Carrie

by

Stephen King

Sue Snell Character Analysis

Sue is Carrie’s classmate. She is in the locker room when Carrie gets her first period. Although she participates in taunting Carrie, she later feels deeply remorseful about this and questions her own complicity in the cruelty the student body has shown Carrie over the years. To atone for her poor behavior, Sue asks her popular boyfriend Tommy to ask Carrie to prom, giving up her own opportunity to attend the dance. This causes others at school, especially Chris Hargensen, to judge her. Sue is also sexually active with Tommy, and the first time they have sex, Tommy later admits he put the condom on incorrectly, prompting anxiety in Sue when her period doesn’t arrive on time. On prom night, Sue initially stays home, but she drives into town when she sees the school explode due to Carrie’s telekinetic meltdown. Like many individuals in Chamberlain, Sue has a strong and involuntary telepathic link to Carrie, which allows her to find Carrie bleeding to death from the stab wound Margaret inflicted on her. Carrie initially thinks Sue is in on Chris and Billy’s scheme to humiliate her, but she peers into Sue’s mind and discovers she had good intentions. After prom night, Sue the White Commission interrogates Sue, attempting to scapegoat her for the tragedy. She later publishes an autobiography about her experiences in Chamberlain.

Sue Snell Quotes in Carrie

The Carrie quotes below are all either spoken by Sue Snell or refer to Sue Snell. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Puberty, Adolescence, and Coming of Age Theme Icon
).
Part 1: Pages 1-25 Quotes

A tampon suddenly struck her in the chest and fell with a plop at her feet. A red flower stained the absorbent cotton and spread.

Then the laughter, disgusted, contemptuous, horrified, seemed to rise and bloom into something jagged and ugly, and the girls were bombarding her with tampons and sanitary napkins, some from purses, some from the broken dispenser on the wall. They flew like snow and the chant became: “Plug it up, plug it up, plug it up, plug it—”

Related Characters: Carietta “Carrie” White, Sue Snell, Christine “Chris” Hargensen, Norma Watson
Related Symbols: Blood
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1: Pages 50-91 Quotes

She was quite sure (or only hopeful) that she wasn’t that weak, not that liable to fall docilely into the complacent expectations of parents, friends, and even herself. But now there was this shower thing, where she had gone along and pitched in with high, savage glee. The word she was avoiding was expressed To Conform, in the infinitive, and it conjured up miserable images of hair in rollers, long afternoons in front of the ironing board in front of the soap operas while hubby was off busting heavies in an anonymous Office; [...] of fighting with desperate decorum to keep the Kleen Corners white, standing shoulder to shoulder with Terri Smith (Miss Potato Blossom of 1975) and Vicki Jones (Vice President of the Women’s League), armed with signs and petitions and sweet, slightly desperate smiles.

Related Characters: Carietta “Carrie” White, Sue Snell
Page Number: 53-54
Explanation and Analysis:

Looking at Chris was like looking through a slanted doorway to a place where Carrie White crouched with hands over her head.

Related Characters: Carietta “Carrie” White, Sue Snell, Christine “Chris” Hargensen
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1: Pages 91-117 Quotes

The mean tricks have been going on ever since grammar school. I wasn’t in on many of them, but I was on some. If I’d been in Carrie’s groups, I bet I would have been in on even more. It seemed liked…oh, a big laugh. Girls can be cat-mean about that sort of thing, and boys don’t really understand. The boys would tease Carrie for a little while and then forget, but the girls...it went on and on and on and I can’t even remember where it started any more. If I were Carrie, I couldn’t even face showing myself to the world. I’d just find a big rock and hide under it.

Related Characters: Sue Snell (speaker), Carietta “Carrie” White, Tommy Ross
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1: Pages 117-137 Quotes

She knew it wasn’t as alright as Helen had said. It couldn’t be; she would never be quite the same golden girl again in the eyes of her mates. She had done an ungovernable, dangerous thing—she had broken cover and shown her face.

Related Characters: Sue Snell, Tommy Ross
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Pages 141-170 Quotes

And if he didn’t come, if she drew back and gave up? High school would be over in a month. Then what? A creeping, subterranean existence in this house, supported by Momma, watching game shows and soap operas all day on television at Mrs. Garrison’s house when she had Carrie In To Visit (Mrs. Garrison was eighty-six), walking down to the Center to get a malted after supper at the Kelly Fruit when it was deserted, getting fatter, losing hope, losing even the power to think?

No. Oh dear God, please no.

