Elevation: A Novel

Another allusion to the Stephen King multiverse appears in Chapter 4. Scott’s Turkey Trot route runs along Bannerman Road, named after the town’s longest serving sheriff, George Bannerman, who was killed by a rabid dog in King’s 1981 horror novel, Cujo. Prior to that, Bannerman was the deuteragonist—the secondary main character after the protagonist—in King’s 1979 science-fiction thriller, The Dead Zone. Even if Scott has no personal knowledge of Sheriff Bannerman, his reality has been influenced by Bannerman’s actions, thus emphasizing the importance of social connection and the ripple effects of personal decisions in Elevation.

King uses the weather to develop the novel’s underlying meaning in Chapter 4. The rainstorm that rages during the final part of the Turkey Trot symbolizes life’s hardships. The rain is cold and gray. It reduces visibility to the point where Scott loses all sense of where he is, unable to see landmarks that would otherwise guide him. His reaction to the rain represents his response to obstacles in general—seeing them as challenges to overcome and savor. To him, an environment that could be frustrating and demoralizing is instead filled with awe. The umbrellas opening up all around him are gorgeous, “like flowers blooming” (94). Everything seems beautiful, even the darkening sky. The cold rain feels “more than delicious; closer to divine” (95)—a description that evokes a sense of reverence, showing Scott in the realm of the sublime. Scott’s ability to find joy and wonder in that which causes most people misery symbolizes his acceptance of things he cannot change, including The Inevitability and Transcendence of Death. Interpreting his happiness as a sense of elevation, Scott thinks: “If it’s how dying feels, everyone should be glad to go” (96). By connecting Scott’s experiences to his expectation of dying once he reaches “Zero Day,” King emphasizes acceptance as a way to achieve happiness—one more facet of Scott’s philosophy influenced by Buddhist ideas.

Another aspect of the storm—lightning—carries symbolic weight as well. Lightning flashes when Scott helps Deirdre up and she feels weightless. The moment leads Deirdre to an epiphany, changing her perception of Scott. Apart from the supernatural imparting of weightlessness, Scott’s choice to offer Deirdre a hand and let her win the race shows him to be kind and selfless. Because Deirdre has closed herself off to trusting in the goodness of others, however, it takes a supernatural event for her to realize she’s misjudged him. Further, the burst of light she thinks is lightning, but which is actually a camera’s flash, results in the moving Press-Herald photos that turn things around for the restaurant. The flash of lightning symbolizes Deirdre’s epiphany about Scott and about her own assumptions with regard to prejudice and discrimination. Similarly, the flash of the camera symbolizes the way an emerging friendship can guide a community toward Overcoming Rifts Caused by Prejudice. Deirdre’s reaction to Scott’s secret in Chapter 5 confirms the direction of her character arc. She was afraid of being judged and discriminated against, and therefore she was afraid to trust people. Her epiphany during the race leads her to finally let that fear go.

Deirdre also understands Scott’s reluctance to become “a public curiosity” (113). Her ability to relate to this speaks to the alienating effects of discrimination. Prejudice regarding her sexual orientation has likely made her feel like a curiosity or a victim of public derision. The symbolism of the camera flash reverses this negative association with being seen. The newspaper photos of Scott helping Deirdre up and of her celebrating her victory put Deirdre and Scott directly into the public eye, but the positive spotlight produces a change in townspeople’s attitudes toward Deirdre and Missy. Scott’s overt offers of friendship not only build a bridge between him and Deirdre, but also model kindness and open-mindedness for the rest of Castle Rock. The town takes his cue, reinforcing the message that individual acts of kindness are infectious and can create larger social change.

The infectious nature of Scott’s kindness is echoed, symbolically, in the odd contagiousness of his mysterious condition. When he touches inanimate objects, he experiences them as weightless, but when he touches other people, the effect is different. This suggests that in the novel, weight represents something specific to sapient beings, like emotion, memory, or pain. That the people he touches feel weightless themselves—that his weightlessness has been transmitted to them—indicates how much people can influence each other. If the weight Scott is losing symbolizes the many sources of human suffering, then it makes sense that letting go of that weight (and the pain it stands for) has a positive effect on those he interacts with. As the power of gravity over Scott lessens, so does the power of things like hate and fear, and he’s able to share this immunity through friendship as well as through physical contact.