SOURCE: "The Individual and Society: Narrative Structure and Thematic Unity in Stephen King's Rage," in Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 27, No. 1, Summer, 1993, pp. 171-78.

In the following essay, Pourteau discusses the struggle of the individual against society in King's Rage.

The seemingly popular conception among literary critics that Stephen King's writing ability is somehow "less" than those writers usually considered "great writers," or "literary writers," stems from the "considerable comment and controversy" about his "prodigious popularity and productivity." A primary thesis of Mark Schorer's essay, "Technique as Discovery," establishes that writers who may be properly termed "artists" are those writers who consciously craft their works. Schorer says that, unlike H. G. Wells (whose over-confidence and disregard for the artistry of his profession necessitated his present-day obscurity), these artists will endure. The crafting of the work, according to Schorer, is what gives the work meaning; thus, through analyzing an...