The Breathing Method by Stephen King

In the novella the Breathing Method by Stephen King, the character David Adley is telling the story of his first time going to this club. At this club located at 249B East Thirty-fifth Street there are a lot of unusual happenings; unusual people, places and objects which are unrealistic. David witnesses the decapitation of Sandra Stansfield and the birth of her child because this experience of trauma he creates a fictitious world to cope, in this world he imagines he goes to the club to escape but he can never truly escape and is reminded in his own happy place what has happened to Sandra.

The night of the decapitation and the night which David goes to the club are both brutal winter nights stricken with bad weather. The way in which both nights are described are the same, they have this eerie quality and are both explained with the fear of driving on the treacherous roads. The night of the decapitation David was among those who witnessed it, getting back in a cab to go home he starts imagining and creating a alternate reality to live in. One without the decapitation of Sandra Stansfield. In his mind he pictures this club which now he has been going to for ages and starts recalling the time since his first visit. When recalling his first visit he cannot remember the exact year because he never set the date in his alternate reality. David says "coming home that night, I would think of the combination of snow, a taxi and New York City with considerably greater unease... But I did not of course know that then" (King, 1982, p.439). He has repressed the memory of the traumatic event and has little unease about the taxi in this weather. Not until later does he remember what had happened to Sandra, when it comes back to him like a reoc...

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...questions too much he won't be able to come back. If he asks too many questions he will lose his innocence because of what he knows. He will lose this alternate reality in which he lives by losing his imagination. By questioning your imagination you lose your creativity.

The club is Davids way of handling the petrifying event he witnessed. After seeing Sandra Stansfield headless and giving birth he creates a place he can escape and forget the event. The club is a questionable place and because of so many oddities he starts to question his imagination and the world he created starts crumbling around him bringing back the memory of Sandra and the birth of her son when McCarron tells the story. If David had created a more tangible place to escape to he could have stayed there forever keeping his innocence and imagination.

Works Cited

King, Stephen Different seasons