We Fail Carrie’s Everyday, B
Dante is teaching me how to write while parenting. When I told him I was working on this essay about Carrie he challenged me to think of a time I couldn’t protect my children and write that down. He told me to show, not tell. The truth of the matter is I’ve always felt like I could protect my children. That is a lie I know I tell myself - it helps me stay alive. If I really thought of the world I brought my children into and if I really sank into their positioning in this world the weeping would be unable to cease. I would suffer from severe depression and then I would not be able to parent. So I lie.
There was once an event, though, that hit me with the stark realization that I couldn’t protect my children. It happened with my oldest, Ethan. Before he gave his life over to his instrument, before the daily multi-hour practices, the weekly three hour orchestra rehearsal, the twice weekly private lessons and the seven week summer intensives, he was a runner. Year round twice a week we would trudge up to a track and he would work on his endurance, speed and strength. In the coldest months of the year we would train at our indoor ice rink, the pettit national ice center. The Petit is a nationally celebrated speed skating hub, the ice is kept pristine thanks to The Great Zamboni - a giant blue monstrosity that makes its way across the ice every two hours either spraying a new even layer of ice or scraping a thin even layer off top, I’ve never been able to figure out which. As an afterthought a three lane 415 meter track was added to the outside of the rink. There is a Zamboni crossing on the track so occasionally in the middle of 80 meter sprints athletes have to pause less they get sprayed on or peeled up. Also worth mentioning that the AAU track team of 300 athletes for years was required to share the 3 lanes with the public, no matter how fast or slow they were going. Wisconsin takes its track and field seriously.
One day after practice we were walking back to the car and Ethan asked me if he looked older. Older than what I asked him, older than yesterday? Older than a month ago? He’s not above asking random questions out of the abyss. He said he was just wondering because last year the elderly people at the track didn’t even notice him but lately the older white women had been looking at him with fear in their eyes. He was 13. He had dreadlocks, was about 5 foot 8 inches and yes sure he looked like a teenager. But we all know that Black kids don’t get to be teenagers. He was a Black 13 year old boy in America. One more year and he’d be ready for the electric chair.
I realized then even as Ethan passionately whistled Vivaldi, he was at the mercy of the same systems all of the other Black boys were, regardless of what their speakers were playing. All of the ways that we leave our children exposed to the societal elements was at the top of mind as I cracked open Stephen King's debut, Carrie. It’s 50 years old this year. The omnipresence of King’s contribution to the cultural zeitgeist makes it hard to consider he ever even had a debut and that it happened to be one of his most famous works, but upon realizing Carrie was becoming a quinquagenarian I decided now was as good a time as any to do an inaugural read.
Carrie, the eponymous protagonist of the novel, is the outcast of her small town Chamberlain Maine. Having been the butt of the joke since primary, things have a chance to change when Tommy Ross, a gentle jock from the in-crowd, invites Carrie to senior prom at the insistence of his remorseful girlfriend. The book opens with Carrie getting her period during gym class and all of the girls in the class relentlessly mocking her, including Tommy’s girlfriend Sue Snell, which is what she hopes the date will pay penance for. Carrie’s inability to connect with her peers is due to the oppressive nature of her home life. Her mother, Margaret White, is a fanatical Christian who wields her faith as a justification for harsh judgment and brutalistic punishments which Carrie suffers the brunt of. As Carrie openly defies her mother to attend her senior prom with Tommy we have a glimmer of hope that things might work out for her, that the night will be one of healing and celebration amongst her and her peers. As things take a turn though Carrie has to make a choice, walk away and get back on the same hamster wheel of shame or burn it all down. It’s been fifty years so at this point I’m sure you have a general idea of which direction she went in.
