Everyone has heard of the Stephen King novel Carrie. When I was younger there always seemed to be some sort of reference to it. Despite having never read the novel, I had a general idea of how it went: Girl gets bullied, Girl gets tricked into becoming prom queen, Popular kids humiliate her, Girl gets so angry she somehow burns the school down with her mind.
As a person who is regularly bulled, I’ve always had a feeling that I could probably identify with Carrie. To be quite honest that was part of why I stayed away from the story, I was a bit afraid I’d somehow be able to pick up some tips on how to get revenge.
Recently my friend suggested that I actually read the novel, and I found within it what I think is the ongoing recipe for the crumbling society that we are experiencing. I don’t live in the United States, but what I see is the plot of Carrie playing out every day in the news and on every form of media.
A few days after reading the novel I went to the mall by myself and I was watching a bunch of high school students making fun of and bullying some less popular girls and they actually dared one of the boys to go and ask one of the girls they had been bullying to the dance (on the premise that she’d never get someone else to ask her). Don’t they know that this is going to create a situation that could end in disaster?
I think that maybe we need to look at Carrie as not just a horror story but maybe a lesson in what happens when we allow the popular kids to think that they are somehow above everyone else and can treat them like pawns in a game. Maybe the “mental health issues” that everyone points to as a cause of these horrible acts of violence are not inherent in the Carrie’s of this world but are caused or at least exacerbated by having to live in a society where it is okay for the “popular kids” or the “rich kids” to prey upon the “loners”.
Maybe this should be required reading?
~Elena <3
