The tension between ex-serviceman Dale Barbara (aka ‘Barbie’) and Rennie is uncomfortable. As the outsider, Barbara is resigned to accept his low social status in the small town of Chester’s Mill. While the character’s past life includes being a decorated war veteran and intelligence official, he finds himself inside the town border as a short order cook and the target of suspicion, aggression, and scapegoating. Like many immigrants within our borders, his past life and achievements are invisible. At the halfway point of the book, at least, he is the quintessential "suspicious foreigner" who plays a critical servant’s role in the small town, while being despised by both the town leaders and its privileged sons.
Rennie is a monster on par with any King has unleashed. The small town political figurehead is outwardly a born-again Christian, with the dangerous self-assurance that he is always right. A used car salesman and second selectman, Big Jim brings out a voice in our culture which is everywhere in our political and cultural headlines: "I’m right, but you’re stupid and going to Hell." He is most dangerous behind the scenes, passively but aggressively manipulating the town, its officials, and its resources to personal gain.
Most intriguing is King’s attention given to the spiritual condition of his characters in Under the Dome. In King’s 1974 book ‘Carrie,’ title character Carrie White has a terrifying mother whose religious zeal, suspicion of the world, and abusive nature combine to show the dichotomy between a public faith and a private failure. 36 years later, the townspeople of Chester’s Mill who express any public faith carry their own shortcomings. From substance addiction to abusiveness, each Christian character is either struggling or is completely ineffective in a moral sense. Mostly, the town would be better off without them.
With the second half of the story still unknown, it’s difficult to guess where the story will turn. But that’s true in reality, not just in fiction. As we find many in our nation quick to demonize, stereotype, and label people who are different than "we" are, it really is hard to tell where the current tone will lead us as a nation. If it’s anything like a real Stephen King novel, the end could be pretty scary indeed.
I have never read the book as aside from Stephen King's period prison stories and a nice littel fantasy he wrote for his kids I am not a big fan so I cannot comment on any level of educated opinion and only voice the following unresearched assumption.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is simply a much more politically correct and less controversial way to go to have the humanists, the secular thinkers be the the logical, reasoning, more highly evoloved characters. They of course are not bogged down with unscientific clutter of faith. We all know from science fiction that the future for most utopic societies, does away with all of the socially heated issues we deal with today: poverty, racism, classism, inequality, injustice etc...we also know that the utopic society of the literary future first eliminates religion and ultimately faith in God in order to accomplish these things. Maybe this is the horror foretold.
I would pose the point, that if Mr, King had made the demon the secular, free thinking, progressive minded, political power house that slowly eliminated the freedoms of the post 911 world in the name of safety, protection and equality and yet acheived the same personal gain and corruption as his born again character Big Jim, and the protagonists were Christians I think that his novel would not be as well received and in today's world he would then have to be labled (by the free thinkers) as a Christian writer with a much smaller audience and it may actually be the end of his career with many of his current fans.
So, whereas I do not pretend to know Stephen King's motives in writing his demons to be insincere or at least unbalanced Christians I do take away from an interview from several years back that he may have just listened to his critics and as any good self-marketer and artist that can work within the realms of provided bounderies, gives the public what they want. In response to criticism about positive representation of faithful, good people his response was: "....God is a logical out growth of the fact that life fits together as well as it does, but that doesn't mean that we know God's mind.There has been a lot of criticism of the book where they say the God stuff really turns them off. I'm thinking to myself that these guys have no problems with vampires, demons, golems, werewolves and you name it. If you try to bring in a God who can take sardines and crackers and turn it into loaves and fishes, then these people have a problem..."
Although my comment may have no relevance to your original intention, I did just want to remark as to why I feel this literary elelement is so successful, because that is what the culture demands.