75% done with Insomnia by Stephen King

In many Stephen King books, I noticed a recurring theme of fear, but in Insomnia, King has enunciated the theme throughout the book. In horror novels, this aspect is not uncommon, but it is interesting what is frighteningly grotesque. What is the definition of the abnormally terrifying?

There have been many times in the book when disgusting bugs have dwelled.The image of outstanding horror is carefully outlined in the writing, and the theme of black, oily, cockroach-like bugs is an obvious theme. In times in dreams, [viewer discretion advised] "Carolyn! he screamed. He put his hands out to her, then pulled them back, terrified of the black bugs, which were still spewing out of her head... One of Carolyn's eyes popped out and lay in the sand like blueberry jelly. Bugs vomited from the now empty socket." (241) and when the main characters are 'up' (above the normal world in a place of immortality), "Giant bugs that looked like prehistoric trilobites were squirming in and out of the evergreens in droves, crawling over each other, bumping heads, sometimes rearing up and pawing at each other…a rainbow of guts spewed out of it, and a waxy-white substance that looked like stale mashed potatoes. Ralph had an idea the white stuff had been eggs." (598) the grotesque details do not belong to our world but something just under the surface, and these bugs seem to be a recurring part of these details.

An other example of horror in Insomnia is the way King describes Atropos, the 'villain' who is responsible for random death in the story. In this way, King looks at the psychopathic ways of a serial killer- disgustingly ominous and painfully harmful. The ways of Atropos are expressed, "I don't know about the other two, but doc #3 (Atropos) is one crazy medic-- and he takes souvenirs. Takes them the way some of the crazies in Vietnam took ears" (374) Stephen King uses comparison and allusion to outline horror, and uses tools like insanity and disgust to outline pure fear.


It's interesting to me how fear works- what its created from. Stephen King uses fear with a skill- almost as though it's a science. This is the same thing other creators used, such as Alfred Hitchcock and his famous suspense.