The Dead Zone

Stephen King

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1979

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue and Part 1, Chapters 1-8

Part 1, Chapters 9-16

Part 2, Chapters 17-21

Part 2, Chapters 22-27

Part 3

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Dead Zone

The dead zone refers to the parts of Johnny’s brain that he cannot access after waking from his coma. This physical problem is a symbol of the way in which the accident has changed Johnny’s life. He can no longer access these memories in the same way that he can no longer return to the life he once had. To Johnny, the past is a dead zone that cannot be truly accessed because it resides in a time that is inaccessible to him after his coma. The deadened parts of his brain symbolize the irrecoverable damage done to him by his car accident.

The dead zone can also be read as a broader metaphor for society in the novel. Many characters acknowledge the existence of a seedy underbelly to society, the kind of place where men like Greg Stillson commit their crimes and are deliberately ignored. Society’s darkest secrets are relegated to a society-wide dead zone, seemingly inaccessible to the general population who would rather believe that Stillson is a charismatic entertainer. Just as Johnny’s dead zone represents what he finds too painful to acknowledge, the majority of society finds violence too difficult to process.

The Wheel of Fortune

Johnny takes Sarah on a date to the state fair. At the fair, he uses his nascent powers to play the Wheel of Fortune game. He wins a huge amount of money but he is more concerned with Sarah’s well-being than his victory. The Wheel of Fortune becomes a powerful symbol in Johnny’s life and one with several meanings. The Wheel represents Johnny’s first and only attempt to use his powers for financial gain. He never gambles based on his visions and he never uses his reputation as a psychic to make money. To him, the symbol of the Wheel looms too large in his mind. He remembers the night when he made money by using his powers and he associates this with both the car crash and Sarah’s sickness at the fair. As such, the Wheel is a symbolic reminder not to use his powers for financial gain.

The Wheel of Fortune also explicitly references the ideas of good luck and success. Fortune, according to the symbol of the Wheel, is a random occurrence. Except this is not exactly true. The carnival game is biased in favor of the owner and against the players. Not only does the Wheel have two house numbers, but the crowd is convinced that the man operating the game is cheating. The Wheel is not purely based on luck. Instead, it represents the inherent biases in society. The people crowded around the Wheel hope that the game is fair, but the only way to succeed is to possess clairvoyant powers like Johnny. The inherent unfairness of the Wheel symbolizes the inherent unfairness of a society which would bankrupt Herb and Vera for the crime of trying to keep their son alive or which would punish Johnny any time he tried to help people.

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This social symbolism of the Wheel is not lost on the crowd. They gather behind Johnny and offer him their support because they recognize that he has the ability to take on a broken and biased system. Johnny’s popularity as he threatens to bring down an unjust system is an eerie foreshadowing of the language Stillson will use in his campaign. Stillson harnesses the same feelings of unfairness and bias that are represented by the Wheel. Unlike Johnny, Stillson has no real insight into the machinations of how society works. Stillson claims to emphasize with the symbolic unfairness of the Wheel when he actually represents the ultimate expression of its inherent corruption.

Stillson’s Hardhat

Greg Stillson wears a construction hard hat when he is campaigning for office as a symbol of his working-class credentials. He wears it at every opportunity and even people who have only seen Stillson on television know about his hard hat. While other politicians are disconnected from their voter base, Stillson presents himself as a man of the people. He uses the symbol of the hard hat to differentiate himself from the political elites in the other parties

However, the hard hat is as much of a constructed reality as everything else about Stillson. He has never worked in construction, so his wearing of the hard hat is inauthentic. Like everything in his public persona, the hat is a carefully selected item designed to convey a message to a gullible public and distract them from his truly monstrous personality. In an ironic twist, the hard hat becomes a symbol of Stillson’s desire to protect himself. He wears the hat so that people do not look him in the face. The hat provides him with protection from public scrutiny in the same way that it protects construction workers from falling objects. While Stillson presents the hard hat as a symbol of his authentic connection with his voters, it is actually a symbol of how little he wants them to know about his crimes and true nature. The hat is a symbolic veil of protection from public scrutiny.