AMITY UNIVERSITY RAJASTHAN

AMITY INSTITUTE OF BEHAVIORAL AND ALLIED SCIENCES

B.A. (Hons.) Applied Psychology (2020-2023)

Book Review

On

The Dark Half by Stephen King

Supervised by: Submitted by:

Dr. Monika Gwalani Anik Chakraborty

Assistent Professor B.A. Psychology(Honors)

Semester- 3
About the Author
Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine. He graduated from the
University of Maine and later worked as a teacher while establishing himself as a writer. Having
also published work under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, King's first horror novel, Carrie,
was a huge success. Over the years, King has become known for titles that are both
commercially successful and sometimes critically acclaimed. His books have sold more than 350
million copies worldwide and been adapted into numerous successful films. King has received
Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy Awards, and British Fantasy Society Awards. In 2003, the
National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American
Letters. He has also received awards for his contribution to literature for his entire bibliography,
such as the 2004 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the 2007 Grand Master Award
from the Mystery Writers of America. In 2015, he was awarded with a National Medal of Arts
from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts for his contributions to literature. He has been
described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high standing in
pop culture.

Content
The novel begins with an introduction to Thad Beaumont, an author known for his literary
fiction. He, like Stephen King, has written under a pseudonym to experiment writing in another
genre and to see how it would be received by the public. The novel begins after the real identity
of George Stark, Thad Beaumont’s pseudonym, has been discovered by a law student in
Washington D.C. for this reason the author decides to go public first, killing off his pseudonym.
In a comical article featured in People magazine, Beaumont and his wife stand beside a
gravestone labeled George Stark, symbolic of the end of Beaumont’s time writing under the
pseudonym, Stark's epitaph says it all: "Not A Very Nice Guy". However, George Stark does not
wish to be discontinued. Though George Stark is Thad Beaumont’s own creation, he escapes
from his “grave” and goes on a violent killing spree of everyone he believes contributed to Thad
Beaumont discontinuing his role as George Stark- Thad's editor, agent, and the People
interviewer, among others. Thad, meanwhile, is plagued by surreal nightmares. Stark's murders
are investigated by Alan Pangborn, the sheriff of the neighboring town of Castle Rock, who finds
Thad's voice and fingerprints at the crime scenes. This evidence, and Thad's unwillingness to
answer his questions, causes Pangborn to believe that Thad – despite having alibis – is
responsible for the murders. Later, it is discovered that George Stark has the same fingerprints as
Thad Beaumont, a clue to the twinship he and Thad share. Thad eventually discovers that he and
Stark share a mental bond, and begins to find notes from Stark written in his own handwriting.
The notes tell Thad what activity Stark has been engaging in. Observing his son and daughter,
Thad notes that twins share a unique bond. They can feel each other's pain and at times appear to
read the other's mind. Using this as a key to his own situation, he begins to discover the even
deeper meaning behind himself and Stark. Pangborn eventually learns that Thad had a twin. The
unborn brother was absorbed into Thad in utero and later removed from his brain when the
author was a child. He had suffered from severe headaches and it was originally thought to be a
tumor causing them and he also used to hear sound of birds, thousands of them, all cheeping and
twittering at the same time, and with the sound comes a presentiment full of memory and
foreboding: The sparrows are flying again. The neurosurgeon who removed it found the
following inside: part of a nostril, some fingernails, some teeth, and a malformed human eye.
This leads to questions about the true nature of Stark, whether he is a malevolent spirit with its
own existence, or Thad himself, manifesting an alternate personality. Thad finally determines to
destroy Stark once and for all and uses his recognition of their unique connection to take him
down for good, , but the book ends on an unhappy note with Thad's wife having serious doubts
about the future of their relationship: she is appalled that Thad not only created Stark (if
unintentionally), but that a part of him liked Stark. Stephen King’s novel The Dark Half is filled
with inspiration from King’s life and experiences. As made obvious by Stephen King’s
dedication of the novel to his alter ego Richard Bachman, this novel is a direct reference to
Stephen King’s own experience with writing under a pen name in the mid 80’s. Though Stephen
King doesn’t turn into his “dark half” while writing under his pseudonym but instead prefers to
write more serious literature, there are many elements of Beaumont’s story that come directly
from King’s experience as the writer Richard Bachman. The Dark Half is more than just a horror
story about a walking pseudonym; it becomes an allegory for the dangers of the creative act to
selfhood, psychic integrity, and sense of identity.

