Stephen King's horror in "Pet Sematary"

Abstract

[EN] Throughout history, horror literature has passed though many different stages; from early Gothic novelists who often wrote to challenge contemporary society, to modern horror writers with sophisticated and refined techniques. In this essay, I examine the distinct types of horror present in Stephen King’s novel Pet Sematary; analysing them under the scope of his own distinction between horror, terror and the revulsive; comparing his style with the one developed by previous horror tale writers. King’s distinction between the three types of horror separates psychological terror relying on the reader’s imagination, from the dread evoked by some physical element, and from the repugnance felt toward the elements he defines as the “gross-out”, the explicit depictions of macabre events. These three elements coexist in Pet Sematary together with some classical horror tale elements utilized by previous canonical horror writers: Poe’s deep psychological profiling, Lovecraft’s love for the unknown, or Radcliffe’s descriptions of the landscape as the sublime. Incorporating evidence from the novel, this paper explores the main scenes and topics in the novel in order to analyse the methods used by King to transmit a sensation of unrest to the reader, including themes like the portrayal of death in the novel, the description of sombre and dismal cemeteries, the resurrection of dead entities or the appearance of an invisible, but powerful force. Hence, I argue that Pet Sematary could be considered to create loathing and aversion through the coexistence of both Stephen King’s terror, horror, and revulsive elements, together with classical horror tale elements used by previous writers.