Critical Literary Analysis of The Shining by Stephen King
Thought I’d share my final project for my college lit course: a critical literary analysis of The Shining. It took about sixteen hours of research and work, and the final product clocked out at 19 pages from abstract to works cited. Keep in mind this analysis looks at the novel only, not the film. We read The Shining and Misery in this course and only did work based on those novels. Probably my favorite college course so far.
Abstract:
This article analyzes Stephen King’s novel The Shining (1977) using a psychological and formalistic approach. Focus is placed on King’s methods of elicitation of fear in readers, which are argued to be (1) use of narrative elements such as setting, point of view, character, plot, and style in combination with prior successful writing styles by King to make readers feel empathy for the characters and their relatable problems; (2) exploitation of the vulnerable emotional state of the empathetic reader to induce a feeling of dread through specific phobias; (3) grasping at the insecurities of readers and implanting the fear of judgment by those whose opinions have significant meaning to them; and (4) capturing of multiple subgenres of horror to ensure fear is evoked from all readers based on their preferred form of horror. Several examples of narrative elements are provided with relevance to…
