Critical Analysis of Bag of Bones Using Literature Criticism

The bag of Bones is a haunted love story authored by Stephen King. The narrator, Mike Noonan recounts the death of Jo-his wife who died outside a pharmacy. He is devastated by the loss of his wife and by the fact that Jo was also pregnant but had concealed it. His inability to father children made him question whether she had an affair. The death of his wife forces him to adjust by moving into the cabin at Sarah Laugh which is at the lake given that he is unable to write due to writer's block. After relocating, he meets the new residents and helps them in their issues of dealing with custody battles between Mattie and Max who each wanted to gain custody of Kyra. It is at the cabin that he gets tormented by numerous nightmares because the house is haunted by three ghosts who communicate by using magnetic letters. A critical analysis seeks to show the symbolic use of ghosts as a manifestation of the subconscious demons harbored by everyone.

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The need to find inspiration due to the suffering of finding out that Jo might have been having an affair before her death leads Noonan to their vacation cottage. Mike had a condition that made it hard for him to father children. However, it after her death that she realized that his wife was pregnant despite the fact that it was not possible for King to impregnate her. The news surprised him, and he was stunned by the idea that she might have been living another life, one that he never knew about or even crossed his mind"(King 2). Great importance is placed on how the events unfold and how they affect Mike. He does not have any evidence that Jo had been cheating, but the pregnancy is enough to give him suspicion concerning how faithful she was to him. When a narrative is narrated from the first person perspective, it becomes easier to understand the things that are happening and helps to highlight the fears that people have.

The unexpected loss of his wife is one of the bad things that happen to Mike, but other worse things are waiting to happen. He finds himself unable to write after the death of Jo and thinks that it is just a simple writer's block (King 37). The severe panic, pain attacks, he experiences come whenever he tries to write. In his previous years of writing, he had always kept the publishers happy with his storytelling as he never lacked a story to tell. Being a prolific writer means that he did not want them to know that he was having troubles supplying them with stories as he always did. The story stores where he kept extra manuscripts were running out, and he was afraid that he would not deliver anything despite the pressure from his agents to write (King 38). Something had to be done to kickstart his writing, and that meant getting a life for himself given that nobody would believe that Noonan had a writer's block.

The fact that he is unable to do what he thinks he was born to do makes him feel like a bag of bones that lacks talent and energy. Mike is also experiencing nightmares about Sarah Laughs his cabin in Maine and Jo. In this chilling ghost story, Mike tries to confront the demons inside of him by moving back to the cabin by the lake where he gets to encounter the real ghosts (Strengell 130). They used to spend many summers with his wife at this cottage which was named after a blues shouter who was long gone. Unknowingly to him, the summerhouse is haunted by various spirits that include jo's (King 183). He finds that Johanna had been researching the story of Sara Tidwell. The ghost of Johanna makes him reflect on various things, especially the things that she engaged in while she was alive.

As a gothic writer, the author makes use of early fiction that comprise of haunted castles, tormenting spirits and corpses to highlight his ideas. The style also utilizes repressed hopes and savage desires as well as the hidden self. By centering on how much we do not know about life, reality, human personality and death, we get to understand the things that people fear about. Moreover, it helps in gaining an understanding of the course of our destiny and the things we ought to do and those not to do (Strengell 123). It proposes some important questions through psychological archetypes rooted in the dark depths of human experiences. Mike is concerned that he cannot manage to write and meet the needs of his agents (King 22-23). He fails to notice that the cause of his writer's block is the issues affecting him such as the fear that his wife must have been cheating on him before she died.

King uses the gothic style with supernatural excesses and thrills to discuss the psychological fears in people. Bag of Bones is a thriller and a ghost story with supernatural overtones and one that features the blurred sexual relationship between Mike, his dead wife and the new lover (Strengell 124). In trying to settle the dispute between a young widow and her daughter Mike finds himself falling in love with the beautiful young mother and the little girl. The loss of his wife is making him feel guilty as he thinks he would have done things differently and for falling in love with Mattie (King 583-585). At the cabin, he interacts in a weirdly with the supernatural with nightmarish pursuit and visions of death, messages on the refrigerator and tinkling bells. Jo's voice can be heard telling him to lie still as he is a bag of bones which allowed him to figure out where messages being communicated to him.

King has a role of listening to his dreams and subconscious, and the book is about how the subconscious wears thin the fabric of dreams, everyday life superstitious rituals and premonitions turning them into jumbled visual cues. Mental wear and tear take on the author who is living a life of the mind. He asserts that "write enough stories and every shadow on the floor looks like a footprint, every dirt like a secret message" (King 175). The statement may indicate that he is haunted by a ghost or either he is going insane. Incorporating the aspect of myths in the narrative helps to bring out an effect of repositioning and reintegrating the self in reaction to facts and events that readers feel to be true to the human condition (De Sousa Causo 248). In the novel, Mike can learn lessons on influence, greed and money and how they affect his life.

The ghost of his wife is the one that guides him using messages into discovering the crimes committed and the reason why ghosts were haunting the small town. In one of these messages, he is advised to "go down 19"(King 439). Jo's spirit uses moving magnets and ringing phones to communicate with him. The other ghosts are not as that friendly, and their visitation follows a pattern. The noises he heard include a scratching sound, a ringing bell and a sudden scratch of a motherless child. The ghosts help to exculpate men presumed to be guilty of their forefather's sins (Sullivan 291)The ghost story has an endless explanation and links Noonan ancient ancestors, curses affecting children with names starting with C or K and Sarah Tidwell murder. Mike is eager to believe in ghosts, and he ends up submerging himself in delusions.

Conclusion

To conclude, it is evident that the adoption of a gothic style of writing using ghosts is meant to highlight the symbolic manifestations of demons that are found in everyone. Mike has been an effective and successful writer who never lacked a manuscript for his agents and publishers. However, the writer's block he was experiencing was a ghost that was haunting him as he never saw himself being unable to write. The thought that Jo might have been having an affair is also something that he feared due to the love he had for her. Moreover, he blames himself for failing to give her children, and he feels that it one of the reasons that her ghost haunts him at the cabin. The spirit helped him to understand the reason why the house was haunted thus aiding him to resolve the issue.

Works Cited

De Sousa Causo, Roberto. "Mythic quality and popular reading in Stephen King's Rose Madder." Extrapolation 44.3 (2003): 356-365.

King, Stephen. Bag of bones. Hachette UK, 2010.C

Strengell, Heidi. "" The Monster Never Dies": An Analysis of the Gothic Double in Stephen King's Oeuvre." Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture, 1900 to Present 2.1 (2003).

Sullivan, Kate. "Meeting Monsters, Loving Men: Abj ection and Community in Peter Straub's Ghost Story and Stephen King's 'The Breathing Method." Paradoxa 17 (2002): 176-99.