Secret Window, Secrat Garden (Book): Pages 288- 381

Summary: Yes, here goes a major jump!

 A couple of days after the fire, Mort went to the insurance company concerning he and Amy's ruined house, and it was no surprise that Ted was present as well. With Mort and Amy figuring out what their next steps were for the house, Ted as Mort described was "rubbernecking", or in other words being extremely nosey and inquisitive, and the more he was in Mort’s presence, the more Mort began to convince himself that Ted had some kind of connection with John Shooter because all of this couldn’t just be some kind of coincidence, it was he, Ted, who was to blame for all of the miss happenings. Now as much as I would've loved to believe he was the antagonist, unfortunately he wasn’t. All he was, was a prop in all the madness. It soon started becoming clear to the residents of Tashmore that Morton Rainey had lost it. He was loosing his mind and becoming less and less in tuned with reality as Shooter became more and more in tuned in his reality. Then the climax struck when Amy decided the divorce settlement was taking far too long and decided to go by and have him sign the divorce papers herself. When she arrived to his small, wooden, remote cabin she got more than what she was in for. On each and every wall, the name "Shooter" was engraved and to her surprise was Mort, with Shooter's black hat on! Morton Rainey...was John Shooter! It was him who killed his cat Bump, it was him who burned down the house, it was him who kept on leaving that black hat and cigarettes behind, it was him who took the hat down from the attic, and it was him who'd been going on the rampage in Tashmore County! Everything bad that happened was because of him! And now he wanted to end his story just as he planned in the book, by killing her and burying her in the garden she loved more than him. So she looks at him in confusion as she sees all that he's done to the walls, and what he has done to himself. At that moment she knew the man she was staring at wasn’t Mort, and Mort knew he wasn’t Mort. This was her red flag to quickly get out of there, and as she approached the door he chased after her. He stabbed her in the back of her leg and was ready to finish her off but immediately he stopped, not because he wanted to but because he was dead. Fred Evans had saved Amy's life, but taken Mort's. And now that Mort was dead, so was John Shooter... the figment of his imagination.

Quotation:`  

"Good! he wanted to cry out at her. Good! Because you only had to see it! I had to wear it!" (King 348)

Analysis:

This quote was referring to the night when Mort busted in on his wife (Amy) and Ted at the motel and caught her cheating on him. At this point he felt relief because she had finally realized the pain he felt when he saw what he did, and how it really broke his heart, and how it was that, that triggered his hidden anger and gave John Shooter existence and presence in his world.

Secret Window, Secret Garden (Book): Pages 265- 287

Summary

The deeper Mort Rainey gets into his divorce, the more he begins to reminisce on his relationship with Mrs. Rainey and what they could've been; and the deeper Mort Rainey gets with John Shooter about who's story was actually written first, and the evidence to prove it, things start getting heated and property begins getting destroyed. First, Mr. Rainey's cat, Bump, was killed, and who else was there to blame other than the infamous Mr. Shooter. Yes indeed Shooter was a member of the "Crazy Folks" as Rainey would say, and he was crazy enough to drive a screwdriver through his cats head. This was Shooter's first symbol/ warning that Mr. Rainey better hurry up and provide the evidence that he published the story first, or he better  just come clean and admit he "stole his story". Yet, Mr. Rainey didn't do either of those things, because before he could get his hands on the magazine (his proof), Amy, his soon-to-be ex-wife, house was burned down to pieces. Amy called Mort crying and in tears and traumatized about the house being destroyed, and although deep down he wanted to burst out in laughter for the misery of both she and Ted (her new boyfriend and soon-to-be husband once the divorce was settled), he held his composure and didn't because he knew it would hurt her way more than it satisfied his spite. So at this moment, all he could do was comfort her and reassure her that everything would be okay... No matter how much he believed otherwise deep down inside. This was just the beginning to a very ugly end.

Quotation 

"The house in Derry took precedence over John Shooter and John Shooter's crazy ideas. It even took precedence over who had done the deed- Shooter or some other fruitcake with a grudge, a mental problem, or both. The house, and, he supposed, Amy. She was clearly in bad shape, and it couldn’t hurt either of them for him to offer her what comfort he could. Maybe she would even... But he closed his mind to any speculation about what Amy might even do. He saw nothing but pain down that road. Better to believe that road was closed for good". (King 286)

Analysis 

We are now very certain that this Shooter guy isn’t just any upset author who believes another author has copied him, he is enraged, and acts as a snake when ready to attack because he is quiet but deadly. And now Mort has realized that Shooter will target anything if it means something to Mort or the ones he love, and anyone if he feels they are getting in the way of their business. This is why he burned down Mort and Amy’s house. As previously stated, this made a large impact on Amy and it was somewhat Mort's job to comfort her. In a strange way, the destruction of their once shared house brought them closer together, even making "what if" thought cross Mort's mind, but he knew to keep his guards up because by letting them down, and trying to rekindle his relationship with Amy, he may have potentially been opening a door to get hurt again by the woman who "stole his love, when his love was really all he had". (King 285) 

Secret Window, Secret Garden (Book): Pages 241- 264

Summary

"You stole my story"... That caught your attention didn't it?, because it most definitely caught mine. Stephen King was a very wise man for starting the story like that, because at that point it made me want to read more to find out what he was talking about. It turned out that Morton Rainey, a fair aged man living alone in Tashmore who currently was going through a divorce with his wife, had been getting accused on the spot of plagiarism by John Shooter, the accuser. John Shooter was a very plain man whose heart wasn’t worn on his sleeve. Meaning, it was clear that he was upset about his understanding of Mr. Rainey stealing his story, but at the same time was very settle and showed very little emotion, yet Mr. Rainey knew he was serious and meant business when he said he wanted to get to the bottom of it with no one extra involved because it was between only the two of them. Being that Mr. Rainey had been awakened by the arrival of Shooter at his door, half asleep half awake, he didn't think much about the incident. It wasn’t until later, once fully awaken when he found Shooter's manuscript on his kitchen table that he realized he had a really big problem on his hands, because both stories were merely identical. At that moment was when Morton Rainey's life had truly began going down the already existing downward spiral.

