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61 pages 2 hours read

Stephen King

Gerald's Game

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992

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Background

Genre Context: Psychological Horror

As with all works of horror, psychological horror is written with the goal of disturbing or frightening the reader. For this particular genre, the source of fear and concern comes from the mental workings of the characters, whose inner thoughts and anxieties encourage readers to envision themselves in the position of a character that is struggling with personal fears or traumas. Psychological horror is often paired with more viscerally frightening elements such as physical pain, sexual assault, or decisions that grapple with intense moral ambiguity. However, the main source of consistent terror in psychological horror is the glimpse that the writer provides into the mind of a terrified person, and this intense psychological journey is intended to evoke sympathetic fears within the reader even as it enhances the reader’s understanding of the root causes of the character’s struggle. Usually, this genre embraces psychological ambiguity and allows writers to craft characters whose grip upon reality becomes increasingly tenuous as they succumb to paranoia and confusion. Because the reader relies on the novel’s overt exposition to determine what is real in the context of the story, such ambiguities are intended to evoke a state of fearful confusion or fear in the reader, who inevitably questions the narrator’s reliability even as the narrative forces them into full and unnerving immersion into the character’s inner world. King is a master of this psychological technique, and the intensity of his works often stem more from the vivid nature of his characters’ inner psychology than from the overt plots of his novels.

Gerald’s Game fits also neatly into this genre that represents the bread and butter of King’s many novels, and this particular story is best understood as an exploration into the mind of someone who has suffered a severe trauma that has gone unresolved for too long. King’s use of multiple internal “voices” creates a facsimile of an inner monologue, and it is important to note that portions of the novel are simply Jessie talking to herself under the guise of different voices and characters. The psychological horror of Gerald’s Game largely comes from Jessie’s internal experiences, such as refusing to acknowledge her trauma, reliving memories of discomfort and assault, and finally achieving resolution of those feelings. However, King also employs physical horror in the work, and this element is apparent in the gory descriptions of Jessie’s eventual escape from the handcuffs, as well as in the descriptions of Prince consuming Gerald and Joubert’s appearance and crimes. These elements, while not primary sources of fear, nonetheless serve to underpin the already unsettling atmosphere created in Jessie’s mind as she is handcuffed to the bed. In the end, Joubert becomes a physical representation of her terror, but the true terror, for Jessie, lies in confronting the abuse in her past.

Critical Context: Feminism and Gender Studies

As with most horror works, King works to portray real fears that people experience in society, because relatable fears are often the most poignant and terrifying. Works of horror often question society’s standards and critique areas of social conditioning that work against those who must operate within them. In Gerald’s Game, the primary social component that King seems to criticize is that of normative gender roles, and this aspect aligns the novel with feminist thought and the assertions of gender theory. Feminism has become a broad theory that purports to oppose any form of oppression, but it is most commonly understood to examine patriarchal social structures with the goal of dismantling male hegemony. A patriarchy is any society that is predominantly driven by masculinity or that favors masculinity over femininity, while male hegemony is the inherent power structure that allows men a greater degree of social privilege than women. Gender theory expands on these understandings by critiquing the very definitions of “men” and “women” and noting that gender itself is a social construct driven by social interaction and text in order to neatly but restrictively organize people under labels that are not inherently meaningful. (For example, the idea of what it means to be “manly” is not the same as the biological idea of being “male,” and the same is true of “feminine” and “female.”)

In Gerald’s Game, much of the fear that Jessie experiences is unique to femininity, such as objectification by men and the consequences that women face as a result of toxic masculinity. When reading the work, it is important to consider how Jessie’s experience is unique to her as a woman, and to question the criteria by which one determines how a character is masculine or feminine. For example, Jessie’s reluctance to acknowledge her emotions and tendency to criticize the voices of Ruth and Nora for wanting to explore through introspection, is actually more in line with common perceptions of masculinity, which does not allow for the expression of any emotions other than anger. In fact, when Jessie does express emotion, she is usually only capable of expressing anger, such as punching Will, yelling at Gerald, and yelling at the voices in her head. Such an interpretation might conclude that Jessie has developed these more masculine traits as a coping mechanism to avoid her trauma. Gender roles are not fixed, and they change gradually as society deems certain traits more or less valuable, so it is necessary to question how King portrays gender and sex, as well as how these portrayals mesh with contemporary perspectives.

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