Firestarter

Content Warning: This section alludes to an anti-gay slur and discusses the book’s racist portrayal of Indigenous people.

King begins his story in media res, or in the middle of the action, with Andy and Charlie fleeing agents from the Shop. The narrative then moves forward and backward in time. This enables the reader to witnesses Andy and Charlie escape while also revealing the causes behind their circumstances and psychic abilities. Oscillating between present and past emulates Andy’s frantic mind as he flees his pursuers and tries to keep his daughter safe. It reflects the novel’s rapid movement and urgency, while underscoring the deeply unsettled nature of both primary characters.

King uses a third-person narrator and free indirect discourse, where he weaves a character’s thoughts into the text. This allows King to include the perspectives and voices of multiple characters, while emulating Charlie’s ability to hear the thoughts of others. The technique adds to characterization. For example, Cap views James Richardson with a slur. King isolates the word in a single line, emphasizing its impact. Coupled with the declaration the Cap does not support women’s liberation, this characterizes Cap as a villain through his own direct thoughts.

King suggests that the unknown can be fearful. He portrays technology, which was still in a nascent form during the time of his writing Firestarter, as dangerous and elusive. He likens it to Charlie’s power, which is only partially understood, though the deadly consequences of it are readily apparent. Fear of technology, and what it can be used for, is a common theme in horror literature, finding one of its earliest manifestations in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818).

In flashbacks, Nixon’s presidency is used to anchor readers in time. He has been elected as the Lot Six trial begins, and his 1974 resignation is used to mark Wanless’s stroke. Firestarter was published in 1980, not long after Watergate. By coupling Nixon’s presidency with the Lot Six testing, King suggests the duplicitousness of the government and elected officials through the use of verisimilitude between the book’s world and ours.

Andy and Vicky instill a fear in Charlie about her ability to start fires. To depict her shame and to show how deeply it is entrenched, King presents her intrusive thoughts. Wanless discusses the breakdown of psychological complexes with Cap, where all of his examples are of young women experiencing outright sexuality. This ties Charlie’s burgeoning powers to her broadening sexual maturity as she moves from her father’s protection to becoming an independent young girl. Wanless talks of adolescence as the time when the pituitary gland develops and Charlie is becoming her most dangerous. This evokes a puritanical, paternalistic approach to a young girl’s body, as it is viewed as something dangerous to be controlled. The parallel between Charlie’s powers and the fears of young girls maturing marks Charlie’s powers as an allegory for her coming-of-age.

King identifies Rainbird as “half-Cherokee” and uses several stereotypical tropes of Indigenous people to characterize him. Rainbird possesses almost supernatural abilities, which others and racializes him. The phrase “happy hunting ground” to describe the afterlife draws from a colonialist misrepresentation of Indigenous beliefs (83). A scene in which Rainbird appears is presented through Cap’s white and conservative perspective. King may have used stereotypical tropes about Indigenous people to portray Cap’s racism, continuing Cap’s tendency to make reactionary and problematic comments about marginalized peoples as a way of displaying his villainy.

The confrontation at the Manders farm illustrates Charlie’s relationship to her ability. Charlie has come to see the use of her ability in a very negative way. Disallowed permission to use her power by her parents, she has demonized her ability, thinking of it as inherently bad. At the farm, however, Andy grants her permission and even encourages her to use her ability. This unleashes something in her. She proves to be spectacularly powerful, and the novel suggests that she is forming a different relationship to her abilities. Charlie has begun to come of age, or to transition from the innocence of childhood to a place of greater insight and maturity.