Carrie Response 1-2

Stephen King develops several frightening themes throughout his novel Carrie. On the surface the novel concentrates on the bizarre and horrifying abilities of a teenage girl. Although her powers are frightening her home life is meant to scare the reader more than her ability to make stones fall from the sky.  Family, authority, schooling and religion are just some of the themes filtered throughout the novel. The most alarming of the themes being the latter. King's focal point on religion examines how people are affected by it as well as, how it is used as a crutch throughout a lifetime. 

One might say that Carrie's telekinetic power is her downfall and the leading cause of many deaths. While others might argue that the problem was more from her harmful social interaction with fellow peers. Although both of these factors contribute to Carrie's demise, the problem started elsewhere. Carrie grew up in a complicated household with her mother. Her mother, Margaret White, believed in an extremely dogmatic set of values. These thoughts were pushed onto Carrie and refusal was not an option. 

Margaret White forced her views onto her daughter, Carrie. Mrs.White does not attend church, nor share her religious views with anyone else. The town views her as a "fanatical fundamentalist" (King 11). She had no friends, and no one to confide in after her husbands death. She viewed the fetus in her womb as an abomination and punishment from God. She wanted to kill her baby. White was a fanatic that did her picking and choosing from the bible. If it would suit her life, and make Carrie's harder she would follow what the bible said; the parts in the bible about love and kindness were skipped. 

Mrs. White's fanatical views made her an inadequate mother, to say the least. She lied to Carrie about the simple and scientific elements about her puberty. Instead of consoling her daughter White manipulates Carrie into believing becoming a woman means you've lived a life full of sin. She deprives Carrie of basic necessities of childhood and adolescence. The earliest scene King provides us an inside look at Carrie's powers revolves around "dirty pillows". An early Carrie, only three, has had her brain molded into believing that breasts are dirty pillows, and only "bad girls" will get them (King 24). Instead of Margaret White explaining the changes Carrie's body will make one day she blames breasts on sin. 

Again Margaret White rejects her motherly role when eating dinner with Carrie. Carrie is reluctant to eat pie, "It makes me have pimples, Momma. Your pimples are the Lord's way of chastising you. Now eat your pie" (King 75-76). White believes that everything that is wrong, mentally and physically, with Carrie is coming from God. She takes no responsibility for depriving her young daughter of a normal life. White does not see Carrie as her daughter, but instead as "devilspawn" (King 75).