Welcome to my third blog post! I have recently read from page 476 to 581 of Nightmares & Dreamscapes, a short story collection by Stephen King. In this entry, I want to discuss two short stories that entirely fascinated and intrigued me: "The House on Maple Street" and "The Doctor's Case."
"The House on Maple Street" is a short story about an extraordinary event that occurs on Maple Street, which is located in England. The protagonists are the Bradbury children: Melissa, Brian, Laurie, and Trent. They are living in their house, which is (obviously) located on Maple Street, with their mother and their cruel and vicious stepfather, Lew. The Bradbury children fervently desire to get rid of Lew because of his tyranny, but they are unable to. However, they eventually find out that something is growing in the basement of the house. The children later discover an electronic timer that appeared out of nowhere and realize that the house will probably blast off into space once the timer counts down to zero. The children formulate a plan which involves tricking their stepfather into entering the house and then locking him in his study. At the end of the story, the house does indeed lift off into outer space, with a confused and frightened Lew trapped helplessly inside.
I found this short story to be particularly intriguing because of how it evoked several emotions. First, it evoked great wrath and anger. I was outraged to read that when Lew's wife (the children's mother) fainted during a party, Lew didn't bother to check on his wife even once during the entire party. How could a husband do that to his wife? Lew didn't care about his wife one bit and treated her as though she was just an object, instead of treating her as a human being. Husbands, as men, are supposed to care for their wives. I remember thinking, "God would certainly not be pleased with Lew."
The story also evoked much joy and happiness. At the end of the story, when the house blasted off, I was relieved and jubilant because the children were finally free from their cruel and inhumane stepfather. I felt happy for the children because they could now live their remaining lives in peace. However, I also felt sad and worried for the children because they were technically "homeless." After all, their house and all of their possessions (including money) blasted off to space, so it would be extremely difficult for one mother to make enough money to take care of her four children as well as herself. Even though I knew that this was only a story, it felt so realistic that I couldn't help but feel pity.
As you can see, this short story was intriguing to me because it evoked various emotions. Another intriguing short story that I read was "The Doctor's Case."
"The Doctor's Case" is unique in that it is a pastiche, which is a work by one author that imitates the work of another. Basically, "The Doctor's Case" is Stephen King's version of a Sherlock Holmes short mystery story. Dr. Watson narrates the tale and talks about how he, and not Holmes, solved a murder mystery in the past. In the story, a British man named Lord Hull was recently murdered inside of his room, even though all of the doors and windows were locked. His one wife and three sons each have a reason to detest and kill the man; Hull frequently abused his wife, ignored his eldest son, taunted and belittled his deformed middle son, and refused to allow his youngest, most intellectual son to take control of Lord Hull's business affairs.
Unfortunately for Sherlock Holmes, who has a severe allergy to cats, Lord Hull was a cat enthusiast and owned many cats in his home, which prevents Holmes from thinking clearly. Watson quickly discovers that someone from Hull's family killed Hull because he (Lord Hull) was going to change his will and not leave any money for the rest of the Hull family. Watson then finds out that the middle son, Jory, drew a realistic painting of the bottom of a table, put it under Lord Hull's table, and hid under the table to check whether Hull was actually going to change his will or not. When Jory saw that Hull was indeed going to change the will and burn the old one, Jory stabbed Hull, who uttered a final cry, leaving Jory no time to pick up his painting. Holmes and Watson eventually decide not to report Jory to the police, as they believe that Lord Hull somewhat deserved his death.
This short story was interesting because I could see connections to the world. For instance, every person on Earth has suffered or suffers from some kind of injustice. Some people cope with their injustices through endurance. That is, some people just try to endure the injustice and hope that the situation becomes better later on. An excellent example of a person demonstrating this concept would be my friend, Muhammad. During the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, many of my classmates lashed out against Muhammad as though he was responsible for the terrorist attacks, solely because of the fact that he was a Muslim. However, Muhammad didn't really try to defend himself. Instead, he just ignored the claims and hoped that people would stop harassing him. After several months, they did stop, which shows that Muhammad's endurance paid off in the end. After I read this short story, I couldn't help but think of my friend Muhammad, who endured his injustice. I thought it was amazing how Stephen King could write his short story in such a universally appealing way as to make readers truly "connect" with his story, as I did.
These two short stories, "The House on Maple Street" and "The Doctor's Case," were intriguing to me because the first story evoked several different emotions, while the second prompted me to think of connections to the world and other people. Thanks for reading this blog post!
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