Summary Of My Creature From The Black Lagoon Stephen King

World-renowned author Stephen King is known for his ability to terrify his audiences with his spine-chilling tales; however, in his essay “My Creature from the Black Lagoon,” King takes a step away from horror and analyzes the imagination, or lack thereof, of his readers. By bringing forth elements of science, literature, and his own childhood, King is able to provide different stand points for which his can readers to connect.
King starts off by recounting the first movie he remembers seeing as a child, Creature from the Black Lagoon. In his essay, King describes the creature as being a “scaly, batrachian monster” and compares it to the ones created by H.P. Lovecraft, who is also an American horror author. While batrachian is defined as a tailless amphibian, such as a frog or a toad, when King uses this term, it almost sounds as if batrachian means prehistoric or ancient instead. The diction throughout his essay is what makes the monster sound terrifying, even if you have not seen the …show more content…
It suggests that if a writer could infuse “human interest” into a story, then the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative. All that means is it is easy for an audience to believe in everyday objects, but it takes a powerful imagination to believe in the abnormal. King once again incorporates the work of Lovecraft, but this time King compares Lovecraft’s work to that of Arthur Hailey, a British/Canadian novelist who mainly wrote realistic pieces set in hotels, banks, or airlines. By comparing these two completely different writers, King is able to prove that readers are going to be more attracted to things they do not already know to be true. However, writers have to push the envelope in order to get readers to believe in these absurd creatures, in fact, King states that “Disbelief isn’t light; it’s