Literature Review | The Dark Tower VII (The Dark Tower)

Song of Turtle and Cry of the Bear…the Tower is at hand.

Published in 2004, The Dark Tower is the concluding volume of Stephen King’s long-running magnum opus.  Picking up where Song of Susannah left off, the Ka’tet continue their attempts to thwart the Crimson King’s plan to bring the Tower down.  This entails finding a way to prevent the final two beams from snapping and preventing Stephen King from dying.  If either occurs, Discordia rules.  Mia’s chap adds further tension to the tet’s precarious situation.  While young, he possesses powers similar to that of the Crimson King, and is at hand to interfere.  Bullets will fly, and blood will shed before the tower is reached, and not all will end happily.  All that matters is that the Tower stands.

                King’s prose is consistent with the prior two entries.  Not my favorite as a whole, but there are moments that could easily make a favorite’s list, one of which I’ll address later.  While there are several passages that might drag for certain constant readers—I admit I had this issue several years ago during my first read through—this didn’t bother me the second time.  My mind has grown in the seven years since I first read the series, increasing my patience and eye for detail.  However, this still doesn’t temper my one criticism when it comes to length.  While I do concede that Song of Susannah’s ending made for an excellent cliffhanger, the first section of this entry could easily have been the climax.  The Mia thread would have been tied up and Book Seven could have begun with the Breakers.  Other than that, the novel’s length isn’t an issue.

                King introduces several new high speech phrases as the plot progresses, mainly location names.  While he felt that doing so would bog things down—and probably because King is not a linguistics expert like Tolkien was—this introduction adds weight to the High Speech.  Having it automatically translated was nice for clarity, but directly hearing the words builds upon Roland’s world.  It also makes me wonder what a conversation in the language would sound like.   

                Introduced in the previous entry, King further elaborates on the Breakers, specifically their culture.  Constant Readers knew Breakers were kidnapped from different levels of the Tower by the Can-toi, but Ted Brautigan gives us a firsthand account of the process.  While not exactly the same, the initiation is akin to joining the mob.  Once you’re in, you’re in for good.  Readers also learn that despite being unable to leave, Breakers are treated like VIP’s.  Because of this, many don’t have the desire to leave.  When their world is turned upside down, most of them are unsure what to do.  It seems using their minds to break the Tower has robbed them of other mental faculties.  Originally introduced in King’s work Hearts in Atlantis, Ted is a likable character, even though his past contains its fair share of sins.  Breaking the beams is his latest one, although he has tried his best to postpone the fall.  Aiding the Ka-tet is how he’ll set things right. 

                Ted is not the only older character to impact the plot dramatically.  Patrick Danville, an artist introduced as a child in Insomnia, returns as the third act begins.  Found in the clutches of a vampire, Patrick is emaciated and his tongue has been ripped out.  While an odd return at first, as the plot draws to a close the audience learns that Patrick possesses an important power.  With his art, Patrick can manipulate the universe.  Foreshadowed by the horizontal shifting of a bison herd, the power is revealed when Susannah asks Patrick to edit one of his drawings.  In addition to shifting the location of people or things, Patrick can create and destroy.  The Crimson King fears this power, which is why Patrick has been locked away.  While some might question why Patrick remains alive, but considering how usefully the power is—and how greedy his keeper’s hunger can be—it is more sensible to keep the artist alive.

                King’s Meta insertion continues.  While it reaches its logical conclusion, it could further turn off those who didn’t appreciate or agree with this narrative choice.  As Song’s epilogue hinted, King inserts his late 90’s van accident into the plot, interpreting it as an attempt on his life by the Crimson King.  If left alone, this attempt will succeed, King will die with the series unfinished, leaving the path to Discordia unobstructed.  The Ka-tet move to prevent this.  While they succeed in saving King’s life, it comes at the cost of Jake’s own.  This devastates Roland, as the gunslinger had promised Jake he wouldn’t let him die again.  While this wasn’t a repeat of the fall, the gunslinger still blames himself considering it was for the Tower.  He curses King for laziness, but leaves it at berating.  Ka punishes the wordslinger enough with pain, curing Roland of his own hip ailment in the process.  One could argue this is a plot convenience, but given their physical similarities I’d say he was holding it for King.  Jake’s burial is respectful, allowing Roland and Oy the appropriate level of mourning before they must march on.  Jake is gone, but the Tower calls. 

