Gender Performance and Violence in Stephen King's Campus Shooting Trilogy: You either ate the world or the world ate you

This paper argues that three early works by Stephen King can be read collectively as a literary exploration of campus violence. Bringing together the novel Carrie (1974), the novella Rage (1977), and the short story “Cain Rose Up” (1968), we explore how King represents campus-based violence in an era before school shootings became commonplace in the United States. In particular, we argue that King's school shooting narratives evince a deep-seated preoccupation with the relationship between violence and gender performance.
The young male protagonists of Rage and “Cain Rose Up” are depicted as constantly striving for, but never fully embodying, the hegemonic ideals of masculinity prevalent in their culture. Consequently, in both texts, violence is figured as a means of reasserting a manhood that is constantly under threat and never secure. Likewise, in Carrie, the eponymous protagonist is portrayed as unable to perform the normative standards of femininity expected of her. She is described as overweight, sweaty, and plagued by dermatological eruptions. Her performance of femininity is considered unacceptable because
she is unable to control or rein in her body and its biological functions. The violence she commits against her peers can therefore be understood as a reaction to this perceived failure to embody normative femininity. However, by unleashing psychic, rather than weapon-based, vengeance upon her classmates, Carrie rejects culturally prescribed modes of femininity and allows her body, its fluids and excesses, to come to the fore. In this way, Carrie's violence
signals a refusal to maintain the appearance of clean and controlled womanhood.