Reading for Mon/Tues: Stephen King, "The Return of Timmy Baterman" (Zombies anthology). (I am deleting the Ray Bradbury story; let's concentrate on the King.)
Assignment due by class meeting time next week (Monday, Tuesday, depending on your section). This assignment earns grade points and is designed to review analytic organizational/ writing skills and to prepare you for successful work on the midterm essay (in some cases, the material you produce for these blog comments will be incorporated into your midterm).
(Re mechanics: If you have any doubts about how to cite page numbers or film scenes/clips, review these via the posts/links on this blog.)
For Monday, please post in Comments for this Post three paragraphs of your own writing analyzing the Stephen King story "The Return of Timmy Baterman" (Zombies anthology) as follows:
1. One longer paragraph (100+ words) applying 1 or more relevant categories from Carroll's horror theory to the King story.
2. One shorter paragraph (50+ words) considering social attitudes in King's story in light of historical-cultural contexts (for starters: is social-class a factor? Attitudes in the 1940s--or the 1970s when King wrote the story--toward American experiences in World War Two?)
3. One shorter paragraph (50+ words) considering possible social critique or commentary in King's story.
REQUIRED TO PASS:
1. A clear statement of the category or categories (if more than one, take them in turn, not all at once) from Carroll you are using and examples using QUOTATIONS with page numbers in parentheses from the King story (89).
EXAMPLE PARAGRAPH
Noel Carroll defines "incompletion" as a horror-effect involving a missing piece of a body, usually human. Incompletion works by disturbing the reader's or viewer's expectations: the human body should appear intact and whole with all its parts; instead, something is missing. It might be an arm, an eye, even a head. Stephen King's short story "The Return of Timmy Baterman" employs the incompletion effect to heighten the unsettling apparition of the zombie figure. Baterman is described as "a shambling figure, like an ambulatory trunk or torso, lacking as he did both of his arms, a considerable chunk of his left thigh, and most of the left side of his face" (98).
Note that the page # cites are to be done exactly as shown above.
Note also that quotes in running text may not exceed 4 typed lines.
Note that I don't want you to use quotes exceeding 4 lines placed in block form; keep them within the 4 line limit.
2. Clearly stated points regarding social attitudes and social critique/commentary (this must be the case even if, for example, you don't believe King is proposing any social commentary: say that clearly. You may need less or sometimes no quotation in this phase, since you will be mostly talking about ideas and about story action in summary form.
Noel Carroll defines "incompletion" as a horror-effect involving a missing piece of a body, usually human. Incompletion works by disturbing the reader's or viewer's expectations: the human body should appear intact and whole with all its parts; instead, something is missing. It might be an arm, an eye, even a head. Stephen King's short story "The Return of Timmy Baterman" employs the incompletion effect to heighten the unsettling apparition of the zombie figure. Baterman is described as "a shambling figure, like an ambulatory trunk or torso, lacking as he did both of his arms, a considerable chunk of his left thigh, and most of the left side of his face" (98).
ReplyDeletePosted by Gregory Hunter
DeleteOne of the major aspects from Carol’s definition of Horror that is discussed in Stephen King’s The Return of Timmy Baterman is category disturbance. According to Carol, category disturbance is defined as a notion or a set of notions that contributes to whether a being is human or nonhuman. In King’s story, Timmy Baterman exemplifies these characteristics. Through the recollection of the letter Bill received from the lieutenant, Timmy was “shot down” in Rome and was shipped home two days later. However, it was reported that Marjorie Washburn, the mailwoman saw Baterman was alive and well as he was “walking in the road toward York Livery Stable” (53). Baterman was viewed as a pale figure that appeared to be disfigured. Many thought this was because of the war, but many began to understand that something was odd about him, and that he wasn’t human. His dad, especially which was evident as he shot his son twice in the chest with a pistol (62).
World War 2 was a war that many were against but deemed as a necessary evil at the time. Many lives were lost, and the ones who did come back were not who they once were. Whether it was by battle fatigue (known as PSTD now), or amputation, the war changed the views and lives of others worldwide. Timmy was a victim of the war, his dad blamed the government for his “initial” death and others blamed the war for actions alone (54-56). This collates to the fact King wrote this in 1970 which was near the end of the Vietnam War, and a lot of people were against this war as well.
King’s biggest message in this story is that the Military and the Government are to blame for the events caused by Timmy. It is evident that King is against the War based on his characterization of Bill Baterman who practically blamed the Military for his child’s death. Also, that War affects everyone’s well-being. Baterman’s actions throughout the story contributed to people’s dissatisfaction in the war.