                This leads into my next point:  the breaking of the Tet.  Foreshadowed constantly throughout the previous four books, it was only a matter of time before tragedy shattered the group.  That tragedy takes place slowly as the characters fall one by one.  While not an official member, Callahan is the first to fall, his death occurring inside the Dixie Pig.  For fans of ‘Salem’s Lot, this moment is bitter sweet.  While it is sad that the character dies, readers can find solace in Callahan’s redemption.  Ruined no more, he puts up a decent spiritual fight against Barlow’s fellow vampire elders, his own strength amplified by Maturin  In the end, elders are too strong for Callahan and he takes his own life, his last middle finger at the beings who have plagued him for years.  Before doing so, he leaves Roland with some parting words, ones that will encourage the gunslinger during this endgame.

                Eddie Dean falls next.  The first member that Roland drew on the shore of the Western Sea, it is fitting that he is also the first member to die.  Victory was in sight, and an oversight cost the jester his life.  Although he holds on for a while, even a gunslinger cannot hold back death.  His loss devastates Susannah, as Eddie was her motivation for moving forward to the tower.  With him gone, her only reason to continue is loyally to Roland and Eddie’s memory.  Eddie’s death also spiritually breaks the Ka’tet.  While the remaining four are still a group, their link has been severed.

                While not as obvious as in novels like IT, King’s Lovecraftian influence does surface.  The creature encountered in the novels later half reminds me of the beings from The Shadow Out of Time.  Both inhabit subterranean lairs, waiting for unsuspecting prey to enter their domains.  To use a video game analogy, it comes across as a dungeon boss, there to test the players before they move onto the next area. 

                A McGuffin for the previous novel, Mia’s chap has been promoted to secondary antagonist.  Named after King Arthur’s bastard son, Mordred serves the same purpose as his classical namesake, with King’s stylistic twist.  The chap has two fathers:  Roland and the Crimson King, each representing Mordred’s Mortal and Cosmic halves.  While Mordred’s wishes echo those of the Crimson King, there are moments that make one wonder what could have happened if he had chosen to follow Roland.  Given the thematic nature of his namesake it wouldn’t surprise me if this road would have led to Roland’s death.   Despite his placement in the hierarchy, Mordred’s inner monologues betray how naïve the wereling is.  He blindly follows his cosmic father like any child who’s been indoctrinated, echoing sentiments without thought.  While his powers enable him to see behind Randall Flagg, he is unable to see beyond what lays in front of him, which leads to his undoing. 

King’s most obvious callback is the series main antagonists, Randall Flagg and the Crimson King.  While originally created as a demon, Flagg’s backstory has been fleshed out by this series.  While still evil, he has become well-rounded as the audience learns details of his early life.  While not all is spelled out, enough is written for the Constant Reader to connect dots.  Flagg is definitely an emissary in the Nyarlthotep mold.  Both are the right hands of their respective masters, and shapeshift to suit their needs.  Both also seemingly undermine their master’s schemes, although for Howard’s creation it’s harder to say if this is intentional or an afterthought.  No such ambiguity exists with Flagg, as his thoughts betray his desire to climb the tower.  These thoughts eventually lead to his demise, one fitting for a character readers have hated for decades.  Suffering madness for madness’s right hand. 

