56 pages • 1 hour read
Stephen KingJoyland
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Selling Happiness
Much of Devin’s moral development over the course of the summer has to do with the conflicting values of money and happiness. Devin is inspired by Mr. Easterbrook’s speech about selling happiness. Easterbrook calls it a privilege and a gift to be able to work in this magical world where they actually get paid (a pittance, admittedly) to give people a few hours of happiness. Devin recognizes something profoundly true in Easterbrook’s speech. Working at Joyland is a privilege and a gift to him.
Devin has a gift for creating happiness for others. His deepest satisfaction comes from entertaining the kids as Howie. When he saves Hallie Stansfield from choking, his reward isn’t fame or money—it is the happiness he preserved for the child’s family. Even when Mr. Easterbrook rewards him with the promise of a favor, Devin spends that favor only for the privilege of staying on at Joyland.
When Devin builds his castles in the air, his visions are never about money or fame. He pictures a modest but happy career and a happy family with a wife and children. Even when his life doesn’t work out the way he imagined, the older Devin describes his job as the editor of a commercial magazine as a source of joy to him.
Devin is aware that his values conflict with those of the mundane world. He first comes face-to-face with that conflict when Wendy rejects him. She abandons him for shallow pleasures like drinking and parties and for a boy with money. Her new boyfriend comes complete with the outward trappings of wealth in the form of an expensive school and a fancy car. Even playing lacrosse suggests an upper-class upbringing.
Symbolically, Devin is knocked back by an entire society’s rejection of his core self. Even Tom, one of his closest friends, criticizes Devin’s refusal of the Stansfields’ money. He sees Devin’s value and loves Devin for his core self, but he thinks Devin’s value should be repaid in society’s coin.
King has spent his life selling happiness, and he has been extravagantly repaid in society’s coin. In return, he and his wife give extravagantly to libraries and education to the tune of around $3 million a year. In Devin, King may be expressing his own feelings about what defines personal success and where true joy really lies: in relationships with loved ones.
The Healing Power of Friendship
The novel presents characters who isolate or build walls around themselves in the hopes of escaping painful circumstances and protecting themselves from further grief. Devin is heartbroken over his breakup from Wendy and finds solace by retreating to Joyland, which as its name suggests, is a place where people can find happiness, even if it’s only for a short while. Devin extends his stay at Joyland after Wendy breaks up with him and develops a friendship with Erin and Tom. They become his allies in discovering what happened to Linda Gray, and Tom gives Devin advice on knowing his true worth. Their friendship continues into adulthood.
Annie has isolated herself in a castle-like Victorian house, where she tries to shut out the reality of her son’s illness and impending death. She initially seems unwilling to welcome Devin into her and Mike’s life, but after inviting Devin into her home, the “ice queen” warms up to the idea of forging a friendship with him. Their friendship grows as Devin sets up a special day at the park for Mike, where the three enjoy their time together, and Annie demonstrates her marksmanship skills at the Annie Oakley Shootin’ Gallery. She uses these skills to save Devin from Lane, after Mike warns her that Devin is in grave danger.
Mike’s friendship with Devin is also meaningful, as Devin understands Mike in a way that Annie doesn’t. Mike does not want to live behind the walls that his mother has erected. He longs for the freedom he can symbolically experience through releasing kites into the air. He and Devin bond when Devin helps Mike fly a kite, and it’s a bonding that eventually extends to Annie. Through their friendship, they save themselves and each other.
Death as a Symbol of Coming-of-Age
The coming-of-age story typically takes place over a short period of time and contains a sharp demarcation between the before and after of the character’s life. Joyland, as might be expected in a ghost story, uses death as a symbol of transition. Myths and fairy tales often represent death not as an ending but as a transition or a period of dormancy. It is frequently associated with winter and the underworld, like Persephone when she descends into the netherworld, casting the earth into winter until she emerges again in the spring. When Devin chooses to spend the winter in Joyland, he is voluntarily entering the first symbolic underworld in search of something he can’t articulate except that it has to do with Wendy and Linda.
Death haunts the story starting with Devin’s first visit to the park when Lane Hardy introduces the subject of the Horror House and the murdered girl. Devin confronts death directly when he saves Hallie Stansfield, the little girl who chokes on her hot dog. Devin successfully snatches her back from death, preventing the death of childhood.
Death reappears (literally) the next day when Tom Kennedy sees the ghost of Linda Gray in the Horror House. Devin feels jealous. He wants to see Linda himself. She has come to represent for him the key to adulthood. If he could just take hold of her, he feels he would understand something. For Devin, Linda represents endings. He’s trying to grapple with the death of childhood.
Later, Devin saves Eddie Parks’s life practically in the shadow of the Horror House, pulling him back from the mouth of death as leering demonic faces look on, inviting Devin to enter.
In the end, Mike, who represents the finite nature of childhood, teaches Devin that the end of childhood isn’t something to be grappled with and held as Devin wants to lay hold of Linda and understand her. Mike leads Linda out of darkness and sets her free. With Linda’s release, Devin no longer struggles to understand transformation but finally lets go and allows it to happen. Letting go is in itself the leap of understanding he was looking for.
Childhood ended can never be reclaimed, but the older Devin is passing through another transformative stage of life. He has been regarding his Joyland adventure not just as the death of childhood but as a loss of the fantasies he cherished for an ideal life. His life in the real world has been good, comfortable, satisfactory, even joyful, but he still feels he has lost something. The symbolic scar left by Wendy’s abandonment still rankles.
Writing good books (good enough to be popular but not bad enough to be best-sellers) may seem to older Devin to be an unrealized dream, but in recounting this story, he is demonstrating that he is amply able to tell a story with some literary significance.
The fact that Devin is just now looking back and putting this story together, in all its context, may be an indication that he is ready to reclaim the best part of the childhood he left behind. One of the gifts of aging is the chance to hand over some of the burdens of adulthood to a younger generation and pursue dreams postponed.
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