Desolation In Stephen King's Short Stories

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Secrets and lies cause people to become isolated from the world and take a toll on the lives of human beings. The characters of the short stories, “I am the Doorway”, “Battleground”, and “Rest Stop”,by Stephen King all exemplify this through the way they live their lives through having secret identities, shielding the truth from others, living for other people’s standards,becoming distant from others, and through hiding themselves away, come back to hurt them and the ones they care about, in the future. All of these fallacies play into the desolation of secrecy and what it can cause to a person’s life.
The anonymity of names plays a large role in the short stories, with many characters forgoing their real names to maintain anonymity, …show more content…

In Battleground, the main character lives in loneliness as part of his job as an assassin, “ Haven’t seen them for as long as I can remember” (Battleground 2) due to the secret implications of his job, it ruins his connections with others and leaves him without contact with people for days and months, and due to this, increasing loneliness and distance from others, It wreaks havoc on their lives and their ability to carry out their jobs too. Both characters are affected by their hidden truths and one of the ways, the consequences shine through is the exceedingly distant life they lead out of others eye’s. Karma is a real pain, and the characters denial and hiding away of their secrets comes back to hurt them as their stories progress. As their lies come back to hurt them it affects them in a variety of ways, like causing them to without knowing kill someone, aimlessly walking by their house, or being so timid and fearful of others finding his identity, that he fails to step in when he witnesses someone being beaten by her husband at the “Rest Stop” After the monsters hiding underneath his bandages finally take control of the main character in “I am the Doorway”, an innocent person walks by the cabin outside his home, fueled by the rage kept inside, the possessed character runs down to the beachfront and kills the innocent bystander seemingly indiscriminately“with an unimaginable rage, he lunged forward, claws out”( I am the Doorway 10) Even

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