Nightmares & Dreamscapes Post #2

Welcome to my second blog post! I am still reading Nightmares & Dreamscapes, an exciting short story collection by Stephen King. I have recently read from page 251 to 475. In this entry, I want to talk about a short story that left a memorable impression on me: "Sorry, Right Number."

To be fair, "Sorry, Right Number" is unique in that it isn'texactly a short story. It is more of a short story written in the form of a teleplay, but it's notable in that it is Stephen King's only teleplay to date. Anyway, the main character of this short story is Katie Weiderman, the wife of a famous writer, Bill Weiderman. They have four children: Jeff, Connie, Dennis, and Polly (who is away at a boarding school). The first three children are in the middle of an argument because Jeff wants to see a violent movie that Dennis and Connie don't want to see. All of a sudden, there is a phone call, which Katie picks up. She hears a sobbing voice stutter, "Please, take." Katie thinks that this is Polly's voice at first, so she calls her but finds that Polly is perfectly all right. Katie then calls her mother and visits her sister, only to find that they are not in any trouble as well.

Shortly after, Bill dies of a heart attack, which leaves Katie quite distressed. Five years later, the entire family attends Polly's wedding. It is revealed that Katie has also taken a new husband, Hank. On the night of Polly's wedding, Katie can't help but think of Bill, for Polly's wedding was on the anniversary of Bill's death. Katie is suddenly "inspired" to pick up the telephone and punch in random numbers. Strangely, the voice that answers is that of her own. Katie hears herself say, "Hello, Weiderman residence." She is determined to prevent Bill's death and sobs, "Please, take," meaning for Katie in the past to take Bill to the hospital before he dies of a heart attack. Unfortunately, the phone disconnects and says that the phone number does not exist. Katie is filled with grief, throws the phone across the room, and cries.

I was awed by this short story mainly because of how it explored the implications of determinism. However, I also liked this story because of how Stephen King gradually foreshadowed the ultimate conclusion.

Determinism played an important role in this story. Basically, determinism is the idea that states that everything that happens in the world is "fated" to happen and cannot be prevented. Stephen King touches upon this interesting concept because he shows that even though Katie Weiderman eventually had the opportunity to set things right (i.e. tell Katie in the past to send Bill to the hospital), she could not because she was destined from the very beginning to fail in her attempt, no matter how hard she tried. I thought that this was interesting because I also believe in determinism up to a certain extent. That is, I think that God has already determined what all of us are going to do during our lives, but we still use logic and reasoning to shape our own decisions (though God already knows what we're going to do). I think that Stephen King did an excellent job of incorporating such an interesting topic into his short story.

Foreshadowing also plays an important role as well. King provides a variety of subtle clues and hints that suggest that the voice on the phone is that of Katie's future self. The main clue could be found when Katie tells Bill that she "knows her own." At this point, the reader assumes that the word "own" refers to the offspring of Bill and Katie, but after finishing the story, the reader realizes that "own" actually refers to Katie's voice. Also, there is a part in which Katie screams to Bill that the voice on the phone was that of someone in her family. At the end of the story, Katie reflects on this and bitterly notes that the voice was indeed that of someone in her home, who happened to be someone very close: herself.

I really enjoyed reading this short story, as well as the other short stories in Stephen King's novel. My only regret is that I am slowly approaching the end of this thick, 692-page novel. I hope that the rest of the remaining short stories proves to be as interesting as this one. Thank you for reading my second post.

Nightmares & Dreamscapes Post #1

Welcome to the first post on my blog! I am currently reading Nightmares & Dreamscapes, a short story collection by renowned horror story writer Stephen King. So far, I have read from page 1 to page 250. My book consists of multiple short stories rather than one, coherent narrative, but I’ll still try to comment on the most important or interesting short stories I read from this book.

The first, and most interesting, short story I read was “Dolan’s Cadillac.” Basically, it is a short story in which the main character, Robinson, decides to kill a wealthy crime lord named Dolan. In the beginning of the short story, not much information about Robinson’s actual motive is given, which slightly confused me. Later on, Robinson reveals that he wants to kill Dolan because Dolan killed his wife years ago using a car bomb when she was going to testify in court against him. As Robinson thinks of a good plan for getting revenge, he discovers that Dolan makes an annual cross-country trip through Nevada. Eventually, Robinson gets a job with a road paving crew over the summer in order to learn how to operate the equipment needed to dig a hole slightly larger than Dolan’s gray Cadillac. Robinson then makes an elaborate trap by digging a hole in a section of a road. Dolan falls into the trap, and Robinson slowly puts dirt over the Cadillac as Dolan screams.

This short story was interesting to me because I thought that it effectively demonstrated Stephen King’s prowess at telling horror stories, which literally chill your bones. This short story proved that Stephen King is a raconteur who has the ability to instill genuine fear. For one thing, he uses vivid, descriptive phrases that you can actually "see" and picture in your mind. Consider the following sentence:

"I had this funny idea, you see, that he [Dolan] was going to rise up from the back seat, his skin charred to a cinnamon color and stretched over his skull like the skin of a mummy, his hair full of sand, his eyes and his Rolex watch glittering."

This sentence clearly shows that Robinson has an irrational fear of Dolan rising from his sandy grave to haunt Robinson. One can easily picture an undead mummy with a dark brown tinge to its raw, decaying flesh. Personally, I was reminded of the antagonist of the movie, The Mummy. I couldn't help but picture a malicious mummy emerging out of the sand, eyes glittering like stars, in order to find the explorers who stole its treasure, which shows that King did an excellent job incorporating realistic details.

This story was also interesting because of its use of irony. I found two types of irony in this short story: verbal and dramatic. The part when Robinson "promised" to let Dolan out of the Cadillac if he screamed loud enough is an example of verbal irony because Robinson clearly had no intention of letting Dolan walk away unscathed. In fact, Robinson was so determined to exact his revenge and murder Dolan that he rejected the 5 million dollars Dolan offered him in exchange for his freedom. An example of dramatic irony was when Dolan initially had no clue who was burying him in his Cadillac, although we obviously know that the culprit is Robinson, as he is the narrator.

As you can see, the short story, "Dolan's Cadillac," was quite interesting to me because of its use of excellent details as well as its incorporation of two out of the three types of irony. I look forward to reading more of the short stories that Stephen King has to offer in Nightmares & Dreamscapes, and I hope you look forward to more of my blog posts as well.