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Deception And Ignorance In Stephen King's Different Seasons

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Amanda O’Neal Critical Reasoning Thursday 4-6 Welsh-Stamos Deception and Ignorance Lies, deception, trickery, and ignorance run rampant through Stephen King’s collection of short stories, Different Seasons. In all 4, a character is either deceptive, deceived, or willingly denies the truth in a way that alters the ending of the story. This consistent theme across all 4 stories shows that King likely believed there were two forms of deceit: the one done unto others and the one done unto one’s self. Danish Philosopher Søren Aabye Kierkegaard had similar thoughts about deception and can be attributed to the quote “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true” in which he shows …show more content…

Todd is a highly deceptive and manipulative character but he always seems honest with himself and never refuses the truth to himself. In fact, his self-honesty is what got him associated with Dussander in the first place. Yet, at the end of the story, he has definitely the worst ending of any character in Different Seasons. However, this isn’t a flaw in King’s writing. This character is made to show the effect of another character who refuses the truth. While Todd is honest with himself, Dussander is in complete denial of having ever enjoyed his work as an SS officer for the nazi party. He refuses to see the truth, and most people would consider this admirable. He is trying to be better. However, this willful disbelief destroys him and Todd. He starts to give up his charade and the two of them begin to feel just a little better about themselves. Dussander sleeps better in the costume SS Uniform and they both feel better when they start to kill the street winos. However, for Dussander the damage is done. Even though he tried to refuse the truth for the right reasons, the moment he got the slightest bit of prodding he fell apart into denial and eventually acceptance in a destructive form. Because he didn’t just try to hide and instead tried to deny his true self, he ended up causing the destruction of both himself and

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