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Monday, February 15, 2010

Less Pumpkin, More Inferno

I’d never thought of it in this way, but there’s a theory put forth by Linda Badley in her 1996 book Writing Horror and the Body that likens Carrie to a dark modernization of the Cinderella story. Sue Snell is the godmother figure, who tries to make life better for the tormented Carrie. And both stories have their climax set at a formal party where the respective casts see the undoing of any efforts to elevate the status of the victimized Cinderella character.

Of course, in place of the carriage’s transformation back into a pumpkin, Carrie ends with her killing everybody in an firestorm, so that would be small difference between the two stories.

This post going up the day after Valentine’s Day is totally coincidental, I swear.

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