According to Carroll, the first critical aspect of a monster would be a category disturbance or “ any mixing, crossover or blurring of social/cultural classifications such as male/female/ living. /dead whole/fragmented and so on…” In “ The Return of Timmy Baterman” by Stephen King the zombie character, a 17 year old boy brought home in a coffin after suffering at the hands of the enemy during world war two, is a perfect example of this base structure for a monster. Described by the shocked characters around him as “ Pale. His eyes were like raisins stuck in bread dough” and “ walking like a drunk man trying to do an about-face”(54) and a stink so foul it was simply describes as “ a black smell, like everything inside him was just lying there spoiled”(59). These descriptions blatantly show the crossover Carroll mentions. Someone lingering between living and dead, Timmy Baterman terrifies his former neighborhood, leaving them all worrying about his poor father who seems to have done some evil deed to bring his sons rotting corpse to life.
ReplyDeleteBesides the basic physical characteristics of King’s zombie, this short story is also stepped with social issues from the USA during world war two. Being set in a small town, it is assumed that our characters, while not starving, do not have a lot of extra money just lying around. During wartime this was quite a disadvantage as any young healthy boy who could not buy his way out of the army was immediately shipped over to serve his country. This lead to a lot of bitterness by the American people as clearly expressed by Timmy’s father Bill when questioned about his son’s dead body that is walking around his back yard “He was only 17. He was all I had left of his dear mother, and it was ill-fuckin-legal. So fuck the army, and fuck the war department and fuck the United States of America”. (58). The social attitudes of the time had left this man broken and bitter enough to eventually destroy his monstrous creation and shoot himself, all because his young son was shipped off to war before he was even legally an adult because of the desperation of the country, and its apathy towards the poorer citizens in our country.
I find this story particularly interesting because of the commentary it makes on how veterans are when they return from war. I feel that a young vet such as Timmy would still be very zombie like even if he had returned home technically still alive. King uses the zombie metaphor to show how lifeless and changed the men that see the horrors of war are when they try and reassimilate into normal life. Timmy’s father even tries to pass of his zombie son as merely “shell-shocked” something that plagued many veterans of this particular war before any real development in the field of psychology was made. This perpetuates the idea that after seeing the tragedies of the front lines and witnessing the death of your close commands that anyone would act zombie like or “dead inside “. I feel like this is also a reason that King wrote it that even though Timmy was lifeless and reeked of death, he was still able to speak, even if it was always something strange and unsettling, to even further push the idea of the war veteran returning home while there mind is still at war.
Two of Noel Carroll’s terms, category disturbance and categorically ambiguous apply to Stephen King’s story Return of Timmy Baterman. Category disturbance or disordering refers to an entity that is human and not human. Timmy Baterman is the perfect example of something human and not human. He is visible and appears to be alive as described by Marjorie Washburn the mail women. However, he was described as very pale, wearing clothes not appropriate for such hot weather, and his eyes were described as black. Marjorie commented “I saw a ghost that day George.”(54) Timmy Baterman also appeared categorically ambiguous. Even though Timmy was visible he did not appear as the same person everyone in town knew before he went off to war. He was described as hands dangling at his sides, hair sticking up in the back of his head, and that his legs didn’t work like normal human beings. Clearly Timmy Baterman was not simply a human being. Even his father knew it wasn’t Timmy, based on his actions at the end of the story.
ReplyDeleteThe townsfolk and Bill Baterman in the 1940’s had similar negative attitudes to the war and the government as did the US population during the 1970’s when King wrote this story. Bill Baterman had lived a rough life losing his wife and child years ago. The news that his only remaining son Timmy had been killed was devastating. Bill Baterman blamed the US military and government for this horrendous situation. Other residents of Orrington demonstrated a similar dislike for what happened to Timmy and the behavior of the army representative that delivered the coffin. The train engineer Huey was disgusted by the drunken behavior of “the army fella”. Similarly many US citizens in the 1970’s disliked the US involvement in the Vietnam War.
Timmy Baterman wasn’t much different from any veteran who returns from war, where they have seen combat. Returning veterans don’t talk much about their experiences but it is difficult for them to return home as the same person they were before they left. Most veterans upon return have a dark side they try to ignore and keep hidden. My father served in the Vietnam War so I experienced firsthand his reluctance to revisit this difficult time of his life. Isn’t that exactly what Timmy Baterman did upon his return? He didn’t speak of himself, yet he served as an ominous reminder of the horrors of war.
1. One of the theories Carroll applies to horror stories is that of fusion/fission, or putting two dissimilar things together, which frightens humans and their need for order on a basic level. In King's "The Return of Timmy Baterman," the way in which Timmy walks is described as "watchin' a crab walk" (59). Carroll noted that sea creatures with legs or other appendages are already considered abnormal, as we expect animals in the ocean to swim, not to crawl or walk, etc. So to apply the concept of an already abnormal crab to a human body is striking and disgusting all at once to humans.
