From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carrie

First edition cover
Author	Stephen King
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror
Publisher	Doubleday
Publication date	1974
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	199 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-385-08695-4
Followed by	'Salem's Lot

Carrie (1974) is Stephen King's first published novel. King has commented that he finds the work to be "raw" and "with a surprising power to hurt and horrify". It is one of the most frequently banned books in U.S. schools ^[1] and the film version was banned in Finland. Much of the book is written in epistolary structure in the form of newspaper clippings, letters, excerpts from books, etc. Brian De Palma created a film version in 1976.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Background 3 Trivia 4 Adaptations 5 Editions 6 References 7 External links

The book uses fictional documents, such as book excerpts, news reports, and hearing transcripts, to frame the story of Carietta "Carrie" White, a teenage girl from Chamberlain, Maine. Carrie's mother, Margaret, a fanatical Christian fundamentalist, has a vindictive and unstable personality, and over the years has ruled Carrie with an iron rod and repeated threats of damnation. Margaret's mentally and emotionally abusive behavior has occasionally crossed over into physical abuse as well.

Carrie does not fare much better at her school, Thomas Ewen High School, where her plain looks, unfashionable attire and lack of friends and no popularity make her the butt of ridicule; at the beginning of the novel, she has her first period while showering after a physical education class. The terrified Carrie has no understanding of menstruation; her mother never spoke to her about it, and she has been a social outcast throughout high school.

That this could be Carrie's first period, or that sympathy might be appropriate, never occurs to her classmates; they use the event as an opportunity to taunt her. Led by Chris Hargensen, a spoiled rich girl who has a record of targeting outsiders, they throw tampons and sanitary napkins at her. When gym teacher Miss Desjardin happens upon the scene, she at first berates Carrie for her stupidity but is horrified when she realizes that Carrie has no idea what has happened to her. She helps her clean up and tries to explain. Carrie is excused from school by the assistant principal and sent home to her mother, who shows no sympathy for Carrie's first encounter with "the woman's curse".

Miss Desjardin, still incensed over the locker room incident, wants all the girls who taunted Carrie suspended and barred from attending the upcoming school prom as punishment. The school principal finds this too harsh and instead remands the girls to detention under the gym teacher's unforgiving eye. When Chris refuses to appear for the detention, she is suspended and barred from the prom. She tries to get her father, a prominent local lawyer, to intimidate the school principal into reinstating her prom privileges. The principal, however, is disgusted with Chris's behavior and stands up to Mr. Hargensen, who decides the matter is not worth pursuing.

Carrie gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers. She has apparently possessed the gift since birth, but conscious control over it disappeared after her infancy, although she remembers incidents throughout her life that could be attributable to telekinesis; for example, a shower of rocks on her house at the age of three (similar to an incident involving Shirley Jackson's heroine Eleanor in The Haunting of Hill House). Carrie practices her powers in secret, developing strength, even though this is physically tiring and she is frequently pressed to the limit. She also finds that she is somewhat telepathic, enough to be able to discern people's thoughts about her; for instance, she knows that the gym teacher has mixed feelings of sympathy and disgust towards her.

Meanwhile, Sue Snell, another popular girl who had earlier teased Carrie, begins to feel remorseful about her participation in the locker room antics. With the prom fast approaching, Sue convinces her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, one of the most attractive and popular boys in the school, to ask Carrie to the prom (Sue suspects that she is pregnant by Tommy). Carrie is suspicious but accepts, and makes her own outfit, a red velvet gown. Carrie's mother won't hear of her daughter doing anything so "carnal" as attending a school dance and reveals much of her own past as she explains why. She believes that sex in any form is sinful, even after marriage. She also knows all about Carrie's telekinetic powers, which she considers a form of witchcraft; it seems that they appear every third generation in her family. Carrie, however, is tired of hearing that everything is a sin; she wants a normal life and sees the prom as a new beginning.

