Christine

“‘I love you, man. You know that.’ ‘Maybe you do. And I appreciate it. If you do you know it’s because there’s something else—something underneath the zits and my stupid face—’”

Though Arnie and Dennis frequently use outdated, politically incorrect rhetoric, they aren’t afraid to express their feelings for one another, subverting a common stereotype about masculinity. Moreover, Arnie’s reference to “something else” and acne is ironic given that LeBay’s spirit soon causes Arnie to quickly age, clearing up the acne on his face.

“I’ll get them! I’ll get those fucking sons of bitches I’ll get them Dennis. I’ll make them sorry I’ll make those fuckers eat it…EAT IT…EAT IT!”

Arnie’s outburst provides an early clue that LeBay is starting to possess him. King emphasizes Arnie’s anger through the absence of punctuation and by placing some words in all capital letters, suggesting that Arnie is too enraged for grammatical pauses or, in the case of “EAT IT,” for lowercase words.

“Now I guess I’d say it’s the way you feel when a friend of yours falls in love and marries a right high-riding, dyed-in-the-wool bitch. You don’t like the bitch and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the bitch doesn’t like you, so you just close the door on that room of your friendship.”

Dennis furthers the theme of The Link Between Objectification and Sexism by comparing Christine to a “bitch.” The metaphor reveals one of Dennis’s early strategies for dealing with Christine and Arnie: avoidance. He plays along, hoping that the problem will go away.

“I didn’t think his old rustbucket Plymouth Fury was the main target. And if Repperton felt that he couldn’t accomplish the demolition of the main target by himself, he would simply get by with a little help from his friends.”

Dennis provides a red herring, alluding to his belief that Buddy Repperton and his friends want to kill Arnie. Instead, Christine kills Buddy and his friends. This quote highlights how King integrates rock lyrics into the text, not just at the start of chapters: The phrase “get by with a little help from his friends” alludes to “With a Little Help from My Friends” by the Beatles.

“In his note, Rollie spoke of you as a ‘sucker’ and said he had given you what he called ‘a royal screwing.’”

LeBay’s diction complicates The Question of Fate Versus Free Will as a theme. The insulting phrases suggest that LeBay didn’t plan to sell Arnie a haunted car that contained his spirit. LeBay’s primary goal was banal: to get as much money for Christine as he could.

“I don’t believe in curses, you know. Nor in ghosts or anything precisely supernatural. But I do believe that emotions and events have a certain lingering resonance.”

George’s pragmatic thoughts on the “supernatural” give the novel a realistic aspect. By carefully choosing his words, George comes across as reasonable, heightening the horror by making the events in the novel seem more plausible.

“What the fuck is he up to? I been in this business all my life, and I never seen anyone go at fixing a car up the crazy-ass way he is. Is it a joke? A game?”

Darnell doesn’t understand how Arnie is fixing Christine, and this series of questions highlights his confusion. Darnell believes that if the owner of the garage where Christine stays can’t fathom the repairs, then something deeply disturbing is happening.

“Put down the knife and I will, you shitter.”

LeBay uses the term “shitter,” so when Arnie uses it to address Buddy, the diction links Arnie to LeBay. Their shared diction is one sign that LeBay’s spirit is possessing Arnie.

“Really all he’s interested in is making sure I’m still hobbled. That’s what they’re both interested in. They don’t want me to grow up because then they’d have to face getting old.”

The book often digresses from the plot as the characters branch off into other topics. In this scene, Arnie shares his philosophy on his parents. They don’t want Arnie to have a car because it reflects his maturation, which means his parents must face their mortality. In other words, Arnie’s parents are in denial about Arnie’s age and their own age.

“It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? […] It doesn’t, does it? Because when you’ve made up your mind about something, you don’t see, you don’t hear, you don’t think.”

Arnie accuses his mother of being stubborn. The claim is ironic because Arnie, too, has “made up [his] mind” about Christine. Regina doesn’t want him to keep Christine, and he refuses to let go of Christine. Their inflexible personalities and views escalate the conflict.

“She felt irritated, chafed, out of sorts with herself—unfulfilled, she supposed.”

By using a third-person omniscient narrator, King delves into Leigh’s interior thoughts, which complicates the theme of objectification and sexism. Like the male characters, Leigh has thoughts and feelings. She, too, wants a fulfilling sex life.

“She looked at his clock-radio and saw that it was set for 4:30 a.m. She thought of turning the alarm off; she even stretched her hand out to do it. Ultimately she found she couldn’t.”

