Plot Summary
The Dark Tower
Stephen King
The Dark Tower
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1982
Plot Summary
The Dark Tower is a 2004 fantasy novel written by legendary horror author Stephen King. It is the seventh official installment of The Dark Tower series and represents the conclusion to the epic anthology of books. It recounts the final leg of Roland Deschain’s journey to a tower of mysterious yet enormous metaphysical and metaphorical significance.
The series’ protagonist, Roland, belongs to an ancient order of “gunslingers”—think the Knights of the Round Table meets Clint Eastwood’s character from old Sergio Leone Westerns. He lives in Mid-World, which is inspired in equal parts by the American Old West and Middle Earth from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series. Roland’s quest is to reach the titular tower in hopes of repairing his world, which seems to be suffering from some kind of rift in space and time. Time flows irregularly, entire nations vanish overnight, and the sun and other celestial objects do not behave according to established physical rules. His nemesis is a demonic sorcerer known as The Man in Black and later revealed to be Randall Flagg, the antagonist of another King novel, The Stand. Flagg works on behalf of the Crimson King, the ultimate personification of evil and a stand-in for Satan himself.
The Dark Tower installment begins in New York City at an evil vampire bar called the Dixie Pig, where demons roast human flesh while surrounded by doors to other dimensions. There, two of Roland’s allies, Jake Chambers and Father Callahan, fight off many evil-doers and make their way to a door to another world called Fedic, where their friend Susannah is trapped. In the fight, Callahan dies but saves Jake in the process.
Meanwhile, in Fedic, Susannah is separated from the evil spirit of Mia, which has been possessing her. She separates so she can give birth to Mordred Deschain, an Antichrist-like being fathered by both Roland and the Crimson King. Once born, Mordred transforms into a spider monster and devours Mia. Susannah tries and fails to kill Mordred, but she does succeed in meeting up with Jake, who travels through the door to Fedic. Meanwhile, Mordred escapes to hunt down Roland, whom he hates with intensity. Mordred soon becomes the chief antagonist after killing Randall Flagg, who had hoped to use Mordred to reach the Dark Tower himself.
Meanwhile, Roland’s “ka-tet” of allies save the life of “Stephen King,” the man who will write about their exploits, but Jake dies in the process. Roland is distraught, as he considered Jake his true son. The remaining allies travel to Fedic and other otherworldly lands until they find themselves traversing miles and miles of wintry tundra for weeks on the way to the tower. Not long before Roland and the rest reach the tower, however, they are found by Mordred. With the help of his friend Oy, Roland is just barely able to kill his monstrous son, but not without losing Oy, who is impaled on a tree.
When Roland reaches the tower, accompanied by Susannah a man they met on the way named Patrick Danville, the tower is occupied by the Crimson King. They are able to defeat the Crimson King (except for his eyes) by drawing a picture of the King, then erasing it. Roland enters the tower while Susannah returns to an alternate reality version of 1980s New York, where Jake is still alive but doesn’t remember the events relating to Roland and the tower.
Finally, the author introduces a Coda, advising readers not to keep reading if they want a happy ending. In the Coda, Roland climbs the stairs of the tower only to realize the tower is not made of stone or brick. It is made of the flesh of a godlike being named Gan. At the top of the tower, Roland reaches a door with his name on it.
At this point, he realizes he has reached and climbed the tower many times before. Each time he goes through the door with his name on it, he is transported back to the beginning of the story, told in the first book of the series, The Gunslinger. Roland accepts his fate, enters the door, and hopes that this time he may actually achieve rest, escaping from the violent, heartbreaking cycle. But the author suggests this isn’t likely by ending the book with the same line that starts the series:
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
The Dark Tower is a fitting conclusion to King’s epic series. The book won the British Fantasy Award in 2005, and Publishers Weekly writes, “With the conclusion of this tale, ostensibly the last published work of his career, King has certainly reached the top of his game.”
The series’ protagonist, Roland, belongs to an ancient order of “gunslingers”—think the Knights of the Round Table meets Clint Eastwood’s character from old Sergio Leone Westerns. He lives in Mid-World, which is inspired in equal parts by the American Old West and Middle Earth from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series. Roland’s quest is to reach the titular tower in hopes of repairing his world, which seems to be suffering from some kind of rift in space and time. Time flows irregularly, entire nations vanish overnight, and the sun and other celestial objects do not behave according to established physical rules. His nemesis is a demonic sorcerer known as The Man in Black and later revealed to be Randall Flagg, the antagonist of another King novel, The Stand. Flagg works on behalf of the Crimson King, the ultimate personification of evil and a stand-in for Satan himself.
The Dark Tower installment begins in New York City at an evil vampire bar called the Dixie Pig, where demons roast human flesh while surrounded by doors to other dimensions. There, two of Roland’s allies, Jake Chambers and Father Callahan, fight off many evil-doers and make their way to a door to another world called Fedic, where their friend Susannah is trapped. In the fight, Callahan dies but saves Jake in the process.
Meanwhile, in Fedic, Susannah is separated from the evil spirit of Mia, which has been possessing her. She separates so she can give birth to Mordred Deschain, an Antichrist-like being fathered by both Roland and the Crimson King. Once born, Mordred transforms into a spider monster and devours Mia. Susannah tries and fails to kill Mordred, but she does succeed in meeting up with Jake, who travels through the door to Fedic. Meanwhile, Mordred escapes to hunt down Roland, whom he hates with intensity. Mordred soon becomes the chief antagonist after killing Randall Flagg, who had hoped to use Mordred to reach the Dark Tower himself.
Meanwhile, Roland’s “ka-tet” of allies save the life of “Stephen King,” the man who will write about their exploits, but Jake dies in the process. Roland is distraught, as he considered Jake his true son. The remaining allies travel to Fedic and other otherworldly lands until they find themselves traversing miles and miles of wintry tundra for weeks on the way to the tower. Not long before Roland and the rest reach the tower, however, they are found by Mordred. With the help of his friend Oy, Roland is just barely able to kill his monstrous son, but not without losing Oy, who is impaled on a tree.
When Roland reaches the tower, accompanied by Susannah a man they met on the way named Patrick Danville, the tower is occupied by the Crimson King. They are able to defeat the Crimson King (except for his eyes) by drawing a picture of the King, then erasing it. Roland enters the tower while Susannah returns to an alternate reality version of 1980s New York, where Jake is still alive but doesn’t remember the events relating to Roland and the tower.
Finally, the author introduces a Coda, advising readers not to keep reading if they want a happy ending. In the Coda, Roland climbs the stairs of the tower only to realize the tower is not made of stone or brick. It is made of the flesh of a godlike being named Gan. At the top of the tower, Roland reaches a door with his name on it.
At this point, he realizes he has reached and climbed the tower many times before. Each time he goes through the door with his name on it, he is transported back to the beginning of the story, told in the first book of the series, The Gunslinger. Roland accepts his fate, enters the door, and hopes that this time he may actually achieve rest, escaping from the violent, heartbreaking cycle. But the author suggests this isn’t likely by ending the book with the same line that starts the series:
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
The Dark Tower is a fitting conclusion to King’s epic series. The book won the British Fantasy Award in 2005, and Publishers Weekly writes, “With the conclusion of this tale, ostensibly the last published work of his career, King has certainly reached the top of his game.”
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