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William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist And The Shining Analysis

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In both William Peter Blatty 's novel The Exorcist and Stephen King 's novel The Shining, there are two main characters that lose themselves and become dangerous instruments both physically and mentally. Regan, a young girl, undergoes a complete transformation and Jack Torrance a more gradual, yet definite transformation. Both their bodies become a threat not only to themselves, but to the people surrounding them. This paper will examine the different elements of how the human body becomes a source of horror and the different types of horror. When analysing The Exorcist we see a process in Regan, who starts of as a happy, eleven year old girl who says “I love you”1 to her mother, and turns into a monstrous being. The process of turning …show more content…

What makes this even more a source of horror, is the change not only in language but also the content of that language, in particular sexual speech. The first mention of this is when the doctors says: “She advised me to keep my goddamn fingers away from her cunt.”6 Then the highlight of this change is when she masturbates with a crucifix, telling her own mother to “lick” her.7 This becomes a horror as it destroys the image of the innocent child. Her vulgar language, actions and knowledge of sexuality, are the opposite of what she knew before and what is expected of a girl her age. Cynthia Freeland points out that 'horror involves severe violation of our sense of moral...order '8 which can be applied to this situation. In addition, there is also the image of the pure, innocent female that is destroyed. Critic Barbara Creed confirms that her transformation from an angel to a monster is ' a sexual one '.9 She continues stating that this 'suggests that the family home, bastion of all the right virtues and laudable moral values, is built on a foundation of repressed sexual desires including those which flow between mother and daughter '.10 Although, the argument of sexual desire between Chris and Regan could be a step too far, it does conform with the notion of Regan starting to become an adolescence and therefore experiencing new sexual emotions. In addition, it could also indicate to the the idea of women being restricted from expressing certain sexual desires. In …show more content…

The fact that there is another person or being coming going into Regan 's body is a horror at itself. Barbara Creed calls it “an outside force” that invades Regan.16 In the novel it starts of with the rappings in the attic.17 Regan the complains of someone moving her furniture18 and when it becomes more extreme Chris herself sees the unexplainable, extreme shaking of the bed, with Regan screaming: “Make it stop! Oh I 'm scared.”19 The external force than invades Regan 's body. For example her body “flings itself up horizontally into the air above her bed and then be slammed down savagely onto the mattress”20 and eventually changes in her voice. Regan seems to know who is 'invading ' her as she claims it is her ghost friend from the Ouija board, Captain Howdy claiming that Captain Howdy is “chasing her, pinching her...threatening to kill her.”21 Mrs Perrin states that “dabbling with” the occult “can be dangerous. And that includes fooling around with an Ouija board.”22 This conveys the idea of the danger of the supernatural in horror genres. This invasion of a demon has different aspects of horror in it. For example, this occupying and limiting someone 's freedom is a moral violation in itself, yet what makes it worse is the transgression of the “gender boundaries”.23 Although there is an ambiguity whether or not Captain Howdy is a man or woman, there seems to be signs of a male being due to the low voice. Moreover, Barbara Creed, although she argues that the

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