Quotation  

"He finished one drawer and went on to the next, thinking all the while about John Shooter and how John Shooter's story- his story, goddammit!-had made him feel. The most obvious thing of course was that it had made him feel like he needed a cigarette". (King 252)

Analysis

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that Mr. Rainey's mental state is at equilibrium between depression, confusion, guilt, pain, and self contradiction. He's in trying to find the strength in him to deal with the problems branching from his soon-to-be-ended marriage, and a new problem he has been introduced to by John Shooter. Rainey has given up smoking on several occasions, and has been kind of successful at doing so, but with so much on his plate, for his own sake and sanity, this all has pushed him to smoke again. With the two biggest things in life that he loved slipping away from him (his wife and writing), the stress is becoming unbearable, and forcing him to do things he normally wouldn't.

Secret Window (Film): Reaction ---> NY Times Magazine Review

After reading the New York Times Magazine review I realized that I couldn't have said it better myself. Elvis Mitchell, publisher of the review, stated in the opening sentence that, "If a movie requires the lead actor to spend a good chunk of his onscreen time talking to himself and Popeye is unavailable because of contractual disputes, it's hard to do better than Johnny Depp". This is so true because after viewing the film and reading that quote I thought to myself, "wow, who else could I have really imagined taking on the character as Mort Rainey better than Johnny Depp did himself"?, and I couldn’t think of anyone. Johnny Depp's style of acting in the film which was not too much or too little, along with his average / sophisticated / low-key appearance made him the perfect fit for the role of Mr. Rainey. Now when analyzing the actual product of the film, the transitions between scenes and the movie as a whole moved at a very slow rate as Mitchell stated, "''Window'' has been opened up to let too much air into the room, and the sluggish pacing will allow even the drowsiest viewer to keep up with the story". This was because the pace of the movie had to be moderated to fit the mood where as Mitchell describes the "little intrigue the movie has comes from Mort's shattered self-esteem". Being that the film reflected Mort's personality and his emotions towards all he has been faced to deal with, as well as the fact that he is pretty much mentally-ill, the NY Times review summed up in the story in a nut shell just as I would have.

*Link: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9A07E5DB133EF931A25750C0A9629C8B63

 

Secret Window (Film): Reaction

The film of Stephen King's Secret Window, acted as my tool of clarification for the novel. After viewing the film, I became certain that Mr. Rainey's external conflicts with his relationship between his soon to be ex-wife and accusations of plagiarism from "John Shooter" were all products of a much more severely self-destructing internal conflict that literally drove him insane on a day-to-day basis. The unfortunate happenings of Mrs. Rainey's infidelities which mainly triggered the divorce, all branched from his mental and emotional absence to her; because part of him was being consumed by "John Shooter" who's existence was only a figment of his imagination because he, Mort Rainey, was "John Shooter". Since the film provided a very clear visual explanation of the story, the camera works were very important to take into consideration.  The setting was located in Tashmore County, more specifically next to the lake and up in the woods was where Mr. Rainey resided. He lived in a very quiet and isolated area, and in order to emphasize this, the camera used numerous longshots to show how vast and lonely it really was. Being that the "secret window" was a major symbol in the film, whenever shown, it was a frame within a frame, and this camera technique automatically focused my attention on the window and the garden beneath it. Since the light schemes were mainly dark and dim, it gave the film a gloomy mood. The motifs of darkness and mysterious/gothic-like/dull music were also factors which contributed to the mood, and in the end it was these elements which really helped the clarification and delivery of the plot, the message, and the film as a whole.

Her Last Death (Post #2)

In Her Last Death (the continuation of pg.40- pg.60 Susanna Sonnenberg speaks about a portion of her life which she titled, "Famous Names". In this section, it states all her memories as a child living in many different places with her sister and mom. They never really had a stable life because they were constantly moving due to her mom's repetitve ways of hooking up with well-known and famous men, then moving in with them. Along with the men, came the many famous women her mother new as well; as a family, they had many connects. Then as it continues she drifts into the facts about how her mom slowly but surely engolfed herself in a very bad drug addiction which led to many events that are yet to come following.

Her Last Death (post #1)

Pages 1- 41
   In the introduction of the biography, Her Last Death, Susanna Sonnenberg starts of by telling her audience the contents of her life now, and flashbacks of her life back then. From the jump, this book has kept me on my toes with an opening sentence of, The phone shouldn't ring this early. When I answer, my aunt Irene rushes into the news. "Your mother's been in an accident. She's been in surgery all night. She's probably going to die"... (Sonnenberg, pg.1) Right away after reading that, it made me very eager to keep on reading. And by doing so, she went into more depth about her past life. From hearing a fasle accusation that her mother has a cancer, to leaving school in mid-day to accompany her mom and sister on a road trip to the Grand Cannon, to having a random man feel up her leg at the movies while she was with her father, to taking care of her little sister and holding a new born in her arms at the age of two, she's been through it all. And mind you not, that all of this took place in the first few chapters, yet there's still a whole book awaiting. :-)