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.King s account of Stillson s political behavior may be heightened (foreffect) but for Johnny the question of how to deal with the man remains.Hetakes a kind of informal survey: just suppose you could hop into a timemachine and go back to the year 1932.In Germany.And suppose you cameacross Hitler.Would you kill him or let him live? (King, 306 7).Theresponses are interesting.One old man, who served in World War I and losta son in World War II, would kill Hitler without hesitation.RogerChatsworth, the successful businessman and deal-maker, would not: I think Some Ways of Reading The Dead Zone 87I d join the party instead.Try to change things from within (King, 308).Roger, who fancies himself a realist, thinks Johnny s question is pointlessbut interesting (King, 308).His 17-year-old son Chuck asks questions of hisown which are closer to the bone: Would they catch me? Could I escape inmy time machine back to 1977? To both these inquiries, Johnny must posita no. Well, it wouldn t matter [says Chuck] I d kill him anyway (King, 309).These responses provide only ironic guidance.Johnny is in the moralequivalent of 1932, with his own potential Hitler, and must act on his own toprevent a tragic future.(Still more ironically, perhaps, as Johnny comparesStillson to the Hitler who began World War II, Stillson s future war willbegin with nuclear weapons the means by which World War II was ended.)At all events, historical analogues and the sense of history, which subsumesissues of war, politics, and the presidency, loom over the consciousness ofJohn Smith and the progress of events in The Dead Zone.Large historical events, both past and future, are by no means the onlyconcerns of this novel.As in every King novel, personal history mattersgreatly.The surface topics of politics and war are richly underlain by thehumus of ordinary lives.The implication of rot is unpleasant but it is notinaccurate: lives decay through the novel in an atmosphere of fear,fanaticism, and irrationality, and each life contributes its mite to the ranksocial and political air of the mid-1970s, which John Smith and others mustbreathe.To say that John Smith and Greg Stillson are the twin poles of TheDead Zone is to state the obvious; they are everywhere juxtaposed.Still, in theopening pages, King shows us more of Greg Stillson.Of Johnny, we learnlittle more than that a rather odd power has been made manifest in his mind.By contrast, King paints the young Stillson with fairly broad strokes; he is aflimflam artist travelling the roads of Middle America, selling a dishonestproduct (the Bible), arrogant in his assumed superiority, a coward, and abully a perfect little demagogue in embryo.Greg Stillson did not acquire these unlovely traits by happenstance.One strongly implied contrast between the two opening scenes of the novelis in the nature of Johnny s and Greg s boyhood.Johnny s, while not vividlyrealized at the outset, is at least normal: two loving parents (Vera Smith sreligious fanaticism not yet having surfaced) with whom he has anaffectionate relationship in a stable small-town setting.Greg s, by contrast, isnomadic; his father, a roughneck oil-field worker, shows only contempt forthe runty little kid, a contempt that Greg returns, with interest, as hatred; themother is a nonentity. The domineering father and the laxly approvingmother, is King s description of this charming couple (King, 304).It seems 88 Michael N.Stantonclear that even as he hates his father (who, as it happens, dies by fire) Stillsonseeks the dead man s approval by emulation: his campaign gimmick ofwearing a hard hat cocked at a rakish angle (King, 267) on his headreproduces the father s hard hat cocked jauntily back (King, 296) in thephotograph of father and son that Johnny sees.In fact, even though it is the one King novel that does not have a childas a major figure (although children are important in it), The Dead Zone isgreatly concerned with relations between parents and children, and thekeystone of many of these relationships is fear or hatred.Frank Dodd s mother, for example, that crazy reptilian woman, teachesher son to hate and fear his own sexuality.Her punishment of his innocentpresexual interest in his body contributes largely to Frank s fear and loathingof women and to his subsequent career as a rapist and serial killer.Frank sfather, a drunkard, died many years ago, and for whatever kind ofsubstitution it might imply, Frank never wanted to be anything but apoliceman.And his boss, Sheriff Bannerman, refuses to believe that Frank isthe killer, because, as Johnny points out, he is the man you think of as yourown son (King, 226).Chuck Chatsworth s fear arises from a very different source: he wantsto please and fears failing his successful father, whom he idolizes; his readingdisability is a symptom of that fear: he is overanxious to succeed and therebyplease Roger Chatsworth.He is overswinging as his tutor, Johnny Smith,puts it (King, 254).Just these three examples show that in The Dead Zone the relationshipsbetween parents and children are a network of fear and inadequacy.Parentsfail their children; children fear failing their parents.Living fathers, forexample (like Herb Smith or Roger Chatsworth), get fairly high marks forcaring, while dead ones, blameable by their very absence, are seen as meanor weak.Mothers, living or dead, are usually neutral figures (ShelleyChatsworth), or weak (the late Mrs.Stillson), or strangely warped (VeraSmith, Henrietta Dodd).Moving beyond questions of characters intrafamilial relations witheach other to questions of their own value systems, we see the same kinds ofshortcomings and failings at work.People ask themselves, What can Ibelieve? or, How can I make sense of my life? and their answers areinadequate to the extent that they arise from ideology or dogmatism.The litmus test for such dogmatism is John Smith, or rather two eventsin his life: his unlikely recovery from a years-long coma and the revelation ofhis psychic power.We see at once that those characters who respond mostinadequately to the phenomena presented by the existence of John Smith arethose whose beliefs are most fixed.Such rigidity shows the mind, constrained Some Ways of Reading The Dead Zone 89by its own belief-sets, unable to handle actuality.Dr.James Brown, forexample, is a scientific materialist.Because he cannot explain Johnny speculiar power according to his own principles, he refuses to admit that itexists.As Brown s colleague Sam Weizak explains to Johnny, He thinks youare having us on.His cast of mind makes it impossible for him to thinkotherwise.He is a mechanic of the brain.He has cut it to pieces with hisscalpel and found no soul.Therefore there is none (King, 119)
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Tematy
IndexPratchett Terry & Baxter Stephen DÅ‚uga Ziemia #2 DÅ‚uga Wojna
L Frank Baum Oz 19 The Lost King of Oz
Meyer Stephenie Bella Swan 05 Midnight Sun (tłum. Madeline nieoficjalne)
Stephens Susan Harlequin Œwiatowe Życie Ekstra 205 Na francuskim zamku
Pratchett Terry & Baxter Stephen DÅ‚uga Ziemia #3 DÅ‚ugi Mars
Stephen J. Spignesi Sto największych katastrof wszech czasów
Lawhead Stephen Piesn Albionu Wezel bez konca
Ignatius Dav
allianz ubezpieczenia techniczne
1 Garwood Julie Róża