Writing Style
Stephen King is known primarily as a writer of gothic horror, His writing style in The Dark Half
is more brutally realistic and cynical than much of his work. It clearly owes something to the
American noir tradition of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. There are many short,
staccato sentences as well as vivid images encapsulated in metaphors and similes ("like French-
kissing a corpse"). The novel is written in third person narrative and King uses a pretty
traditional structure in The Dark Half. The novel is divided into three parts and each part
contains several chapters. The chapters are numbered and have a heading. The events unfold in
chronological order. The style is often aphoristic, with cynical commentary in the noir style, , for
instance in the observation:
“He was after all, a novelist...and a novelist was simply a fellow who got paid to tell lies. The
bigger the lies, the better the pay.”
There is a fair amount of exposition in the book, including commentary on the psychological
states of the characters, the process of writing, and even the philosophical significance of a writer
having a "dark half" of his personality, which takes on an independent existence and turns
against him. Even these passages, however, are tightly written, and far from verbose. The
following passage on the writing process is a good example of this style:
“But he had learned that, if he kept at it, if he simply kept pushing the words along the page,
something else kicked in, something which was both wonderful and terrible. The words as
individual units began to disappear. Characters who were stilted and lifeless began to limber up,
as if he had kept them in some small closet overnight and they had to loosen their muscles before
they could begin their complicated dances. Something began to happen in his brain; he could
almost feel the shape of the electrical waves there changing, losing their prissy goose-step
discipline, turning into the soft, sloppy delta waves of dreaming sleep.”

Learning Outcome
The book gives us numerous learning:
 The plot of the story gives us a idea of how demons inside a person can become real, and
hunt them out to enact some grotesque revenge.
 It give us idea how selfish urges inside a person can give birth to ferocious crimes.
 The book tries to portray the fact that every human being’s has a dark half inside them
and we are the one who can encourage the dark side of us and promote evil and also we
are the one who can bury the dark half and promote good.
 The book ironically tries to prove that humankind is trapped and confused in a chaotic
universe and is further victimized by failures to conquer the evil ladled from its own
cultural brew.
 The book is little fantasy related but it gives us a little idea of Dissociative Identity
Disorder where a person characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personality
identities. Each may have a unique name, personal history and characteristics.

Content Handling
The content clearly justifies the theme and story. The writer has beautifully handled and
portrayed the characters, and had mentioned all the details of characters that make them realistic
and these detailing makes it easier to connect with the readers. He did a great job of bringing the
characters to life in The Dark Half. He has portrayed and justified the situations, the natural
setting and the use of supernatural things in such a way that it connected to the theme of the story
very nicely, There are also even some non-supernatural events that take on a more sinister
meaning such as Thad having partial remains of his twin brother removed from his brain. This
sounds like something out of the Hammer House of Horror but it is a rare medical condition that
sometimes a woman had two foetuses in her womb and the stronger one absorbs the weaker one.
By this we can say that writer had handled the content in an appealing manner by which it
becomes very easy to connect with the story.

