Focussing on 2 books from The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King for my Narrative unit. They're two books that hold a lot of interest for me [they're my favourite of the series]
the books I'm looking at are: "The Drawing Of The Three" and "The Wasteland" they are consecutive in the series, following on from "The gunslinger"
Points of particular interest in the books are as follows:
- Roland being attacked by the Lobstrosities on the beach
- Roland encountering three doors on his journey:
1. Eddie Dean's door, a heroin addict smuggling drugs on an aeroplane.
2. The Door to Odetta/Detta/Susannah Holmes [The Lady Of The Shadows] a Wheelchair bound black civil rights activist with a split personality disorder.
3.
Instead of revealing a new companion, the third door (labeled "The Pusher") instead reveals a new adversary for Roland: Jack Mort, a sociopath who takessadistic pleasure in injuring and killing random strangers — and the man responsible for the head trauma that created Odetta Walker's alternate personality, the loss of Odetta/Detta's legs, and the death of Jake Chambers. Mort's murder of Jake led to Jake's appearance in The Gunslinger.
I have decided to leave out the first book, and in turn, Jakes initial introduction to the story, to emphasize the schizming of reality that Roland experiences after Jake is once again killed and returned back to his initial level of reality/the tower
These scenes are all from "The Drawing Of The Three."
- Roland, Susannah and Eddie encounter Shardik, the giant thousand year old mechanical bear guardian of the beam.
- The schisming of the memory of Jake chambers, who died and also did not die because of Roland's actions, both the boy and roland experience this.
- Roland burns the man in black's jawbone
- Jake, in a schizophrenic panic, runs away from school, buys a book called "Charlie the ChooChoo" [a reference of what is to come later in the book] and discovers a way back to Roland's world through an old abandoned house - They are finally reunited.
- The group befriend a creature called a Billy Bumbler, the creature is particularly fond of Jake, the creature joins the group [he is called Oy]
- The group come to river crossing, a town full of only old people. The last generation of a dying town. Roland receives a silver cross
- The Ka-tet arrive at Lud a ravaged city. they are attacked by one of the last inhabitants of the city, Gasher. He kidnaps Jake. Every day at a certain time the drum beat to Velcro Fly by ZZ Top plays over the city's speaker system, one of the remaining inhabitants of the town is crucified on a lamp post at that time.
- After rescuing Jake, the Ka-tet board a still functioning train equipped with an onboard AI personality. after years in isolation, Blaine has gone mad.
- the ka tet arrive at another ruined town, referencing The Stand.
Key themes/imagery in the books include: Roses, The tower, guns, intertextual references to popular culture and other books, alternate realities, parallel dimensions, DOORS