Hinted at in the previous three novels, constant readers finally see the Crimson King.  While he had appeared in Insomnia, having not read that novel yet I cannot comment or contrast.  Here, readers find the King trapped on one of the Tower’s balconies, driven mad by his circumstances; forever at the Tower, but unable to summit.  Like King’s accident, this plot development did turn off some readers.  The Crimson King was built up as the Multiverses main antagonist, and yet he’s an insane elderly man in red robes.  While I can understand this disappointment to an extent, the King’s predicament never bothered me.  It seemed logical given his circumstances.  Having read some of Lovecraft’s work since then, I’ve grown to appreciate this development further, as I’ve found Stephen King’s inspiration within the text.  If Flagg is our Nyarlethotep, then the Crimson King is Azathoth.  While he didn’t directly create the universe, he is a cosmic being whose existence threatens humanities own.  While Azathoth is kept sleeping by his otherworldly court, the King is trapped by a force—hinted to be Gan—beyond his control.  While I’m not declaring that one should drop any criticism of this development, this knowledge should factor into one’s view.  Just don’t go mad. 

                Like Flagg, the Crimson King’s end is fitting.  While Roland does engage the King in a firefight, it is posturing.  The King is expressing his anger while Roland is defending himself.  This impasse forces the gunslinger to attempt another way around, thinking around a corner to use his own terminology.  While not his best area, Roland does manage to scrape together the perfect plan.  Patrick draws the Crimson King, erasing him from existence as he erases the art.  Patrick only leaves the King’s eyes, cursing him to an eternity of voyeurism.

                While it is hard to begin, sometimes it is equally hard to end.  This is especially true for a series.  King is well aware of this, which is why The Dark Tower’s ending comes with a Dante warning once Roland crosses the threshold.  After said warning, Roland ascends the Tower slowly, each level representing a moment from his past.  This is the reader’s first hint of what is to come, but for the gunslinger it allows him to confront the ghosts of days gone by.  Regret has always hung over his head, and in the tower it is given form.  Roland endures until he reaches the top, where he is greeted by a single door.  A callback to his conversation with The Man in Black, this is the moment Roland has spent years perusing.  Without hesitation, Roland opens the door.  While not a door to some cosmic macroverse, Roland is terrified by what lays beyond the threshold and understands its meaning.  Not only has he reached the Tower before, but it has cast him back to an earlier point upon reaching the top.  While he attempts to fight, the hands of Gan are cruel and his effort is in vain.  While this development won’t please every reader—I’ve read several reviews where the individual has made their disappointment and distain clear—given the nature of Roland’s character and his arc throughout the series, it works.  A truly happy ending for him might not have worked as well.

Back in the desert at his moment of epiphany, Roland is left with no memories of his previous journey prior to that point, although his hands and gear are restored.  While cruel, the Tower has left the Gunslinger with one symbol of hope:  the Horn of Eld.  While he lost it at the Battle of Jericho Hill and lamented not taking the time to retrieve it in the main story, here Roland managed to do so.  While small, this infers to the reader that while Roland’s quest is damnation for now, eventually he will succeed and find peace.  How and when are left to the reader.  With that, the story ends as it began:  “The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.” 

Reader Response | Significance of Poe's "The Raven"

Published in 1844, “The Raven” is one of Edgar Allen Poe’s most well-known poems.  When examining the prose’s wording, the first thing that stands out is Poe’s use of alliteration and rhyme.  Line one gives the reader a perfect example of both.  “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary” (675).  Weak and weary both begin with W, and their close placement is alliteration.  Weary also rhymes with dreary, causing the literary devices to be linked from the work’s beginning.  This doubling of alliteration and rhyme continues throughout the prose (Ex: Deep and darkness for alliteration, peering and fearing for rhyme, Line 25). Combined, the pair allows the poem’s words to flow melodically; a reader cannot help but read “The Raven” in a musical fashion. 

