Reflection #2 - "A Good Marriage" By Stephen King.

Title: A Good Marriage

Author: Stephen King

The protagonist in this story is Darcy Anderson. Her want/desire is for her husband to tell the truth, and for her husband to tell what happened in his past life, after she discovers some things in the garage. She really wants him dead, because he has killed other people, and she feels like he deserves this. I think that some of the character traits that are notable about this protagonist are that she’s a fearful, but determined person. She feels like she needs to hide things sometimes, because it’s important, similar to her husband. But you can tell that she is an extremely determined person because her want/desire well one of them was to get her husband killed, and she ultimately did. She wanted justice for those who were killed.

In this story, yes there is an antagonist. The antagonist is Bob, her husband. Darcy is trying to stop Bob from getting away with the killings he has done throughout his life. She wants justice served for the people that were killed by Bob. The problem is that Bob, a long time ago, he killed people a lot. When he was younger, him and his friend made a plan to have a high school shooting, but his friend died. Bob felt it was important for him to serve justice for his friend, and kill several people. He must’ve killed at least 5 people. Darcy discovers things while Bob is away, and that’s what shows her what’s going on. Although he left the habits a long time ago, she still feels like what he has done is wrong.

The theme of the story is revenge. The reason why revenge is the theme of the story is because throughout the story, All Darcy is really trying to do is get Bob killed so that the people that are dead because of him will be served justice in some way. Some techniques that are used in order to develop the message within the story is like in his last story, basically like a lot of details and then hitting you in surprise with something new. For example, when Darcy was about to kill Bob. Stephen King makes you think that all she’s going to do is have sex with him and everything will be fine, but out of no where, she pushes him down the stairs and does other things which kills him. I like the way King writes though, because it gives me more interest to read, and find out what is coming next. He does this several times throughout the story.

I think that the authors tone throughout the story is very boring and descriptive, but at the same time very weirdly, very interesting. As I mentioned in the last paragraph, he leads you on with all these boring things, then boom! Just drops a bomb and shocks you with something very interesting. Then he goes back to low key, and just keeps surprising you at random moments.

I think that the crisis action in this story is when Darcy actually kills Bob. I think that this is the crisis action because I feel like the reader doesn’t really expect someone so fearful like Darcy to actually have the audacity to kill her husband, that she allegedly loves so much. But the thing is that I think that Darcy really has a heart because she feels so bad for the people who have lost their lives because of the stupid man she calls her husband, but at the same time is heartless because she decided to kill her own husband, which is extremely sad. The protagonist actually achieves getting what she wants because since she discovered that her husband was an ex killer; she wanted justice for those people. She realizes that she is a much stronger person that she ever thought that she was. I feel like she doesn’t really change, she goes back to her normal self after the detective reassured her that he wouldn’t tell what happened, because he himself knew Bob deserved it. The detective has been working on the case for so long, so he’s happy he found out what really happened and who really killed all those innocent people.

I enjoyed this story because I found it different from his other stories, and I felt like it was more believable. In the last story I read by him, I felt like what I read was not very believe, and it seemed to be way too made up. This one seemed more real, because I have definitely heard stories about women killing their husbands. For example, I found it believable that Darcy when she was home alone would just go through the attic looking at things, and she finds something like that. That I am sure has happened in many relationships everywhere. So basically, I just really enjoyed this story because it was way more realistic. I just wondered why it’s named “A Good Marriage.” I came up with the possibility that it may be named this because it was a good marriage that in the sense that Darcy marrying him helped him stops being a killer.