Character Sketch
The characters in the book is sketched by the author very beautifully. King is accomplished in
the production of credible characters in familiar domestic and small-town settings. One of the
hallmarks of his composition is his ability to draw readers into the normal routines and trials of
middle American households. These familiar settings are essential backdrops against which the
author then casts grotesque and fantastic events. As King’s protagonist, Thad Beaumont evokes
sympathy from the outset. His struggle with writer’s block is almost a cliché. Readers may
wonder that whether Beaumont has created and fallen victim to his literary alter ego, George
Stark. Though, Thad is neither mad nor hallucinating. He is a good and decent man who
unintentionally opens the door to evil, an evil that springs from his own creativity and actions, an
evil that victimizes him, his family, and his acquaintances. Here are the major characters of the
novel The Dark Half discussed briefly-
Thad Beaumont
Thad Beaumont the protagonist of the story, is a novelist and professor of creative writing at the
University of Maine. At eleven years of age, Thad began to suffer blackouts, preceded by the
sound of sparrows. When neurologist Hugh Pritchard operated, he removed the fetus of a twin
that had been absorbed into Thad’s head while both were still embryos. As an adult, Beaumont
has published novels that were praised by critics but not widely read. To cure a writing block,
Thad writes, under the pseudonym George Stark, violent novels about Alexis Machine, a sadist
who kills evildoers. These are so popular that Thad becomes independently wealthy. When a law
student, Frederick Clawson, tries to extort money by threatening to expose Thad’s identity as
Stark, Thad admits responsibility in an interview for People magazine and announces that he will
write no more Stark books. Shortly after the article appears in People, Thad again has blackouts
and hears sparrows. When a resident of Castle Rock, Maine, is brutally murdered and Thad’s
fingerprints are found at the scene, the Castle Rock sheriff, Alan Pangborn, confronts Thad, but
he becomes convinced that he is innocent. Soon, other people are murdered, including Clawson,
the people associated with the People magazine story, and the agents and editors involved with
the publication of the Stark novels. Thad tries to convince Pangborn that his pseudonym has
come to life. Through the psychic bond that links them, Thad learns that his double is physically
disintegrating. Thad intuits that, should he write another Machine novel, his pseudonym would
become whole and he himself would deteriorate. Meanwhile, huge numbers of sparrows have
gathered. Thad learns from a folklore professor that sparrows are “psychopomps” who conduct
souls to the land of the dead. When Stark threatens Liz and the Beaumont’s twins at the
Beaumont’s Castle Rock summer house, Thad comes to their rescue. There, he and Stark begin
the new Machine novel. The sparrows invade the house and carry Stark away. With the help of
Sheriff Pangborn, Thad burns the house and all evidence that Stark ever existed.
George Stark
George Stark, the pseudonym under which Thad Beaumont writes the Alexis Machine novels.
He becomes a separate being when his creator symbolically kills him. Stark is the reincarnation
of a fetal twin removed from Thad’s brain. He represents Thad’s “dark half,” the destructive
impulses that the writer has repressed. Near Castle Rock’s cemetery, where he comes to life,
Stark bludgeons an old man to death. He is responsible for the other murders as well. Stark is
psychically linked with Thad, but he is unaware of the sparrows gathering around his double.
Stark is /decomposing and will die unless Thad resumes writing as Stark. Stark takes Liz and the
babies hostage, drives to the Beaumont’s summer home in Castle Rock, and threatens to harm
them unless Thad begins a new Machine novel. When Thad arrives and begins to write, Stark’s
sores start to heal. Stark takes over the story, unaware that he is inserting the word “sparrow”
more and more frequently into the text. Sparrows invade the house and carry Stark back to hell.

