Carrie

The epistolary sections of the novel imply a trustable and representable reality. Books, magazine articles, press releases, and interview transcripts all imply fact and objective reportage, and they bolster and contextualize the increasingly extraordinary events relayed in the linear narration of 1979. However, King never includes the entirety of any of these documentary sources and in doing so creates not an unimpeachable record of past events, but a representation of the fractured memories associated with trauma. Much of the novel is about trying to piece together the unexplainable, and the epistolary excerpts create an atmosphere that forces the reader to question the cohesiveness of memory. This relates to the larger question that informs the structure of Carrie: how to properly assess memories of trauma.

When Carrie first uses her telekinesis intentionally, she experiences a mental release, and remembers the day she caused the stones to rain—the first major indication of her ability. As Carrie develops confidence in her telekinetic ability, it alleviates other pressures on her mind. When she counters her intimidation in the dress store with the comforting thought that she can collapse ceilings, she accesses more direct memories of the day she rained stones on her home: “[S]eemingly unbidden—like the knowledge of menstruation—a score of memories had come, as if some mental dam had been knocked down so that the strange waters could gush forth” (114).