            The title bird is worthy of deep discussion.  From the moment he flies into the poem, the narrator’s curiosity is peaked by the Raven.  The narrator describes the bird as stately from “the saintly days of yore” (676, Line 38).  This description informs the reader that the Raven is dignified and most likely supernatural.  To add to this, the bird perches on a bust Athena, daughter of Zeus and Greek goddess of Wisdom.  To use stage terminology, this an interesting blocking choice on Poe’s part, and it serves as foreshadowing for the poem’s later stanzas.  As the poem continues, the narrator becomes frustrated by the Raven’s inability or refusal to answer his questions, simply cawing the iconic phrase “Nevermore” repeatedly.  This changes the narrator’s impression of the bird, referring to the avian creature as a “grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore” (677, Line 71).  While bogged down with descriptors, this passage informs the reader that the narrator is now displeased and frightened by the Raven’s presence, seeing the bird as an omen of disastrous repute.  The Raven is still supernatural, but of Hell, not Heaven.

            The Narrator’s impression aside, what does the Raven stand for?  After rereading the text, the answer becomes obvious.  The Raven is the personification of the narrator’s grief.  Sometime before the work began, Lenore—implied to be the narrator’s wife or fiancé—passed away.  The narrator now begins to read old literary works, hoping to find “surcease of sorrow” (675, Line 10).  Surcease translates as cessation, so the narrator is attempting to cast out his sorrow.  Once the Raven appears, his presence torments the narrator, pecking at his sanity as only grief can.  “Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door” (678, Line 101).  With these words, the narrator is attempting to permanently drive the bird away, and in doing so end his internal suffering.  This attempt fails.  The Raven remains perched, and thus grief remains.

            This is a deep sentiment.  Everyone has encountered grief in their lives at one point, usually from the death of a loved one.  While we mourn the loss, a part of that loss never goes away; how much depends on the circumstances.  An untimely death would be towards the top of the list.  While the narrator is unnamed, one can see a lot of Poe in him.  Poe his young wife to tuberculous, and certain accounts state he never fully recovered from her death before meeting his own.  While she still lived when Poe composed “The Raven,” she had contracted the illness.  In that regard, “The Raven” is Poe’s statement about what he was about to experience.  While it might appear he moved on, like the ebony bird, his grief would remain evermore.

A Rose For Emily (Plot and Plot Devices)

William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” is an excellent example of a non-linear narrative.  Beginning with the passing of Emily, the narrator recounts events that have transpired during the course of her adult life.  Emily’s father passed away when she was around thirty-years-old, and the event caused her to have a minor mental breakdown.  She recovered and soon became interested in a man named Homer Barron, a day laborer from the North (the story is set in the post-Civil War south).  Everyone in town is soon gossiping about this courtship, with many speculating that their relationship has become physically intimate, which for a lady of Miss Emily’s station would be dishonorable.  Several of Emily’s relations soon visit, supposedly to aid her in tying Homer in matrimonial bonds.   While mostly implied by the narrator, the audience infers that Emily and Homer had a protagonist-antagonist relationship with this subject, with most of the arguing occurring behind closed doors.  This causes Homer to leave town, but he returns shortly thereafter, only to disappear again for good.  This second vanishing sends Emily into a self-imposed seclusion, with the townsfolk rarely catching sight of her.  It is only after her funeral that the shocking yet satisfying truth is revealed:  Emily had killed Homer, keeping his body in her upstairs bedroom, where Emily would occasionally lay beside him.  This reveals the extent of Emily’s internal crisis.  The breakdown she suffered following the death of her father revealed that she had trouble letting go.  Homer’s brief desertion magnified this problem, and when he returned Emily made sure he’d never leave her again.  This action is foreshadowed near the end of Part III, when the narrator recounts how Emily purchased arsenic, intimidating the druggist in the process.  When I read the story for the first time in sixth-grade I overlooked this detail but re-reading with foreknowledge of the twist ending it was easy to spot.  Based on Faulkner’s wording, it’s clear the narrator is familiar with Emily, although he never knew her personally; likely he heard the recounted stories from older relatives.  I find it interesting that he remains anonymous despite his familiarity, as none of the prose betrays a specific connection.  In that light, the narrator is the town’s personification, recounting its history in a semi-omnipotent manner.  He knows much, but like everyone else, he didn’t see the truth behind the window.