Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra

Faculty of Education
Department of Language Pedagogy and Intercultural Studies

Stephen King

It

(Stylistic analysis)

2010/2011 Gabriela Janušová

2XAj9b
They went this way: Bill, Beverly, Ben, Richie, Stan, Mike. The leaves under the porch crackled and puffed up
a sour old smell. Ben wrinkled his nose. Had he ever smelled fallen leaves like these? He thought not. And then an
unpleasant idea struck him. They smelled the way he imagined a mummy would smell just after its discoverer had
levered open its coffin: all dust and bitter ancient tannic acid.
Bill had reached the broken cellar window and was looking into the cellar. Beverly crawled up beside him.
„ You see anything? “
Bill shook his head. „But that d-doesn’t m-m-mean nuh-huthin’s there. L-Look; there’s the coal pile R-R-
Richie used to get ow-out.”
Ben, who was looking between them, saw it. He was becoming excited as well as afraid now, and he
welcomed the excitement, instinctively recognizing the fact that it could be a tool. Seeing the coal-pile was a little
like seeing a great landmark about which you had only read or heard from others.
Bill turned around and slipped lithely through the window. Beverly gave Ben the Bullseye, folding his
hand over the cup and ball nestled in it. „Give it to me the second I’m down, “she said. „The second“
„Got you. “
She slipped down as easily and as lithely as Bill had before her. There was-for Ben, at least- one heart-
stopping instant when her blouse pulled out of her jeans and he saw her flat white belly. Then there was the thrill of
her hand over his as he handed the slingshot down.
„Okay, I’ve got it. Come on. “
Ben turned around himself and began to wriggle through the window. He should have foreseen what
happened next; it was really inevitable. He got stuck. His fanny bound up against the rectangular cellar window
and he couldn’t go any further. He started to pull himself out and he realized, horrified, that he could do it, but was
very apt to yank his pants- and perhaps his underpants as well- down to his knees when he did. And there he would
be, with extremely large ass practically in his beloved’s face.
„Hurry up! “ Eddie said.
Ben pushed grimly with both hands. For a moment he still couldn’t move, and then his butt popped through
the window-hole. His bluejeans dragged painfully into his crotch, squashing his balls. The top of the window
rucked his shirt all the way up to his shoulderblades. Now his gut was stuck.
„Suck in, Haystack, “Richie said, giggling hysterically. „You better suck in or we’ll have to send Mike
after his dad’s chainfall to pull you out again“
„Beep-beep, Richie, “Ben said through his gritted teeth. He sucked his belly in as much as he could. He had
never really realized just how big his stupid stomach was until this supremely embarrassing moment. He moved a
little further, then he stopped again.
He turned his head as far as he could, fighting panic and claustrophobia. His face had gone a bright sweaty
red. The sour smell of the leaves was heavy in his nostrils, cloying. „Bill! Can you guys pull me? “
He felt Bill grasp one of his ankles, Beverly the other. He sucked his belly in as far as he could. A moment
later he came tumbling through the window. Bill grabbed him. Both of them almost fell over. Ben couldn’t look at
Bev. He had never in his life been as embarrassed as he was at that moment.
„Y-Y-You okay, m-m-man? “
„Yeah. “
Bill laughed shakily. Beverly joined him, and then Ben was able to laugh a little too, although it would be
years before he could see anything remotely funny in what had happened.
„Hey! “ Richie called down. „Eddie needs help, okay? “
„O-O-Okay. “ Bill and Ben took up positions below the window. Eddie came through on his back. Bill got
his legs just above the knees.
„Watch what you’re doing, “Eddie said in a querulous, nervous voice. „I’m ticklish. “
„Ramon ees plenny teekleesh, senhorr, “Richie’s voice called down.
Ben got Eddie around the waist, trying to keep his hand away from the cast and the sling. The two of them
manhandled Eddie through the cellar window like a corpse. Eddie cried out once, but that was all.
„Eh-Eh-Eddie? “
„Yeah, “Eddie said, „okay. No big deal“. But large drops of sweat stood out on his forehead and he was
breathing in quick rasps. His eyes darted around the cellar.
Ben stepped back again. Beverly stood near him, now holding the Bullseye by the shaft and the cup, ready
to fire if necessary. Her eyes swept the cellar constantly. Richie came through next, followed by Stan and Mike.
Both of the latter moved with a smooth grace that Ben envied. Then they were all down, down in the cellar where
Bill and Richie had seen It only a month before.
The doom was dim, but not dark. Dusky light shafted in through the Windows and pooled on the dirt floor.
The cellar seemed very big to Ben, almost too big, as if he were witnessing an optical illusion of some sort. Dusty
rafters crisscrossed overhead. The furnace-pipes were rusty. Some sort of dirty white cloth hung from the water-
pipes in dirty strings and strands. The smell was down here too. A dirty yellow smell. Ben thought: It’s here, all
right. Oh yeah.
Bill started toward the stairs. The others fell in behind him. He halted at their foot and kick-pawed
something out. They looked at it wordlessly. It was a white clown-glove, now streaked with dirt and dust.
„Uh-uh-upstairs, “he said.
They went up and emerged into the dirty kitchen. One plain straight-backed chair stood marooned in the
centre of the humped hillocky linoleum. That was it for furniture. There were empty liquor bottles in one corner.
Ben could see others in the pantry. He could smell booze- wine, mostly- and old stale cigarettes. Those smells were
dominant, but that other smell was there, too. It was getting stronger all the time.
Beverly went to the cupboards and opened one of them. She screamed piercingly as a blackish-brown
Norway rat tumbled out almost into her face. It struck the counter with a plop and glared around them with its
black eyes. Still screaming, Beverly raised the Bullseye and pulled the sling.
„NO! “ Bill roared.
She turned her pale terrified face toward him. Then she nodded and relaxed her arm, the silver ball unfired-
but Ben thought she had been very, very close. She backed up slowly, ran into Ben, jumped. He put an arm around
her, tight.
Reason for choice:

