Symbols In Stephen King's Graveyard Shift

Discovery plays a role in every life, yet exploration of the unknown comes with consequences that may be unforeseen with no logical thought prior to action. In “Graveyard Shift” by Stephen King, the main character, John Hall, works at a mill during the company’s offtime and explores the basement and its sub-level while trying to clean and remove rats from the area. It goes poorly and the men who explored the sub-level die by its dark agents murdering them brutally. There are symbols spread throughout the story that depict a common theme. The mutated rats, reversed trap door, and decomposers fight back for their isolation, the theme displayed is some things are better left unexplored.
The reversed trap door is an excellent example of the theme.

The door’s purpose is to lock anything that resides in the sub-level away from the outside world. It is quite literally meant to trap its contents within itself and keep foreign organisms out. The only way the men gained access to the sub-level was to snap the decaying lock in two and immediately, animals poured forth, seizing up the mens’ arms. Nature is still trying to deter the men from exploring the sub-level, the origin of the trap door truly is meant to separate the different sides. Even the characters make a statement about the absurdity of the design of the door. Warwick makes the comment “But it shouldn’t be underneath...It should be on top. Why-” (10). Hall offers the response, “ Maybe so nothing on this side could open it- at least when the lock was new. Maybe so nothing on that side could get up” (10). He supplies the idea that the en are not supposed to access the contents of the other side. His idea creates an atmosphere of discomfort and doubt as to the motivation of breaking open the trap door. Really the door is just a small mouthpiece to the lesson at hand, it is only the starting symbol explaining the theme of leaving things unexplored.
The second and most prominent symbol is the mutated “wildlife” in the second basement, they watch the humans, and as the men get closer, they come with more fury and vengeance to prevent the discovery and release of the trap door.

At first in the Mill, the rats only judged Hall and watched him with cold eyes. His time in the picking room is spent antagonizing the rats and they seem benevolent at first. They don’t reciprocate that same violence as Hall displays,they just scatter and the watch him once he gets to work. This is shown when the narrator says, “ And after a while, the rats came out and sat atop the bags at the back of the long room watching him with their unblinking black eyes. They looked like a jury” (2). It indicates that their danger is not something that Hall is worried about,the rats just freak him out to an extent. Yet as the men venture into the first level of the basement, the rats start to approach them and attack, becoming more hostile in their presence. Their antics work to an extent, some men uit and refuse to work with the dangerous conditions the rats present, but for the most part, the expedition of furniture, dirt, and rats continues. This is exemplified in this line. “One of them had sat up on their hind legs like a squirrel until Hall got in kicking distance, and then it had launched itself at hids boot, biting the leather” (4). They become more aggressive by presence only, not only incitation of violence. The increasing aggression only

continues to grow. In the lowest level of the mill, the rats become so belligerent and mutated that they close in on the men and brutally crush their bones with their immense weight and tear their flesh apart, eating them in bits and pieces. The rats view thm as a threat and attack the men with such force to kill. Warwick’s death is an example of this, “A sudden wet dripping noise. Another scream, weaker. Something huge shifted and turned. Quite distinctly Hall heard the wet snap that a fractured bone makes” (12). They rip Warwick to shreds without remorse, but this behavior is a display of the theme as they hinder the men's’ prores into the sub-level, eventually punishing them with agonizing death. The rats serve as a guarding force against the men, multiplying as they come closer to the haven under the basement. It seems in all of their behavior, they are only trying to deter the men from coming closer, as they don’t attack when they are closer to the service.
Skeletal remains and decomposers are the the third symbol that supports the theme.

The fungus that accompanies it is also large and overgrown, as it feasts on flesh, “His hand had come in contact with them as he pulled and yanked at a rusty-toothed wheel, and they (white toadstools) felt curiously warm and bloated, like the flesh of a man afflicted with dropsy” (3). It gives the final sign as to what lies down beneath the basement before the main characters die. It implies that death has occured here before, and it will happen again. It applies some foreshadowing elements to the theme, that the ultimate consequence for untamed exploration and curiosity is death. The incomplete skeleton also exemplifies death. The skull itself is just bone and is accompanied by spare parts of a skeleton. “A skull, green with mould, laughed up at them. Further on, hall could see am ulna, one pelvic wing, part of a ribcage” (11). If the body decomposed normally, then it wouldn’t be askew and in pieces. This form of death means that the rats had torn the person to bits and the rats that had been in the basement had completed their task of impeding the advancement of discovery as the bones are skewed around by the extended movement of the rats. The fact that the body and the fungi are both down in level underground levels means that death is occurring and whichever man attempts to come down the stairs will meet it. This serves as a final warning before the punishment is

conducted
The human capacity has a natural yearning for curiosity, but the aptitude for it can lead to more severe consequences than previously known. The symbols that boost the theme, they all show relevance to death or warning and all point to the sub-level being too dangerous for man and it provides obstacles to obstruct the path of humanity As somethings are better left unexplored, the fungus, mutated animals, and trap door all provide a dangerous barrier against the outside world. This theme plays strongly into taming curiosity and producing the thought of not can one perform an action, it is more along the lines of should one.