Alan Pangborn
Alan Pangborn, the sheriff of Castle Rock. Pangborn has a keen analytical mind, is almost
preternaturally agile, and can assess honesty and character intuitively. Because fingerprints at the
crime scenes match Thad’s, Pangborn at first suspects Thad, but he comes reluctantly to accept a
supernatural explanation. Pangborn tracks down Dr. Pritchard, who operated on Thad’s supposed
tumor. When the surgeon tells Pangborn that he had removed a fetal twin from the child’s brain,
Pangborn realizes that Thad’s double has come back to life as Stark. When a Castle Rock farmer
reports that a black Toronado, matching Thad’s description of Stark’s car, has emerged from his
garage, Pangborn drives to the Beaumont summer house and is captured by Stark. When the
sparrows invade the Beaumont house, Pangborn shelters Liz with a blanket. He helps Thad burn
the house and the Toronado to remove all evidence of Stark’s existence.
Liz Beaumont
Liz Beaumont, Thad’s devoted wife and the mother of Wendy and William. Liz feared the man
her husband became when he wrote the Machine novels. When Stark holds her and the twins
hostage, Liz conceals household objects that might be used as weapons.
William Beaumont and Wendy Beaumont
William Beaumont and Wendy Beaumont, are the Beaumont’s identical twin babies. They treat
the monstrous Stark as their father. They were same identical twins like their father and George
Stark. Through William Beaumont and Wendy Beaumont Thad was able to recognize the
twinship of himself and Stark.
Hugh Pritchard
Hugh Pritchard, a retired surgeon who removed the fetal twin from the brain of the eleven-year-
old Thad.
Rawlie DeLesseps
Rawlie DeLesseps, a professor of folklore and a colleague of Thad. Rawlie tells Thad that
sparrows are “psychopomps,” associated with the living dead. He loans Thad a car when Thad
seeks to escape police surveillance.

Thematic Clarity
The Dark Half is a sensational, wordy, and not well-resolved tale of conflict between King’s
vision of what middle America regards as good and what can always be cataloged as evil. King
gives substance to this struggle by revealing the troubling doubts, often moral ones, that evolve
within his protagonist. The scene of this contest, as in other King books, is a small town, in this
instance the fictional Castle Rock, Maine. The setting is deliberately conservative, a family-
oriented small-town repository of solid American values. The world outside Castle Rock is one
to which many of King’s characters are viscerally opposed. They fear and dislike the
technocratic-managerial culture engulfing them, and they view its future in apocalyptic terms.
Stark and Alexis Machine, as manifest pillars of destruction, are sufficient evidence of this.
All The Dark Half’s principal characters consequently are disparaging observers of big cities and
big-city types. Thus New York is backhanded several times as the Maggoty Old Apple—a
prejudice widely shared. The female photographer who comes to Castle Rock to manage George
Stark’s mock burial is likewise derided, while sensationalist and tawdry People magazine,
readers are told, has its year-round nest in New York. The Washington, D.C. characters fare no
better; they include Dobie Eberhart, a loud, avaricious prostitute who caters to senior politicians,
and Thad’s former literary agent, a low-rung corporate lawyer, blackmailer, and “creepazoid.”
Even The Dark Half’s conclusion is foreboding. One of the sparrows draws Thad’s blood—a
sign, he believes, that for having fooled with the afterlife he will soon have to pay a price.
The Dark Half thus continues King’s themes that humankind is trapped and confused in a chaotic
universe and is further victimized by failures to conquer the evil ladled from its own cultural
brew. To the extent that King wrote the book to entertain, and he succeeded to portray the theme
of the book nicely.

Psychological Perspective
Stephen King’s The Dark Half is equal parts horror novel and psychological thriller. The
protagonist, Thad Beaumont, has an alter ego named George Stark, however, it is unclear
whether George is a separate entity or the darker side of Thad’s personality.
Initially, George appears to merely be a persona created by Thad in an attempt to improve his
writing. Things take an unexpected turn when George takes on a life and physical presence of his
own. This leaves readers to wonder whether George truly exists.
From a psychological perspective, Thad may be suffering from dissociative identity disorder. If
this is the case, George is likely to be an extension of Thad. We learn Thad is a twin who
absorbed his sibling while in his mother’s uterus. Remnants of Thad’s twin are found in the form
of a growth in Thad’s brain. It is possible Thad subconsciously created a persona for his dead
twin brother by creating George. Another consideration is Thad’s tumor has a psychological
effect on him and causes him to unknowingly develop an alter ego in the form of George.