75 pages • 2 hours read
Stephen KingThe Eyes of the Dragon
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1984A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Genre Context: King and Fantasy
While his earlier novel The Gunslinger included many elements of the fantasy genre, The Eyes of the Dragon was King’s first attempt at a traditional fantasy novel. The Gunslinger, like the rest of the Dark Tower series, combines fantasy elements with science-fiction and Western tropes. King decided to write a more traditional fantasy novel because he wanted his daughter Naomi to enjoy one of his books. She was 13 years old at the time and not a fan of horror. The dedication also includes his sometime co-author Peter Straub’s son: “This story is for my great friend Ben Straub, and for my daughter, Naomi King.” Both have characters named after them in the novel.
The Eyes of the Dragon is considered high fantasy because it takes place in a fictional world where magic is real and technologies resemble those of medieval Earth, but it is not an epic fantasy in the style of J. R. R. Tolkien. The Eyes of the Dragon reads more like a fairytale. The narrator resembles someone in the real world telling a bedtime story and imparting moral lessons, and the plot turns on what is essentially a retelling of Rapunzel or other “Maiden in the Tower” stories. Though King also subverts the fairytale genre with many references to childhood trauma, addiction, sex, and other mature themes, today the novel might be considered Young Adult fiction.
The Eyes of the Dragon wasn’t published for a mass readership until 1987, the year after King’s horror masterpiece It solidified his reputation as the master of the genre. It was such a huge success that King’s fans eagerly anticipated its follow-up. Those fans were loudly disappointed when The Eyes of the Dragon did not live up to their expectations in scale, thrills, and maturity. The intensity of the fan reaction inspired King to write his next novel, Misery, about a woman who keeps an author captive and forces him to write only what she wants.
Literary Context: The Stephen King Expanded Universe
While The Eyes of the Dragon is an outlier in King’s bibliography, there are many aspects of the novel that overlap with other works by King. The most obvious connection is the magician Flagg. King features a trickster or devil figure in many of his works, and often that figure seems to exist outside of normal time and go by many names. For example, one of the names of the embodied evil in The Stand is Randall Flagg. The demon Leland Gaunt in Needful Things claims to have gone by the name Flagg at a different time and place, and a character in Hearts in Atlantis has the initials RF, suggesting a connection. The evil sorcerer of the Dark Tower series goes by many names, too, including the Man in Black, Walter O’ Dim, Marten Broadcloak, and Randall Flagg.
The Dark Tower series also includes references to the Kingdom of Delain. In The Drawing of the Three, the characters of Thomas and Dennis make an appearance, and Delain is referred to as a neighbor to Gilead and part of Mid-World. Delain is also mentioned in The Little Sisters of Eluria, where the “Dark Witch of the Coos” (102), mentioned briefly in The Eyes of the Dragon, plays a larger role. The protagonist of the Dark Tower series is named Roland, leading some readers to believe he is a descendant of Roland the Good, and readers have noted many other similarities: e.g., Flagg’s crystal, a sandalwood arrow, the rarity of paper, and the rules of magic.
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