The reason why I chose the book lies in the style in which it is written. It begins with a
devastating atrocity and keeps the thrills coming at a breathless pace. There is hardly a page
without its shocks and surprises yet the author still manages to give the reader a terrifying
climax.

The reason why I chose this particular passage lies in the memories of my childhood. I lived
in a house with a big cellar. There were three rooms, one with a coal-pile, one storage room
for potatoes and other vegetables with its own pungent smell and the last one with my father’s
tools-chainsaws, axes, scythes, all of them sharp as a razor. As a child I did everything to
avoid our cellar because of its sour smells, sizzling sounds coming from the furnace and
dangerous things in it.
So when I was reading the book, that old, well-known fear of cellars emerged from my
memories and I was instantly drawn back to that heavy, tense atmosphere.

About the author:

Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of contemporary
horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350
million copies, which have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and
comic books. As of 2011, King has written and published 49 novels, including seven under
the pen name Richard Bachman, five non-fiction books, and nine collections of short stories.
Many of his stories are set in his home state of Maine.

About the book:

The novel is told through narratives alternating between two time periods, which is largely
told in a third- person omniscient view. It deals with themes which are King’s staples: the
power of memory, childhood trauma, and the ugliness lurking beneath a façade of traditional
small-town values. The novel won the British Fantasy Award in 1987, and received
nominations for the Locus and World Fantasy Awards that same year. Publishers Weekly
listed It as the best-selling book in America in 1986.

The book is dedicated to King's family: "This book is gratefully dedicated to my children. My
mother and my wife taught me how to be a man. My children taught me how to be free."

