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Part 1: Pages 117-137
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Carrie, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Puberty, Adolescence, and Coming of Age
Female Sexuality and Shame
Conformity vs. Ostracization
Cycles of Abuse
Sin vs. Atonement
Summary
Analysis
On the morning of May 27, Carrie tries on her prom dress for the first time and looks at herself. When Margaret gets home, she tells Carrie everyone will be able to see her “dirtypillows” and begs her to burn it so that the two can pray together afterwards. When Carrie refuses, Margaret begins to scratch herself, but Carrie isn’t swayed by this and tells her to go away. When Margaret continues to chastise and taunt her, Carrie makes her slip on the floor and telekinetically pushes her out of the room. Margaret pounds on the door but ultimately gives up and goes to work. An excerpt of The Shadow Exploded provides an overview of who Carrie was as a person: namely, her TK gene and how it activated under stress. Congress also speculates that puberty helped awaken Carrie’s abilities.
Carrie’s interactions with Margaret the morning of prom clearly show how she is continuing to use her telekinetic abilities to push back against her mother. These abilities continue to escalate quickly: during Carrie and Margaret’s conflict after Carrie’s period, Carrie was only able to defend herself with threats, but now, she is able to easily push Margaret away before Margaret can lay a hand on her. In this way, Carrie’s telekinesis is the only real means she has of self-defense and agency.
Themes
That evening, while Margaret prays hysterically in the house’s chapel, Carrie pins the corsage Tommy gave her to her dress; she must guess at its placement since there is no mirror in the house. Tommy is supposed to be there at 7:30; the cuckoo clock reads 7:10, and as Carrie waits, she’s worried that all of this was a joke. Although Margaret is a fanatic, she’s at least predictable; Carrie’s peers are much scarier. At 7:25, she begins to restlessly lift and lower objects with her mind, recalling how she pushed a parked car telekinetically the other night with no effort at all. She notes the immense strain her powers put on her heart. At 7:33, she is convinced Tommy won’t show up—but then, he pulls up. She goes down to greet him at the door, and he tells her she’s beautiful.
Carrie’s wait for Tommy is full of dread that he will not show up, highlighting that she still does not completely trust him to treat her well. Her thoughts about her peers being scarier than Margaret are also revealing in that they illustrate how Carrie has been so alienated from her peers that, in some ways, she prefers the severe abuse of her mother since she knows how to handle it. Lastly, Carrie’s observations about her heart ominously show that, while her powers give her more control over her life, they come at an immense physical price.
Themes
An excerpt from The Shadow Exploded states that, at the beginning of prom, Chris and Billy are meeting in a tavern called The Cavalier. At the tavern, the couple wait for prom to start. Chris thinks about how they first slept together the previous Monday; she wanted to wait, but she knew Billy would eventually rape her if she did not give in. Billy is considered a burnout, but Chris likes him, especially for his dirty car and dangerous driving. She thinks of a time when his tire blew out and they almost died; they had gotten into a giant fight while Billy changed the tires, but when they got into the car, he groped her until she orgasmed. Back in the present, Chris begins to have second thoughts, but Billy insists on moving forward.
This segment from Chris’s point of view complicates her character by showing that she, like Carrie, is a victim of misogyny. While Carrie’s sexuality and body is shamed by Margaret, Chris finds hers used by her abusive boyfriend Billy. Interestingly, Chris seems resigned to this, as shown by her agreeing to unwanted sex before she’s ready out of fear of Billy raping her. Her orgasm in Billy’s car also suggests that there are some aspects to his violence that she finds arousing, even though it robs her of control in her interactions with him.
Themes
In her biography, Sue admits that she does not feel as sorry as many people seem to think she does; she has left behind much of what happened in Chamberlain. However, she does feel sorry about the pain Carrie endured throughout her life. On prom night, Tommy and Carrie arrive at school. Carrie is nervous, but Tommy compares her to Galatea, a Greek figure who turned into a beautiful woman from a statue. In the lobby, the two meet George, Tommy’s playful friend, and his date Frieda, who loves Carrie’s dress and is incredibly impressed when Carrie says that she made it. When the two couples enter the gym, they’re having a great time—but Tommy, George, and Frieda have less than two hours to live.
Despite Carrie’s intense anxiety while waiting for Tommy, the start to her prom is immensely positive. In contrast to many past unflattering descriptions of Carrie in the novel, Tommy’s comparison between her and Galatea shows that he views her as gorgeous. Carrie also gets along well with George and Frieda, showing that she has the potential to make friends with people beyond Tommy. However, King casts a dark shadow over this joy by explicitly noting how close Tommy, George, and Frieda’s deaths are.
Themes
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An excerpt from The Shadow Exploded theorizes that Billy wrenched control of Chris’s plan, which is believed to have sent Carrie over the edge, away from her. Billy and Chris drive to the high school, with Billy savoring the feeling of power driving his car gives him; although his home life is chaotic and hostile, his car is a lifeline for him. Chris sits silently next to him, and he begins to wonder how long it will be before he loses interest in her. They enter the school, and he tells Chris that he’s going to let her “pull the string.”
Much like his victim Chris, Billy is implied to be a victim of abuse, which is why he attempts to find power in his life by harming others. This illustrates how the two are victims in a cycle of abuse that they also perpetuate: Billy is abused at home, and thus abuses Chris, with both of them choosing to take out their pain and anger on Carrie.
Themes
Just after midnight Friday morning, before the drive with Chris, Billy goes to the school and breaks into the gymnasium. He finds the prom stage, where someone has marked where the Prom King and Queen’s thrones will go. He places a ladder against the wall and goes up to the beams over the stage, where he sets up two pulleys right over the throne locations. He then goes to retrieve the pigs’ blood, now frozen, and climbs back up onto the beams. He attaches the buckets to the pulleys. Since Chris is rigging the ballots, he feels confident Carrie and Tommy will be King and Queen. In Sue’s autobiography, she recounts how Tommy told her that Carrie insisted on being home by 11:30 after prom so her mother wouldn’t worry. Sue says that this is the girl that the media keeps calling a monster.
While Billy’s specific plan has been somewhat vague up this point, the details here of him setting up for it make it fairly clear: he intends to dump pig’s blood on the Prom King and Queen, who should end up being Tommy and Carrie if Chris’s rigging comes through. It is notable that Billy doesn’t even know Carrie; he’s simply doing this to satiate his and Chris’s desire for cruelty. In contrast, the detail from Sue’s autobiography shows that, despite the pain and anger she holds, Carrie is a fundamentally compassionate person, even to those who are abusive to her.
Themes