Chris Hargenson, still furious with Carrie, devises her own plan of revenge with her boyfriend Billy Nolan. Billy, along with some friends, drives out to a farm, slaughters two pigs and fills two buckets full of blood, and, breaking into the school gym, suspends the buckets over the stage with a pull cord. Chris then rigs Carrie's election as prom queen. When Carrie and Tommy go up to be crowned, Chris will pull the cord, ruining the happiest moment of Carrie's life.

The plan succeeds beyond their wildest hopes. Tommy is knocked unconscious by one of the falling buckets, and he and Carrie are drenched in blood. Everyone in attendance, even some of the teachers, find themselves laughing at Carrie. As Sue says later, "after all those years of laughing at Carrie, what else could you do?" Carrie is finally pushed over the edge. She leaves the building in agonized humiliation, but once outside, she remembers her telekinetic gift and decides to use it for vengeance. Initially planning only to lock all the doors and turn on the sprinklers to destroy the dresses and ruin the hair of all of the snobbish girls who had bullied her, Carrie remembers about the electrical equipment set up for the dance band and the PA system. Carrie turns the sprinkler system anyway, finally going over the edge. Watching through the windows, she witnesses the death of two of the students and a school official by electrocution. She decides to kill everyone, eventually causing a massive fire that destroys Thomas Ewen High School, trapping almost everyone inside.

Walking home, she burns virtually all of downtown Chamberlain. A side-effect of Carrie's gift is "broadcast" telepathy; anyone within a certain radius becomes aware that the hideous carnage at the school and the explosions and fires downtown are being caused by Carrie White, even if they do not know who Carrie is. A few even catch details of her thoughts. She makes power lines break, gas stations explode, and wreaks other forms of vengeance on the town. She also mentally keeps the school's doors locked, although she allows the few students who remember the fire escape to leave, thinking that she'll get to them later.

Carrie returns home to confront her mother, who believes Carrie has been possessed by Satan and that the only way to save her is to kill her. Revealing that Carrie's conception was a result of marital rape, she stabs Carrie in the shoulder with a kitchen knife. Carrie kills her mother, using her telekinesis to cause her heart to slow and ultimately stop.

Mortally wounded but still alive, Carrie makes her way to the roadhouse where her father got drunk the night she was conceived. Seeing Chris and Billy leaving, and upon their attempt to run her over, she telekinetically takes control of the vehicle and wrecks the car, killing them both and setting the roadhouse on fire. Sue Snell, who has been following Carrie's telepathic "broadcast," finds Carrie collapsed in the parking lot.

Carrie and Sue have a brief telepathic conversation. Carrie had believed that Sue and Tommy had set her up for the prank, but Sue invites her to look into her mind. Realizing that Sue is innocent and has never felt animosity towards her, Carrie forgives her and dies; however, before doing so, Carrie causes Sue to miscarry, which can be seen as an act of revenge or friendship. However, Sue believes that she is finally having her period.

Carrie posits a strong relationship between the onset of puberty, particularly a young woman's menstruation, and psychic powers.

Carrie was actually King's sixth novel but the first to be published. It was written while he was living in a trailer in Hermon, Maine, on a portable typewriter that belonged to his wife, Tabitha. It started as a short story originally intended for Cavalier magazine, but King tossed the first ten pages of his work-in-progress in the garbage. Of King's published short stories at the time, he recalls "Some woman said, 'You write all those macho things, but you can't write about women.' I said, 'I'm not scared of women. I could write about them if I wanted to.' So I got an idea for a story about this incident in a girls' shower room, and the girl would be telekinetic. The other girls would pelt her with sanitary napkins when she got her period. The period would release the right hormones and she would rain down destruction on them... I did the shower scene, but I hated it and threw it away."^[2]

His wife, Tabitha King, fished the pages out of the garbage and encouraged him to finish the story. He followed his wife's advice and expanded it into a novel.^[3] King says "I persisted because I was dry and had no better ideas... My considered opinion was that I had written the world's all-time loser."^[4]

The character of Carietta (Carrie) White was based on a combination of two girls in King's past; one of them went to school with him, the other was a student of his. The young girl King went to school with lived down the street from him when he lived in Durham, Maine. King recalls, in an interview with Charles L. Grant for Twilight Zone Magazine (Apr 1981), "She was a very peculiar girl who came from a very peculiar family. Her mother wasn't a religious nut like the mother in Carrie; she was a game nut, a sweepstakes nut who subscribed to magazines for people who entered contests . . . The girl had one change of clothes for the entire school year, and all the other kids made fun of her. I have a very clear memory of the day she came to school with a new outfit she'd bought herself. She was a plain-looking country girl, but she'd changed the black skirt and white blouse--which was all anybody had every seen her in--for a bright-colored checkered blouse with puffed sleeves and a skirt that was fashionable at the time. And everybody made worse fun of her because nobody wanted to see her change the mold."

King told biographer George Beahm that she later "married a man who was as odd as her, had kids and eventually killed herself."^[5]

According to the audio commentary for the 1976 Brian DePalma film version of Carrie, Carrie is based on a composite of two girls who were bullied and abused at school, one of whom had a religious fanatic for a mother. King says he wondered what it would have been like to have been reared by such a mother. He based the story itself on a reversal of the Cinderella fairy tale.

Carrie’s telekinetic powers resulted from King’s earlier reading about this topic. King also did a short stint as a high school English teacher at Hampden Academy, a job he eventually quit after receiving the payment for the paperback publishing sale of Carrie. It is presumed that he drew inspiration from his time as a teacher while he was writing the book.^[5]

At the time of publication, King was working as a teacher at Hampden Academy and barely making ends meet ($6,400 annually). To cut down on expenses, King had the phone company remove the telephone from his house. As a result, when King received word that the book was chosen for publication, his phone was out of service. Doubleday editor, William Thompson (who would eventually become King's close friend), sent a telegram to King's house which read: "CARRIE OFFICIALLY A DOUBLEDAY BOOK. $2,500 ADVANCE AGAINST ROYALTIES. CONGRATS, KID - THE FUTURE LIES AHEAD, BILL." ^[6] New American Library bought the paperback rights for $400,000, which according to King's contract with Doubleday, was split with them. ^[7]

King recalls, "Carrie was written after Rosemary's Baby but before The Exorcist, which really opened up the field. I didn't expect much of Carrie. I thought who'd want to read a book about a poor little girl with menstrual problems? I couldn't believe I was writing it." ^[8]

The book is dedicated to his wife, Tabitha: "This is for Tabby, who got me into it - and then bailed me out of it."

Carrie was published April 5, 1974 with an initial print run of 30,000 copies for a cover price of $5.95 USD.

The hardback sold a mere 13,000 copies, while the paperback, released a year later, sold over 1 million copies in its first year. Brian DePalma's film adaptation was released ten weeks after King's second book, Salem's Lot, was published. ^[9]

Prior to Carrie, King's novel Getting it On, later retitled Rage and released under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman, had been rejected by Doubleday. He had also written The Long Walk and The Running Man, both later published under the Bachman pen name.

In a talk at the University of Maine at Orono, King said of Carrie, "I'm not saying that Carrie is shit and I'm not repudiating it. She made me a star, but it was a young book by a young writer. In retrospect it reminds me of a cookie baked by a first-grader- tasty enough, but kind of lumpy and burned on the bottom."

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Stephen King later reprised the notion of a child who uses telekinetic ability, consciously or unconsciously, to cause a shower of rocks onto a house, in Rose Red. Annie Wheaton, who is supposed to be autistic, has full control of her powers at a younger age than Carrie and destroys two houses with rock showers.
• Teddy Duchamp from the King novella The Body is briefly mentioned. Carrie sabotages an Amoco gas station once operated by Teddy, leading to its destruction. Minor character Thomas Quillan testifies during the White Commission that "Teddy Duchamp's been dead since 1968, God love him, but his boy locked those pumps up every night just like Teddy himself used to do."