Genre: Horror novel

Structure of the book:

Part One „The Shadow before“Chapters 1-3

Derry „The first interlude“
Part Two „June 1958“Chapters 4-9
Derry „The second interlude“
Part Three „Grownups“Chapters 10-12
Derry „The third interlude“
Part Four „July 1958“Chapters 13-18
Derry „The fourth interlude“
Part Five „The Ritual of Chüd“Chapters 19-24
Derry „The last interlude“
Epilogue „Bill Denbrough beats the devil”

There are twenty-four chapters in the book and it is divided into five parts plus four interludes
and an epilogue. This is due to the fact, that the story flips between the adolescents the main
characters were and their battle, and the cynical adults they have become trying to defeat a
foe.

Number of pages: 1116

Style:

The book is largely written in a third-person omniscient narrative mode in which the reader
is presented the story by a narrator with an overarching, godlike perspective, seeing and
knowing everything that happens within the world of the story, regardless of the presence of
certain characters, including everything all of the characters are thinking and feeling.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-person_omniscient_narrative, cit. 30.3.2011]

Parts of the book named “interlude” are told in a technique called a first-person narrative
mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time (Michael "Mike" Hanlon, one of the
main characters in the book), speaking for and about himself. The narrator explicitly refers to
himself using words and phrases involving "I" (referred to as the first-person singular). This
allows the reader to see the point of view (including opinions, thoughts, and feelings) only of
the narrator, and no other characters. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_narrative, cit.
30.3.2011]

Structure of the extract from the book:

According to K.Wales the paragraph can be seen as a subdivision of a text that comprises a
unit of thought or a single topic. [in Miššíková, ibid., p.77] There are twenty-four paragraphs
in the extract. Some of them are seven lines long, some only two lines long. Varying sentence
and paragraph length is used to emphasize important ideas. Several long sentences followed
by a short, direct sentence can offer a reader a helpful shift in sentence rhythm and direct his
attention to an idea.

Lexical point of view:

Basic lexis:

Nouns 151 (e.g. leaves, smell, cellar, excitement, window, furnace, thrill, corpse…)

-compound nouns:
cellar window coal-pile
landmark slingshot
underpants window hole
shoulderblades chain fall
overhead furnace-pipes
water-pipes bluejeans
clown-glove
The author uses compound nouns to add richness to the text. For example the word cellar
window gives the reader an unpleasant feeling of a smelly, dark place rather than an ordinary
word “window”.

Verbs 179 (e.g. smelled, welcomed, slipped, pushed, turned, roared, pushed….)

-compound verbs: (to enrich the text, to give it vivid images)

to manhandle
to kick-paw
to crisscross

- phrasal verbs: (used so often because they are closely related to colloquial manner of
writing)
pull out take up
keep away back up
fall in suck in
slip through hand down
turn around pull back
run into look at
glare around at

- modal verbs: important, because they modify another verb, so that the modified verb has
more intention in its expression. They express modality, the way in which something is being
said

Examples: would (a mummy would smell), could (It could be a tool), should (He should have
foreseen…), couldn’t (he couldn’t move any further), will (we’ll have to send), can (Can you
guys pull me?)

The author uses more verbs than nouns = verbal style (abounds in verbs and is very dynamic.
The lexis used in this style denotes processes (processual lexis) and consists of different types
of verbs: auxiliaries, lexical verbs, clips, etc. [in Miššíková, ibid., p.59]

Tenses:

The author uses mainly simple past tense (They went….Ben wrinkled….Bill turned….he got
stuck), occasionally past continuous tense (Ben, who was looking between them…).There is
also usage of past perfect tense (Had he ever smelled fallen leaves like these?). In direct
speech he uses both present tenses, simple and continuous (Watch what you’re doing; Eddie
needs help, okay?) The direct speech is used to make the text more dynamic.

The author mostly uses short sentences in past simple tense to denote simple, short actions.
This results in creating a very tense, scary atmosphere. The reader cannot expect, what is
going to happen next because the action is very fast.

