Pet Sematary is counted among Stephen King's best novels. It is also one of the darkest; in fact, it was promoted (inaccurately) as being too horrifying even for King, who did not answer media questions about it. The premise of this darkness is represented as Louis Gage buries his son in the Micmac burial grounds, and draws a spiral on the site. While the novel is patterned after a spiral down into loss, obsession and death, this spiral pattern is as purposeful as it is inexorable. King notes at the beginning of Part 2 that this work is about exploring the question: "how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity," given that "horror is spawing horror."
While this particular onslaught of terror is not inevitable, King has.....
This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 361 words. This
study guide contains 21,297 words (approx. 71 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our Pet Sematary Access Pass.