In this scene, which thematically connects to The Question of Fate Versus Free Will, Regina considers interfering in Arnie’s life and turning off his alarm. In leaving the alarm on, thereby allowing Arnie to wake up early and work on Christine, Regina implicitly lets fate take over.

“He’s found one object and fixed on it. Isn’t that what an obsession is? I’m scared, and sometimes I feel hateful… but it’s not him I’m scared of. It’s not him I hate. It’s that frig—no, it’s that fucking car. That bitch Christine.”

Leigh explicitly addresses The Toxic Effects of Obsession and Antisocial Behavior as a theme. Given Arnie’s fixation on Christine, he can’t have healthy relationships with people. In addition, Leigh’s diction perpetuates sexism and objectification, reflecting the misogynistic attitudes of the male characters.

“How did you hurt your back? How did you hurt your back? How did you hurt your back, Arnie?”

The repetition of the question creates a haunting atmosphere and emphasizes that Arnie can’t account for how he hurt his back. The implication is that Arnie didn’t seriously hurt his back moving cars with Jimmy or hooking Christine to the tow truck. In Chapter 38, Arnie tells the truth: He hurt his back while furiously pushing Christine away from the airport parking lot after Buddy and his friends vandalized the car.

“And you seem to forget a lot of things in that car. Like how to be Arnie Cunningham.”

Leigh’s accusation presents the car (and, by extension, wherever the car is) as a haunted place. When Arnie is in it, he becomes someone else: LeBay. In many of King’s works, a specific location is the site of the horror. In The Shining, the demonic Overlook Hotel is that site. In Christine, a demonic car (and wherever it goes) is that site.

“The car behind them had to be doing close to seventy. Buddy felt something—a curious kind of doubling back to the dreams he could not quite remember. A cold finger seemed to press lightly against his heart.”

The motif of dreams applies to Buddy, who dreams about Christine attacking him before it happens in reality. The dreams help give Buddy’s character depth, showing that at the very least he’s aware of the virulence that Christine symbolizes. In addition, the dreams and Buddy’s struggle to recall them heighten the horror as Christine closes in on his Camaro.

“Will didn’t believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, but he was perfectly willing to acknowledge that there were strange things in the world. A practical man recognized that and put it to use if he could.”

Like George LeBay, Darnell has a practical attitude about supernatural forces. By rationally allowing for inexplicable occurrences, Darnell continues to make them seem possible and scarier.

“He’s a smart cop then. He knows the facts are wrong, and his intuition tells him there’s something even wronger than that, so he’s gotten further with it than most cops ever would.”

Darnell’s characterization of Junkins adds to the horror of the novel. Since a “smart” police officer would understand that something else is likely going on, he lends credence to the supernatural plot. Junkins’s steady belief in Christine’s eerie traits furthers the conflict and gives the other characters permission to take Christine’s deadliness seriously.

“Well, they were going to hurt him this time—how much or how little depended a great deal on that weird seventeen-year-old kid, and maybe on his weird car.”

Darnell’s speculation is ironic and a red herring. The authorities don’t “hurt” Arnie or his car, but Christine kills Darnell. In addition, the word “weird” is humorous since it emphatically understates the threat that Christine poses.

“[N]obody wants to put an indelible black mark on the record of a nice young suburban white boy who is bound for college and a fruitful place in society.”

Dennis’s father, Kenny, alludes to white privilege and inequalities within the justice system. Kenny correctly surmises that the police will be lenient with Arnie because of his skin color and socioeconomic status.

“If you tell, Georgie, I’ll kill you.”

George LeBay recalls how after his brother burned down a bully’s house, he issued an odious threat to George. George connects the phrase to the deaths of Veronica and Rita, establishing a pattern that characterizes LeBay as a killer even before he had Christine.

“Nothing but a coincidence—a grisly, hideous coincidence. Except that even now a part of my mind is coldly convinced that it was Christine that even at that turn, Christine led him there.”

Dennis contemplates fate versus free will, unable to shake the belief that Christine “led” Arnie to the Kentucky Fried Chicken parking lot so that Arnie would see Leigh and Dennis together. The text leans into fate because if Arnie doesn’t find out about Leigh and Dennis, King would need a different reason to sever their friendship.

“Wait until you see your chariot, madam.”

King regularly juxtaposes horror and humor. Dennis refers to the huge vehicle Petunia as a “chariot,” which is as ironic as its name because Petunia isn’t remotely romantic: It’s a truck for transporting excrement.