Qualifying lexis:

The main functions adjectives and adverbs serve is to give more description to the entities
found in a text; so, the use of them will result in the descriptive richness of the text.
Adjectives: - unpleasant, bitter, ancient, dirty, dusty, afraid, horrified, terrified, old, stale, dim,
dark, dusky, marooned, rusty…all of them are associated with the genre of the book
- tannic, excited, embarrassing, inevitable

-compound adjectives:
heart-stopping straight-backed blackish-brown

Adverbs: instinctively, lithely, easily, painfully, hysterically, supremely, shakily, remotely,

piercingly, tight…

Grammatical lexis:

Prepositions: important to show in what relation the person or thing denoted by it stands in
regard to something else;
(e.g. under, into, up, through, in, above, on, for)

Conjunctions: important because they connects words, sentences, phrases or clauses together;
(e.g. and, but, that, or, until, although, when)

Interjections: they do not have real linguistic value but we generally employ them to express
feelings or states of mind in daily life situations
( e.g.Hey! Okay?)

Expressive lexis:

Personification: It can make a narration more interesting and lively. Personification is using a
character to represent an abstract idea. Abstract ideas are hard for a lot of people to
understand. Using a character to stand in for that idea makes something more real, and a
reader can understand it better this way.

…his bluejeans dragged painfully into his crotch, squashing his balls.
…his eyes darted around the cellar…
…her eyes swept the cellar…
…dusty rafters crisscrossed overhead…
…his butt popped through the window hole…
…fighting panic and claustrophobia…
…large drops of sweat stood out on his forehead…

Simile: The author uses simile quite a lot in order to intensify some features in the text.

…they smelled the way he imagined a mummy would smell…

…seeing the coal-pile was like seeing a great landmark…
…she slipped down as easily and lithely as Bill…

Epithet: Again, the author uses this stylistic device very often because it emphasises
important characters, creating a more three-dimensional character.

…bitter ancient tannic acid…

…sour old smell…
…the smell of the leaves was heavy in his nostrils…
…heart-stopping instant…
…smooth grace…
…chair stood marooned…

Metaphor: Metaphors can help readers to better understand something about the object or idea
to which the metaphor is being applied. They can make speaking and writing more lively and
interesting.

…they emerged into dirty kitchen…

…an unpleasant idea struck him…
…it could be a tool… (the excitement)
....ball nestled in it...
....emerged into a dirty kitchen...

Historically marked lexis:

- fanny-old fashioned, person‘s bottom (it is used to ease the atmosphere)

Colloquial lexis: (they have lively, spoken character)

- balls, yeah, booze, belly, ass

Syntactic point of view:

Ellipsis: The function of ellipsis used in author’s narration is to change its tempo, to connect
its structure.

You see anything?

Got you.
No big deal.

Detached construction: Why did the author used such a structure? I think that the detached
part, being torn away from its referent, assumes a greater degree of significance and is given
prominence by intonation.

The sour smell of the leaves was heavy in his nostrils, cloying.
He put an arm around her, tight.

Parenthesis: gives an utterance an additional meaning or emotional colouring.

There was- for Ben, at least- one heart-stopping instance….

…..but was very apt to yank his pants- and perhaps his underpants as well- down to his knees
He could smell booze- wine, mostly- and old stale cigarettes

Repetition: The repetition is used because it gives emphasis necessary to fix the attention of the
reader on the key word.

….they were all down, down in the cellar….

„Give it to me the second I’m down, “she said. „The second“
Asyndeton: conjunction are omitted thus producing a fast pace

She backed up slowly, ran into Ben, jumped.

Phonetic point of view:

Onomatopoeia: Onomatopoeia is used because it's often difficult to describe sounds.

Furthermore, a story becomes more lively and interesting by the use of onomatopoeia.

The leaves under the porch crackled and puffed up a sour old smell.
.........said giggling hysterically......
NO, Bill roared.
It struck the counter with a plop.