Literary works are often canonized because of their ability to offer a fresh and oftentimes unthought of commentary on a universal or culturally important experience. For example, Nella Larsen’s Passing pops up a lot on literary lists not because of a universal experience but because it is important to note that Black Americans once practiced passing as white to advance their positions in life. This fact offers a deeper look into what Black Americans were experiencing on a day to day basis along with the preciousness of race. How extreme does oppression have to be in order for you to renounce your entire culture? And while yes there are canonized stories that explore universal human experiences they can also be used as a demarcation. A note to say this is where we were at this time. We are no longer here but it was so interesting and wild here is a story about it. Horror is different in that its primary goal is to create an extreme example of a shared experience. For example if we were to look at Rosemary’s Baby, we would find that underneath the satanic sex and devil worshiping cult, there is a story about how little autonomy women actually have over their bodies. An experience that women have been surviving for millennia. Horror enthusiasts say Carrie has a spot in the canon in large part because of its exploration of the universal horror of adolescence. Unfortunately what happened to Carrie happens to a lot of teenagers, which is why we still care about the story. This take is interesting to me primarily because the majority of the characters were teenagers yet Carrie was the only one who suffered a bleak existence until she decided to spread the love. It would seem that Carrie’s experience doesn’t actually happen to most teenagers, we all just happen to know a Carrie. We have seen how one episode of a cruel joke becomes a multi year series, torturing the victims all through their primary years. We have seen how adults expected to protect and maintain order look the other way, how their silence condemns the victim for oftentimes simply existing how they do. The truth of Carrie’s relevance is that we still don’t protect all of our children. We have the ones that are easy to protect, the ones that come from solid middle class homes, that are conventionally attractive, that are white. And then there are the other children. The disposable ones. The children whose daily suffering would rival any plot King has come up with.
While I was reading this I posted on threads that Carrie was really what Matilda would’ve become had Miss Honey not stepped in. Think of the cultural memory around Matilda! We love her. Using her powers she became an advocate for her fellow disenfranchised peers. We love stories with endings like Matilda’s. Carrie’s could have been like that. If she’d just taken it on the chin, she could have overcome, written a tell all that would become a best seller and then went on a speakers tour. “Sure my mom abused me but she had a hard childhood herself!” And of course, all would need to be forgiven. The only thing we love more than overcoming is forgiveness. She was supposed to forgive all of the children in her school. Forgive all of the adults who didn’t step in, forgive her parents and oh yes…forgive herself! Whatever the fuck that ever means!
We live in a society that frowns upon the display of extreme human emotions. During the 2020 uprisings I asked on facebook what people did with their rage and one of my friends commented they had never experienced rage. This person had a spouse that attempted to unalive her, which of course he did before years and years and years of emotional abuse. If anyone was ever allowed at any point to experience rage it would be her. But she swore she hadn’t. This was on the internet but given what I know about the person I imagine they declared this with a sort of smug self satisfaction. Despite what they had been through they had overcome. They had forgiven.
Except they hadn’t. I spend a generous amount of time with this person and let me tell you the rage is still there. Like a bruise deep under the skin it generally doesn’t cause problems but when it’s bumped or pressed it can cause her to holler. To throw fits. Toddler level fits. Once she threw a party and one of her children invited her estranged spouse, their parent, to the gathering without telling her. The mood pre him being present and post him being present was like the difference between a 45 degree day and a 90 degree day with 85 percent humidity. She instantly started lashing out at everyone. She said passive aggressive things under her breath. She huffed. She stomped. When asked if ‘everything was ok’ (and obviously it’s not??) she said she was fine. She wasn’t going to let the rage get the better of her. She had overcome. She had forgiven.
What would the little town of Chamberlain really gain if Carrie had overcome and went on a speakers tour? It would have been another piece of data on how far a child can be pushed and still remain ‘intact’. It would justify any similar treatment because ‘Carrie had overcome, why can’t you?’ There hasn’t been a sequel to Carrie but I bet social services increased in that highschool ten fold.
We actually can’t treat people anyway we want. Humans actually have breaking points. If we were allowed to feel all of our emotions more regularly we likely wouldn’t want to burn down towns. If we had community we likely wouldn’t feel the urge to electrocute people and stop their hearts. If we weren’t constantly combating chronic loneliness, constantly sieving through our media cycles attempting to decipher what is usable information and what is coded racism and hate perhaps we wouldn’t have these tragic irreversible outbursts of power. We wouldn’t shoot up schools and festivals and grocery stores.