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The novel Carrie fascinated the audience with a horror story of a high school girl who is always teased by her classmates, and repressed by her mother, a fanatic Christian fundamentalist. Carrie gradually discovers she has telekinetic powers which help her take revenge in a horrendous way against her classmates, her mother, and the entire town of Chamberlain. The story takes place in a town in, Maine, a place that King uses in almost all of his stories. Carrie has many elements of popular culture, but is very different from common novel stories where usually good wins over evil. Carrie is also different because there is not a hero in this story that saves the tragedy Carrie causes at Chamberlain.
In the first chapter, King starts the story with a scene where Carrie is being mocked by her classmates because she is having her first menstruation. Carrie did not know what was happening to her. Her mother, Margaret White, never explained it to Carrie and after returning from school her mother made her belief she was sinful. Margaret White represents a fanatic religious fundamentalist, a movement that started back in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Their theology is based in their beliefs of the exact meaning of the bible. Although, fundamentalist was a movement of the early 20th century, King adapts this idea to emphasize how it affected in Carrie’s behavior.
Beliefs are important part of popular culture and there are some myths portrayed in this story. The belief that the family is the most desirable social life is confirmed because it shows how Carrie didn’t have a complete united family, therefore she did not have a “normal” life. For Americans, the family is the basic unit of society. Carrie lived with her mother and as the story shows, she lacked of family unity which was one of the reasons of her insecurity and low self- esteem.
The role of woman during that 20th century changed because during that era women were still struggling to obtain more rights and freedom. Carrie portrays how the role of woman changed. In this story, there is not a woman someone has to save, as it was in the early stories like the pulps. Carrie is the villain with a supernatural power and Sue Snell, one of her classmates and the one of the tragedy’s survivor, is the only person of the story who feels more empathy for Carrieta White. Sue Snell, a beautiful and popular girl, at first made fun of Carrie’s first period, but later in the story, she regrets it and tries to fix it by making her boyfriend Tommy Ross, a popular boy, to go to prom with Carrie. Although, she is not the hero, her idea of making things better for Carrie is a noble action, and even though it does not come out right, she tried to do a good action.
There are also stereotypes that Carrie portrays to its audience of popular culture. The idea of the villain changed in the American society; the stereotype of a villain before was that poor people were the bad people, and rich people were the heroes of the story like in the famous pulp The Shadow. In Carrie, Chris Hargensen is a spoiled rich girl who is always making fun of her classmates. This is also an important character because she is also the villain in this story where she is causing trouble, not only to Carrie, but also in the school in general. Chris planned something against Carrie during Prom, which led to Carrie’s stressed reaction of causing a massive fire that terminated almost every part of Chamberlain. Another stereotypical character of the story is Billy Nolan, Chris’ boyfriend. He is the stereotypical rebel guy who quits school and keeps causing trouble; He helped Chris Hargensen to make Carrie very unhappy.
Rituals are another important part of Popular Culture. There are two important rituals related to story of Carrie. The most important is the ritual of Prom. For the American society high school is a very important experience and graduating from it is the passage of adulthood. It determines the end of basic education to start preparing for a professional career. It is socially important for high school students, and in this story the fact that Chris couldn’t go to prom made her hate Carrie and therefore take revenge against her. Prom was essential in this part because Carrie went to prom and wanted to start being more sociable without caring about her mother’s extremely conservative ideas. The second ritual of the story was the part of the menstruation of Carrie; this is also a ritual of adulthood. She felt pressured and stressed because her mother never explained it. In the American society, menstruation is considered a ritual because it indicates that the girl is becoming a woman that later in the society will be creating a family.
Carrie is one of the best horror novels that portray many elements of Popular Culture and it also captivates the reader’s attention. Carrie is guaranteed to scare every person who reads it and at the same time entertain them with the scary story of the misunderstood girl that everybody must know during high school. Stephen King fascinated the American public with Carrie because it was his first work published and it helped him introduce many other interesting stories that will enrich Popular Culture and will inspire future authors, directors and famous TV shows of Popular Culture. Stephen King contributed enormously to Popular Culture and it became very important author in the American society.