1408

In a contextual note that appears before “1408,” Stephen King indicates that “1408” is his rendition of the “Ghostly Room at the Inn” story. This refers to a kind of horror story where the characters encounter supernatural or grotesque phenomena during their stay at a hotel. Other fictionists who have tackled this subgenre include English novelist Wilkie Collins in his 1879 novella The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice and American writer Robert Bloch in the 1959 novel Psycho. In his contextual note, King suggests that all writers working to elicit “shock/suspense” (365) from the reader should attempt to write a story in this vein.

The Haunted Hotel Room story is an extension of the Gothic Horror genre, which began in Europe in the 18th century. Well-known Gothic stories, such as Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer and the short fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, drew upon the idea that places are haunted by dark presences, whether natural or supernatural, that challenge the sociocultural norms of the times. Thematically, these stories typically critique either an idealized past or indulgent attitudes in the present. As a result, they are often eerie in tone and are set in decrepit and antiquated locations, such as medieval castles and large, empty houses.

“1408” uses Gothic elements to characterize the titular room, which challenges the central character’s skepticism and cynicism. The Hotel Dolphin is presented as a classy New York establishment of another age, whose guests come into town on Business Class flights while the bar pianist rattles off Jazz Age classics like “Night and Day.” Its dazzling facade is blemished, however, by one small spot—the haunted room 1408. The pattern of deaths that have occurred within this room suggests the possibility that a malevolent entity controls the room. Consequently, there have been few changes made to the room since its last guest in 1978. While all the other rooms at the Hotel Dolphin require a MagCard to open, 1408 remains outdated, requiring a physical key to unlock its door. Mike also finds a branded matchbook inside of the room, often seen as an object of a bygone time. This acts within the sphere of Gothic literature—King using an antiquated room to create an eerie setting that is both unique and unsettling, creating a tension in the story even on the surface level. The presence in 1408 is reportedly not a ghost, but something dark and unexplainable. Not only does this subvert expectations in what initially seems to be a ghost story, but also exudes a lack of detail to create something horrifying in the unexplainable. The reader is forced to fill in the blanks of what is happening in the room both in the deteriorating mind of Mike and perhaps in reality, if there is a difference. The minicorder is a particularly notable vessel for the Fear of the Unknown in King’s story, using technology to communicate a horror trope that goes back to much earlier Gothic literature.