Born in Portland, Maine in 1947, Stephen King is renowned for psychological thriller and horror stories, many of which have been compared to Romantic Gothic literature of the 1800s. King’s writing journey began in his youth during prolonged periods of illness, when his mother helped influence his love of the horror genre by reading him Gothic stories including those of Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Critics have frequently compared King’s own writing to these authors.

Writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and their contemporaries often focus on the environment, the description of which informs characters’ mindsets. The settings feature unusual or sinister locales, often confining or constricting in some way, reflecting the protagonist’s struggles. Characters often face imprisonment, either literal or figurative, and many end up capitulating to the chaos. Such is the case with many of King’s characters, who frequently experience repression in some way. Even though King’s locales are more domestic or familiar than those of the Dark Romantic writers, they are settings where characters experience loneliness, whether in the wilderness of Maine or the confines of a big city. King explores universal themes of fear, hope, pain, and evil, and instead of progressing through this pain, many of his characters submit to it, bit by bit.