Carrie (novel)
Carrie is the first published work by the American writer Stephen King . The novel was published in 1974 by Doubleday Publishing . This book made Stephen King famous. The translation into German by Elisabeth Epple was published in 1977 by Schneekluth-Verlag. Gustav Lübbe-Verlag published a new translation by Wolfgang Neuhaus in 1992.
action
The focus of the action is the 16-year-old student Carietta White, called Carrie, who lives in the US small town Chamberlain. Carietta grows up without her father, who died on a construction site before she was born. Already at the age of three she lets a rain of stones fall with her telekinetic powers over the house in which she lives with her mother when she tries to cut out her eyes in religious madness .
At the age of 16, Carrie had her first period in the shower after gym class . She is frightened, and her classmates tease and humiliate her because of it. As a result, some cases of telekinesis emerge in response to insult, humiliation, or ignorance of those around him, and Carrie becomes aware of the fact that these mysterious events were caused by her. She rethinks her relationship with her mother, who portrays everything physical and sexual as a horrible sin and prevented Carrie from growing up like a normal girl for years. After her mother had previously repeatedly punished her severely, Carrie, who is now aware of her power, succeeds in suppressing her mother's influence.
With the help of a teacher, Carrie gradually dispels her fears and is then even invited by a boy to the school's spring ball. Against her mother's bitter resistance, she sews a beautiful dress for the ball. Her mother, meanwhile, forges a murder plan against her daughter because she sees it as the only way to wash Carrie away from Satan . At the same time, other students get two buckets of pig's blood to pour over Carrie at the spring ball. Carrie and her companion Tommy are elected King and Queen of the Ball. When they are on stage, Carrie's classmate Chris uses a pull rope to pour the buckets of pig's blood over Carrie and Tommy, which are secretly attached to the ceiling. One of the buckets falls on Tommy's head and kills him, which is not clear at first. When everyone present laughs at the 'prank', Carrie feels betrayed by everyone and takes revenge with her telekinetic skills. First of all, it closes all doors so that nobody can escape, then starts the sprinkler system and thus triggers fatal electric shocks. Eventually her destructiveness escalates and the school goes up in flames. In the end, only twelve people can be saved.
Carrie wreaks havoc on the way home, killing more people. The center of the city is destroyed. During the subsequent prayer in the church, Carrie decides to kill her mother because she now knows that her mother wants to kill her. Once home, her mother engages Carrie in a conversation and stabs her in the shoulder with a kitchen knife. The badly injured Carrie brings her mother's heart to a standstill through her telekinetic powers. Then she takes revenge on Chris and their friend Billy, who had put the pig's blood under the ceiling of the ballroom. Susan, one of the few classmates who felt pity and no grudge against Carrie, finds Carrie who is dying.
Because of the events in which 440 people died, many residents of Chamberlain are moving away. The city is slowly dying out and is increasingly turning into a tourist attraction for people who want to see the place because of the horrific events that have happened.
Film adaptations
- In 1976 the book by Brian De Palma with Sissy Spacek and John Travolta was first made into a film under the title Carrie - Satan's youngest daughter . This film is considered to be the best adaptation of the novel. Because of its success, the sequel Carrie 2 - The Revenge was filmed in 1998 .
- In 2002 a remake was made , the content of which was closer to the original, but had a completely different ending. The television film was a pilot for a possible series, which was not realized due to poor ratings.
- In 2013, Kim Peirce shot the second remake of the novel with Carrie . The role of Carrie plays teen star Chloë Grace Moretz , the mother is played by Julianne Moore .
Links to other works and to reality
- Carrie's mother works in the Blue Ribbon laundry, where Barton Dawes from the novel Sprengstoff also works, and where the same thing runs amok in the short story 'The Laundry Man' (see night shift ).
- Carrie's birthday is September 21, as is Stephen King's. September 21 also occurs in other novels, for example in Sie : Annie Wilkes probably killed her patient Laura Rothberg on September 21.
- Carrie has a real role model. As a child, King lived in Durham, Maine and attended school in neighboring Lisbon Falls. Of all things, a converted hearse brought him and other children there - and one of the passengers was a strange girl who nobody liked to sit next to: Carrie. As King reports, she committed suicide in adulthood.
- The havoc Carrie is wreaking starts some fires. Among other things, a Citgo gas station is blown up. In Roman Glas there is a place called Citgo, where crude oil is extracted. Furthermore, the name of a tank attendant is Teddy Duchamp; one of the boys from The Corpse is also called that.
useful information
Carrie is King's sixth novel, but the first published. He previously wrote the unpublished book The Aftermath , Death March , the unpublished Sword in the Darkness , Amok and Manhunt . Three of them were published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman .
musical
In 1988 a musical adaptation was made under the title Carrie: The Musical with a libretto by Lawrence D. Cohen, lyrics by Dean Pitchford and music by Michael Gore . Friedrich Kurz produced a first tryout together with the Royal Shakespeare Company , which was shown for four weeks in Stratford-upon-Avon and premiered there on February 13, 1988. The production had major technical problems and the book was changed several times during the four weeks of the season. Serious accidents occurred several times, for example the leading actress Barbara Cook was almost beheaded by part of the set during the premiere and gave notice.
On April 28, 1988, previews of a revised version began in New York at the Virginia Theater. The premiere took place on May 12th and already on May 15th, after only 16 previews and 5 performances, production closed after investors withdrew their funds despite good sales figures. According to the New York Times, the $ 7 million production was the most expensive quick flop in Broadway history.
Then there were only three unapproved amateur performances of the play in 1999 in New York, 2001 in Denmark and 2008 in Scotland.
On November 20, 2009, a reading of a heavily revised version of the musical took place in New York. This was first performed in 2012 in the Off-Broadway Theater MCC. The new production started with previews on January 31st, premiered on March 1st and closed as planned on April 8th after 34 previews and 46 performances. This new version was first made officially available for performance by other theaters.
literature
- Stephen King, Carrie , Lübbe, 2003, ISBN 3-404-13121-5
- Möbius, Thomas: Stephen King: Carrie. King's Explanations and Materials (vol. 394). Hollfeld: Bange Verlag 1998. ISBN 978-3-8044-1655-0
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stephen King: Carrie Literaturschock . Retrieved January 10, 2018.
- ↑ Steven King Wiki (English)
- ^ Carrie Dieter Wunderlich: Book Tips & Film Tips . Retrieved January 10, 2018.
- ↑ Carrie Movieplot . Retrieved January 10, 2018.
- ^ Carrie Moviepilot . Retrieved January 10, 2018.
- ↑ Carrie The Musical Fans Website ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ A Few Stills from Carrie the Musical
- ↑ Carrie the Musical on the R&H Theatrical website
