Indledning
”I came to you because I want to tell my story ,' the man on Dr Harper's couch was saying” .
The quote is from Stephen King's short story “The Boogeyman” (1973), in which he describes, how the troubled Lester Billings opens up thoughts in the company of the psychiatrist Dr Harper.
In addition, the textual basis consists of the narrator's look back at himself, in which he talks about the loss of his three children, who have all been killed one by one by the so-called Boogeyman.
With the fiction text “The Boogeyman”, Stephen King themed the relationship between imagination and reality, and his purpose is to touch the reader using fiction codes, such as the detailed descriptions of sensory impressions and sounds”[…]I heard a noise in there one night[…]” .
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Uddrag
The sentence is a clear indicator of his psychic thinking, where he is afraid that the child will be raised in the wrong way, and it is also clarified, that he is tempted to engage in violence against his wife.
Here, his imagination also plays a huge role, as he is filled with fears that make him paranoid. All these hallucinations strengthen the foundation of being paranoid and not being in control of his own actions.
At the beginning of the narrative, Billings mention that he has no reason to approach a priest or a lawyer because he is not Catholic, and he does not believe he has done anything wrong.
However, words like "God" "Jesus" and "Christ" are often used in his speech, which is an obvious contradiction, further indicating that Billing has an unstable personality.
Immediately, Lester Billings can also be assumed to be a bit psychopathic ”Shirl would wake up and cry every night and Rita would pick her up and sniffle.
I tell you, sometimes I felt like throwing them both out a window. Christ, kids drive you crazy sometimes. You could kill them"8 .
It is clearly not a rational and normal mindset, but it is part of his unconscious mind. The prologue starts out with Billings’ very relaxed description of the killing on his children ”[…]
All I did was kill my kids. One at a time. Killed them all”9 . The killings of the three children are different and fears increase as the killings become more dramatic each time.
The first kill neither he hears or sees the Boogeyman, but when the murder of Andy happens, he sees and hears Boogeyman.
This shows how Lester Billings impulsive and unconscious part of his psyche reacts directly and immediately to his basic urge to kill, as the monster grows inside him and takes control of him.
When the narrative refers to the fact that the wardrobe had opened a little, it can be transferred to Billings personality ”The closet door was open. Not much. Just a crack.
But I knew I left it shut, see […]”10 . Despite his otherwise general demeanor, he occasionally loses control and his façade cracks a little, having an unconscious mindset in which the impulse of desire in the form of killing must be fulfilled immediately, regardless of the consequences.
Therefore, the closet is also of great importance, as this symbolizes Lester Billings behavior, and when the door is wide open, Boogeyman or evil at this time has taken control of Billings’.
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