The Institute

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7, Chapters 1-28

Part 7, Chapters 29-42

Part 8

Part 9

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 7, Chapters 1-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 7: “Hell Is Here”

Part 7, Chapters 1-11 Summary

Tim checks on Luke and asks what he’s running from—however, his story is hard to believe. He notices Norbert Hollister, which he finds strange as the man rarely leaves his office at the motel.

Annie comes to see what all the fuss is about, hears Luke’s story, and believes it. She warns Tim that “the conspiracy” will come for the boy.

Back at the Institute, Avery, exponentially more powerful after his near-drownings in the tank, is moved to Back Half—where he is reunited with his friends from Front Half. The other children are damaged by the constant stream of movies and Stasi Lights; Kalisha spoon-feeds Helen, who is debilitated by a headache. With his newly magnified power, Avery unites their minds and temporarily suppresses Helen’s pain.

The children know they will eventually wind up in Ward A with their minds melted—so Kalisha suggests “If we can’t escape, we have to take the place over” (374).

Meanwhile, Mrs. Sigsby becomes increasingly deranged by the thought of her superiors finding out a child escaped. She decides to lead the retrieval team herself, to either collect Luke or see him dead before he can expose the Institute.

Part 7, Chapters 12-19 Summary

The Back Half children are forced to watch more movies. They see Stasi Lights and hear the mental hum of Ward A’s children. They are directed to chant together—and their minds unite.

Afterward, Avery and his friends work out that Ward A’s children act as “batteries” for the Institute’s machinations; they themselves are the “light switch.” Avery realizes that together, both groups can take down the Institute. Since Mrs. Sigsby and Stackhouse are preoccupied with retrieving Luke, the children figure this is the best chance they have to escape—so they join hands and link minds. Ward A’s children quickly join them.

Part 7, Chapters 20-28 Summary

Already half-convinced by Luke’s telekinesis, Tim, Sheriff Ashworth, and the deputies watch the video recorded on his flash drive. Maureen appears and shares her past: She was involved in “enhanced interrogation” in Iraq and Afghanistan that left her desensitized to suffering. Later, she was recruited by the Institute. At first, she was too desensitized to care about the children—but when Luke helped her, she began to see him as a person. Even then, helping Luke was a difficult decision to make because the destruction of the Institute will cause the end of the world. Maureen claims that the Institute keeps the peace, identifying children with psychic abilities and using them to eliminate individuals who would otherwise end the world.

Back at the Institute, Avery and his friends launch their assault. The staff members try to break them up, but they initiate mind control and force their tormenters to shock themselves and each other with their own stun sticks. With the staff disabled, the Back Half children head for Ward A to let the others out.

Part 7, Chapters 1-28 Analysis

Maureen’s story illustrates how desensitization often leads to one projecting the same feeling (or lack of feeling) onto others. Desensitization is the process of losing emotional sensitivity to a repeated experience. It is used in psychiatry to reduce anxiety or treat phobias, but it also occurs in situations such as witnessing another person’s suffering. In Maureen’s case, repeated exposure to the “enhanced interrogation” of prisoners of war dampened her ability to experience normal empathy.

Cults seek the vulnerable, such as Maureen who is already desensitized to others’ pain and learned not to think of prisoners as human beings. The military trained her to obey perceived authority figures, and she herself believes her efforts protected her country from dangerous terrorists. The Institute takes advantage of this impulse by persuading her that they are saving the world on a larger scale. After Maureen buys into the Institute’s apocalyptic belief system, they isolate her (and the other employees) from anyone who might challenge the system.

Annie Ledoux serves as a contrast to Maureen in that she also engages in irrational beliefs—accepting what she hears on her radio program without evidence or critical thinking. However, Annie rejects authority and has personal values she refuses to violate on someone else’s order.

The Institute forces the Back Half children to chant together, another mind control technique common to cults. Chanting or singing in unison can produce a euphoric effect, a sense of being part of something greater than any one person, which is precisely what the Institute wants to achieve with the children—linking their minds to magnify their psychic abilities.

The Institute uses the children’s ability to link minds as a weapon to assassinate people they deem dangerous—a mission that leaves Kalisha feeling tainted. However, when the children come together to save each other, their collective power becomes something holy—implying that ordinary people caring for each other is a sacred act (which is in line with the novel’s many references to Samson). With that said, Luke’s friends aren’t simply waiting to be rescued. Luke himself needs Tim’s help in his “chess game” against Stackhouse; all the players on his side of the board need each other in order to win.

Stephen King rarely makes direct references to Christianity or other religions. His characters sometimes refer to God or a higher power, but they usually do so in a nondenominational way. King often employs fictional belief systems influenced by a variety of world religions—with Luke thinking of Samson as more of a cultural hero than a religious symbol.