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.