Point of View in Pet Sematary

In Pet Sematary by Stephen King, King uses the third person point of view in order to allow the reader to view what is going on inside each character’s head. A big theme in this book is insanity that is caused by the Pet Sematary and death. By using the third person point of view, the reader can watch as the characters are slowly taken over by insanity. The main character, Louis Creed observes this himself throughout the book, especially when observing his friend Jud Crandall and his wife Rachel Creed. These two characters are significantly affected by the deaths that have occurred in their lives. King writes,

”He listened for any circularity in Jud’s conversation; he listened to see if Jud’s grasp of when was clear (no need to check him on where; that would prove nothing because for Jud Crandall the where had always been Ludlow, Maine); he listened most of all for any use of Norma’s name in the present tense. He found little or no sign that Jud was losing his grip.” (King 257)  

This is clear use of Louis’ point of view, evaluating Jud’s mental state after he suffered the huge loss of his wife Norma Crandall. This could be seen as King using the loss of Norma to foreshadow a future incidence of Jud “losing his grip” or going insane. It’s important that King uses Louis’ point of view because he may be able to evaluate Jud’s mental state on the outside, but he does not know what’s going on inside of Jud’s head.

King uses Rachel’s point of view when she is telling Louis about her experience with watch her sister Zelda die, King does this in order to portray the post-traumatic stress that Rachel sustained when she was eight years old when Zelda died. She says,”…she had bottles of some dope that smelled like Smith Brothers’ Wild Cherry cough drops and that smell was always there…some nights I wake up…even now I wake up and I think I can smell Wild Cherry cough drops…”(King 270) This is clear evidence that Rachel is suffering from some type of post-traumatic stress. This is also evidence of King portraying insanity through the use of point of view. He uses Rachel’s point of view again when he writes,”The first of the nightmares had come to Rachel that night, and when Rachel woke up at two o’clock in the morning, screaming for her mother, she had been in horrified to discover she could barely get out of bed.” (King 277) King goes onto explain that Rachel had strained her back trying to move Zelda, but she was so traumatized by her sister’s death that she was convinced Zelda’s ghost had given her spinal meningitis (the disease that killed her). This again shows that Rachel sustained mental issues due to this death in her life, and the use of her point of view proves this to the reader.

            As seen here, point of view is extremely effective in showing how a character is feeling in the moment, or how certain events affect a character’s sanity. Since insanity/sanity is such a big theme in Pet Sematary, point of view is very effective and poignant in King’s writing.