the abusive father in The Shining or the obsessive fan in Misery.
As he notes in his autobiography, Wells was variously called the next Jonathan Swift, the next Jules Verne, the next Robert Louis Stevenson, the next Rudyard Kipling, the next J. M. Barrie, and so on.
Prior to World War I, such works as A Modern Utopia (1905) and The New Machiavelli (1911) established Wells as a leading proponent of socialism, world government, and free thought.
His critical and popular reputation rests primarily on his early works of science fiction. Wells’s science fiction was profoundly influenced by his adaptation of Huxley’s philosophical interpretation of Darwinian evolutionary theory, contending that the course of life on earth, like that of any organism, follows a pattern of quickening, maturation, and decadence. Writing at a time when the notion was seriously advanced that ‘‘everything had been discovered’’ - that only refinements of existing scientific and technological advances remained to be made - Huxley’s ‘‘cosmic pessimism’’ was deeply disturbing, implying that humankind faced inevitable decline.
Wells adopted this chilling notion in the stories and novels that he wrote in the 1890s, such as The Time Machine (1895), When the Sleeper Wakes (1899), and The First Men in the Moon (1901).
As regards Stephen King, I wish to quote from a profound book on his oeuvre, that I found quite awesome! It’s titled, Dissecting Stephen King: From the Gothic to Literary Naturalism.
Here goes snippets -
During his literary career, Stephen King has published four dozen novels, about a dozen novellas, and over a hundred short stories. He has also written two nonfiction books, a number of screenplays and e-books, even a comic book. Stephen J. Spignesi maintains that the total body of King’s fiction includes an astonishing 550 individual works.
Michael R. Collings, who has reviewed national bookseller lists and drawn the conclusion that King can be referred to as “a bestselling bestseller” or simply “the Stephen King phenomenon”.
But what makes him such a popular author? Ben P. lndick states that it is the combination of fear and realism in King’s fiction.
Literary characters and people in real life seem to have in common a cognitive model of the nature of human beings. Since both fictional characters and real people are cognitively understood in a person’s consciousness, they are understood in much the same terms. They are not identical, however.
Similarly, King lays great emphasis on his characters and openly admits that he induces fear in his readers by making them love the characters. In horror fiction, King claims, readers are not frightened by monsters; rather their fear is an expression of empathy with the main characters.
When identifying with the characters, the reader fears for them, feels sympathy, and takes a stand - that is, actively participates in the development of King’s stories. Presumably King’s popularity can partly be explained through his Gothic, mythical, fairy-tale, and naturalistic characters.
Finally, let me introduce King’s Constant Reader, the permanent resident of his multiverse. In King’s vocabulary the Constant Reader is anyone who reads his fiction on a regular basis. I would not go as far as Wiater, Golden, and Wagner to define the reader as a character of King’s imagination.
In King’s world imagination and laughter are the most powerful weapons against any evil. In short, the reader and his imagination act in close interaction with the writer and his imagination in King’s works-a crucial reason for the author’s popularity. In addition to effective genre blending and memorable characters, this reader-writer interaction constitutes the bedrock of King's appeal.
The central aspects of Stephen King’s fiction and his choice of genre can be analyzed in the context of both American society and the course of his personal life. Four factors have contributed to his worldview of the United States: Puritanism, the Gothic mode, “the Emersonian drive,” and naturalism,
says Heidi Strengell*
To conclude then on Wells & King –
While Wells used science fiction to critique society from a broad, intellectual perspective, King uses horror to examine the fears, anxieties, and moral struggles of the individual within that society.
Works Referenced
Heidi Strengell. Dissecting Stephen King: From the Gothic to Literary Naturalism (2005). This work is based on her doctoral dissertation in English philology.
Gale’s Encyclopedia & Brittanica
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