(please let it be a happy ending)

Related Characters: Carietta “Carrie” White, Margaret White, Sue Snell, Tommy Ross
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis:

They’ve forgotten her, you know. They’ve made her into some kind of symbol and forgotten that she was a real human being, as real as you reading this, with hopes and dreams and blah, blah, blah. Useless to tell you that, I suppose. Nothing can change her back now from something made out of newsprint into a person. But she was, and she hurt. More than any of us probably know, she hurt.

And so I’m sorry and I hope it was good for her, that prom. Until the terror began. I hope it was good and fine and wonderful and magic.

Related Characters: Sue Snell (speaker), Carietta “Carrie” White
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Carrie LitChart as a printable PDF.
Carrie PDF

Sue Snell Quotes in Carrie

The Carrie quotes below are all either spoken by Sue Snell or refer to Sue Snell. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Puberty, Adolescence, and Coming of Age Theme Icon
).
Part 1: Pages 1-25 Quotes

A tampon suddenly struck her in the chest and fell with a plop at her feet. A red flower stained the absorbent cotton and spread.

Then the laughter, disgusted, contemptuous, horrified, seemed to rise and bloom into something jagged and ugly, and the girls were bombarding her with tampons and sanitary napkins, some from purses, some from the broken dispenser on the wall. They flew like snow and the chant became: “Plug it up, plug it up, plug it up, plug it—”

Related Characters: Carietta “Carrie” White, Sue Snell, Christine “Chris” Hargensen, Norma Watson
Related Symbols: Blood
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1: Pages 50-91 Quotes

She was quite sure (or only hopeful) that she wasn’t that weak, not that liable to fall docilely into the complacent expectations of parents, friends, and even herself. But now there was this shower thing, where she had gone along and pitched in with high, savage glee. The word she was avoiding was expressed To Conform, in the infinitive, and it conjured up miserable images of hair in rollers, long afternoons in front of the ironing board in front of the soap operas while hubby was off busting heavies in an anonymous Office; [...] of fighting with desperate decorum to keep the Kleen Corners white, standing shoulder to shoulder with Terri Smith (Miss Potato Blossom of 1975) and Vicki Jones (Vice President of the Women’s League), armed with signs and petitions and sweet, slightly desperate smiles.

Related Characters: Carietta “Carrie” White, Sue Snell
Page Number: 53-54
Explanation and Analysis:

Looking at Chris was like looking through a slanted doorway to a place where Carrie White crouched with hands over her head.

Related Characters: Carietta “Carrie” White, Sue Snell, Christine “Chris” Hargensen
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1: Pages 91-117 Quotes

The mean tricks have been going on ever since grammar school. I wasn’t in on many of them, but I was on some. If I’d been in Carrie’s groups, I bet I would have been in on even more. It seemed liked…oh, a big laugh. Girls can be cat-mean about that sort of thing, and boys don’t really understand. The boys would tease Carrie for a little while and then forget, but the girls...it went on and on and on and I can’t even remember where it started any more. If I were Carrie, I couldn’t even face showing myself to the world. I’d just find a big rock and hide under it.

Related Characters: Sue Snell (speaker), Carietta “Carrie” White, Tommy Ross
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1: Pages 117-137 Quotes

She knew it wasn’t as alright as Helen had said. It couldn’t be; she would never be quite the same golden girl again in the eyes of her mates. She had done an ungovernable, dangerous thing—she had broken cover and shown her face.

Related Characters: Sue Snell, Tommy Ross
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Pages 141-170 Quotes

And if he didn’t come, if she drew back and gave up? High school would be over in a month. Then what? A creeping, subterranean existence in this house, supported by Momma, watching game shows and soap operas all day on television at Mrs. Garrison’s house when she had Carrie In To Visit (Mrs. Garrison was eighty-six), walking down to the Center to get a malted after supper at the Kelly Fruit when it was deserted, getting fatter, losing hope, losing even the power to think?

No. Oh dear God, please no.

(please let it be a happy ending)

Related Characters: Carietta “Carrie” White, Margaret White, Sue Snell, Tommy Ross
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis:

They’ve forgotten her, you know. They’ve made her into some kind of symbol and forgotten that she was a real human being, as real as you reading this, with hopes and dreams and blah, blah, blah. Useless to tell you that, I suppose. Nothing can change her back now from something made out of newsprint into a person. But she was, and she hurt. More than any of us probably know, she hurt.

And so I’m sorry and I hope it was good for her, that prom. Until the terror began. I hope it was good and fine and wonderful and magic.

Related Characters: Sue Snell (speaker), Carietta “Carrie” White
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis: