In a thoughtful, well-informed study exploring fiction from throughout Stephen King's immense oeuvre, Heidi Strengell shows how this popular writer enriches his unique brand of horror by building on the traditions of his literary heritage. Tapping into the wellsprings of the gothic to reveal contemporary phobias, King invokes the abnormal and repressed sexuality of the vampire, the hubris of Frankenstein, the split identity of the werewolf, the domestic melodrama of the ghost tale. Drawing on myths and fairy tales, he creates characters who, like the heroic Roland the Gunslinger and the villainous Randall Flagg, may either reinforce or subvert the reader's childlike faith in society. And in the manner of the naturalist tradition, he reinforces a tension between the free will of the individual and the daunting hand of fate.
    Ultimately, Strengell shows how King shatters our illusions of safety and control: "King places his decent and basically good characters at the mercy of indifferent forces, survival depending on their moral strength and the responsibility they may take for their fellow men."

Heidi Strengell is director of the Language Center at the University of Lapland, Finland.

Contents
Abbreviations 000
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Introduction 000
1. The Gothic in King's Works 000
	1.1. Abnormal and Repressed Sexuality (The Vampire) 000
	1.2. Hubris and Death (Frankenstein's Monster) 000
	1.3. The Gothic Double (The Werewolf) 000
	1.4. The Gothic Melodrama (The Ghost) 000
2. Myths and Fairy Tales in King's Works 000
	2.1. The Hero as a Generic Hybrid (Roland the Gunslinger) 000
	2.2. The Anti-Hero as a Generic Hybrid (Randall Flagg) 000
	2.3. Adapted and Revised Myths and Fairy Tales 000
	2.4. Mythical and Fairy-Tale Themes 000
3. Literary Naturalism in King's Works 000
	3.1. Free Will and Responsibility 000
	3.2. Genetic and Sociological Determinism 000
	3.3. Cosmological Determinism and Fate 000
	3.4. Metafictional Determinism 000
Conclusions 000
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Appendix: A Note on Previous Criticism 000
Bibliography 000
Index 000