22 pages • 44 minutes read
Stephen KingStrawberry Spring
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Strawberry Spring
Strawberry spring is a controlling metaphor in the story in that it operates as a symbol, motif, theme, and central image. Strawberry spring is most likely King’s invention, as no scholarly or cultural sources beyond those on King’s fiction discuss the term. The invention allows King to create a mystical world that blends the ordinary with the otherworldly in whatever manner he chooses.
Horror relies on in-betweenness or liminality, where the logic of the real world meets the unknown, terrifying world of the monstrous and uncanny. Strawberry spring acts as a gateway to this other world—the world of fear—and the fog is a palpable doorway to the uncertainty that envelopes the campus and the narrator’s mind.
The term helps King mislead the reader because “strawberry spring” sounds cheerful. The warm temperature makes it seem like a pleasant time, a break from the harsh winter. The connotations of the term change, however, as it comes to foreshadow the story’s climax.
The roommate takes on the role of the harbinger (a staple figure in horror stories who warns the protagonist of approaching danger) when he tells the narrator that strawberry spring means that the worst of winter is on its way. He adds a sinister tinge when he describes it as “a false spring, a lying spring” (188). Toward the end of the story, the narrator describes it as “evil, lying,” making it analogous to Springheel Jack (190). The weather turns out to be a clue to the identity of the murderer because the narrator is the only one who associates the murders with the season.
Rumor
The murders create a whirlwind of rumor among the students. Thematically, rumor bridges the gap between knowing and not knowing. It is a means for a social group to affirm its identity; if everyone spreads rumors about the murderer, they are not the murderer. It is more comforting to believe something, even if it is exaggerated or untrue, than to exist in a state of doubt.
The more important the event, the more rumors tend to grow in complexity—even to the point of conspiracy. An example is the rumors that circulate about the first victim, Gale Cerman. None of the students knew her well, but their descriptions of her become more embellished the longer they talk about her: “[T]he speed with which rumors swept from one end of the campus to the other began to approach the speed of light” (187). The press fuels the rumors by giving the killer a provocative nickname, leading to a host of mistaken sightings and false leads.
Rumor is effective in horror and science fiction because it creates another layer of narrative unreliability. The reader cannot be sure if the information they are getting about events is correct, especially if the characters do not know themselves.
Lord of the Rings
When the narrator describes the fog for the first time, he says: “You half expected to see Gollum or Frodo and Same go hurrying past” (183). The reference to J. R. R. Tolkien’s series, Lord of the Rings, creates an atmosphere of magic and adventure, which is almost immediately interrupted by the description of Gale Cerman’s body with her eyes open and throat cut. The juxtaposition sets up a tension that exists throughout the story between innocence and violence, good and evil—the two sides of the narrator.
Related Titles
By Stephen King