• A 1976 movie, based on the novel, was made, directed by Brian de Palma and starring Sissy Spacek.
• In 1999, a sequel titled The Rage: Carrie 2 was released. The premise was that Carrie's father had remarried and had another daughter who had telekinetic powers. Sue Snell, the only survivor of the prom, is now a school counselor.
• In 2002, a TV movie remake was released. It starred Angela Bettis, Emilie de Ravin and Patricia Clarkson.
• A 1988 Broadway musical, starring Betty Buckley, Linzi Hateley, and Darlene Love closed after only five performances and 16 previews. It is viewed as one of the biggest Broadway flops of all time.
• Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror comics did an adaption starring Lisa.^{[citation needed]}

• ISBN 0-606-00823-3 (prebound, 1975)
• ISBN 0-385-08695-4 (hardcover, 1990)
• ISBN 1-56780-057-2 (paperback, 1992)
• ISBN 0-8161-5688-3 (library binding, 1994, Large Type Edition)
• ISBN 84-01-49966-6 (hardcover, 1999)
• ISBN 0-671-03973-3 (paperback, 2000)
• ISBN 0-606-20594-2 (prebound, 2001)
• ISBN 0-609-81090-1 (paperback, 2001)
• ISBN 0-671-03972-5 (paperback, 2002)
• ISBN 84-01-49888-0 (hardcover)
• ISBN 0-7434-7060-5 (mass market paperback)

7. LOST - Episode 3X01: Juliet's book club are discussing the novel.

• Carrie Book Review

v • d • e Carrie (by Stephen King)
Novel	Carrie (1974)
Films	Carrie (1976) | The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999) | Carrie (2002 film)
Characters	Carrie White | Margaret White | Sue Snell
Related Articles	Telekinesis

v • d • e Stephen King bibliography
Novels	Carrie (1974) • ’Salem's Lot (1975) • The Shining (1977) • The Stand (1978) • The Dead Zone (1979) • Firestarter (1980) • Cujo (1981) • Christine (1983) • Pet Sematary (1983) • Cycle of the Werewolf (1983) • The Talisman (1984; with Peter Straub) • It (1986) • The Eyes of the Dragon (1987) • Misery (1987) • The Tommyknockers (1987) • The Dark Half (1989) • Needful Things (1991) • Gerald's Game (1992) • Dolores Claiborne (1993) • Insomnia (1994) • Rose Madder (1995) • The Green Mile (1996) • Desperation (1996) • Bag of Bones (1998) • The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999) • Dreamcatcher (2001) • Black House (2001; with Peter Straub) • From a Buick 8 (2002) • The Colorado Kid (2005) • Cell (2006) • Lisey's Story (2006) • Duma Key (2008)
The Dark Tower series	I: The Gunslinger (1982) • II: The Drawing of the Three (1987) • III: The Waste Lands (1991) • IV: Wizard and Glass (1997) • V: Wolves of the Calla (2003) • VI: Song of Susannah (2004) • VII: The Dark Tower (2004)
The Bachman Books	Rage (1977) • The Long Walk (1979) • Roadwork (1981) • The Running Man (1982) • Thinner (1984) • The Regulators (1996) • Blaze (2007)
Short fiction collections	Night Shift (1978) • Different Seasons (1982) • Skeleton Crew (1985) • Four Past Midnight (1990) • Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993) • Hearts in Atlantis (1999) • Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales (2002)
Non-fiction	Danse Macabre (1981) • Nightmares in the Sky (1988) • On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000) • Secret Windows (2000) • Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season (2005; with Stewart O'Nan)
e-books	Riding the Bullet (1999) • The Plant (2000; unfinished)
Screenplays	Creepshow (1982) • Cat's Eye (1985) • Silver Bullet (1985) • Maximum Overdrive (1986; also director) • Pet Sematary (1989) • Sleepwalkers (1992) • The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer (2003)
Teleplays	Sorry, Right Number (1988) • Golden Years (1991) • The Stand (1994) • The Shining (1997) • Storm of the Century (1999) • Rose Red (2002) • Desperation (2006)
Stage play	Ghost Brothers of Darkland County (2007; with John Mellencamp)
Miscellaneous	Kingdom Hospital (2004) • The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born‎ (2007)
Related articles	Richard Bachman • Tabitha King • Joe Hill • Owen King • Bryan Smith • Peter Straub • Rock Bottom Remainders • Dollar Baby • Media based on Stephen King works • Castle Rock, Maine • Derry, Maine