Humanistic Concerns In Stephen King's Different Seasons

As one of the most prominent and prolific contemporary American writers, Stephen King has been claimed the "king of the horror fiction". Besides the numerous awards and honorary degrees, King's works have been translated into thirty three languages and the distribution is over three hundred millions, meanwhile, his works are also attractive to the Hollywood filmmakers. However, the scholars home and abroad focus much more on King's topic of horror, the humanistic concerns I employed in this paper may offer a special view to analyse King's works.As a universal emotion of human being, humanism, which is widely shown in sculpture, painting, literature as well as the behaviors in daily life employs different features in different ages and regions and King is inevitably influenced by humanism and the tradition of gothic which are all embodied in his works. Different Seasons, which is considered as one of King's most popular books among his readers, contains four novellas. The praises for the true, the good and the beautiful as well as the attack on the unfair reflect King's humanistic concerns.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one introduces Stephen King and his works, his creation background, the scopes of the topic he cares, concluding the literature review about his works. Chapter two introduces the tradition of western humanistic concerns in anciet Greek, Renaissance and modern time, exploring the possible impact on King from the aspects of the gothic fiction tradition and his childhood experience. In chapter three, it carries the text analysis, making a detailed investigation into King's humanistic concerns from humanity, rationality and faith. It further explores King's humanistic concerns from the counterevidence such as the discontent about the outdate customs, the excavation of the darkness of human nature and the criticism of the unfair behaviors in chapter four. In the conclusion chapter, this thesis tries to point out that a fiction with humanistic concerns doesn't mean excellent, but a first-class work can not be independence of the humanistic concerns.