ReplyDelete2. Perhaps one critique of World War II, or war in general, that I noticed is the theory that even if men came back from the war, they still weren't as alive as they were before they left. King might be propounding that war takes a toll even on those who return alive and well.
3. It may be a stretch, but the way in which Timmy brought up only the bad material in the characters' lives near the end may be a social critique concerning the way in which most people don't have others' best interests at heart and only want to see their downfall or demise.
One of the main categories from Carroll’s horror theory that I noticed within King’s “The Return of Timmy Baterman” was fission. Carroll defines fission as contradictory categories of horror that demonstrate an opposition of cultural (usually biological) categories. In the case of King’s story, the obvious contradictory categories are the living and the dead. Timmy Baterman “stank of the grave. It was a black small, like everything inside him was just lying there, spoiled” (59), but other characteristics demonstrate that although he has the appearance and hallmarks of the dead, he also has characteristics of the living as well. “There was something goin’ on in there” (55), Jud says. “He was dead, Louis. But he was alive too. And he…he…he knew things” (59). Through Timmy’s knowledge of the townspeople’s wrongdoings—along with his capacity for speech—Timmy illustrates features of the living as well. He has the appearance of a corpse, but because he also has the thought and speaking ability of the living, fission is demonstrated through the illustration of both the category of the living and the dead.
ReplyDelete“Return” features insight into social attitudes in the story, as well (most notably in the light of a historical-cultural context). This is especially prevalent in the scene where Bill Baterman attempts to justify his actions for bringing Timmy back from the dead. “They had no right to take my boy,” he says. “He was only seventeen…and it was ill-fuckin’-legal. So fuck the army, and fuck the War Department, and fuck the United States of America” (58).
Bill’s dialogue here goes a long way to illustrate the cultural mindset of sending children to war, showing the commentary that the government is the real monster—not Bill, not Timmy—for taking away the nation’s children (and as a direct result, their innocence) to fight its war. Here, the story also provides the social commentary that family is more valuable and more important than government compliance or society's opinions.
1.
ReplyDeleteNoel Carroll Defines “Categorically Ambiguous” as the horror or zombie falling into two categories at the same time. The horror theory of Categorically Ambiguous works by creating a sense of unsureness or confusion about an object or individual through representation of a mixed or unusual category. Stephen King’s short story, “The Return of Timmy Baterman” employs an ambiguous effect to show the utter confusion of the people living in the town.
All of the individuals who speak in the story are confused by and cannot determine which classification Timmy Baterman falls into. This is evidenced by the following passage excerpt. During the story, Jud states, “Timme Baterman was like that, Louis, like a zombie in a movie, but he wasn’t. There was something more. There was something goin’ on behind his eyes, and sometimes you could see it and sometimes you couldn’t see it” (55). This passage really hits home regarding a horror or zombie fitting into two categories at the same time. In this passage, Jud is not sure if Timmy is a zombie or something else.
Stephen King also employs the horror theory of Metonymy in this story. Noel Carroll defines Metonymy as innocuous things turning into horror objects via association with monsters or horror. Stephen King uses Metonymy to show the readers exactly how horrifying Timmy is. By taking an everyday thing and applying uncertainness and horror to it, this can create an effect of pure terror. This is evidenced in the following passage. “He just stood there, she said, his hands dangling at his sides and his head pushed forward, lookin’ like a boxer who’s ready to eat him some canvas” (54). Stephen King takes an everyday normal thing - a boxer, and compares it to Timmy. Thus, the idea of a boxer becomes frightening to the reader.
2.
It seems to me that social-class may be a factor. This becomes evident during the story when Jud, Hannibal, and Alan go to Bill Baterman’s house to talk to him about Timmy. The theme of powerful people putting down and making trouble for non-powerful people seems to be quite popular and evident in all time periods of U.S. history.
In addition to the theme of powerful vs. non-powerful, the attitude toward World War Two seems to be quite ill. This can be evidenced by this quote from Bill Baterman, “He’s been shell-shocked or something. He’s a little strange, but he’ll come around” (58). This makes me think that there is a negative attitude and a sense of hopeless longing associated with World War Two.
3.
One social critique that stood out to be involves a quote from Bill Baterman. This quote reads,”So fuck the army, fuck the War Department, and fuck the United States of America, and fuck you boys too” (58). This quote hits home regarding the frustration many Americans, especially during the World War Two period have with the government. Through analysis of this story, it appears to me that Stephen King is attempting to critique society for having so much bad in it. This can be evidenced by this passage, “Only the bad. God knows there is enough of that in any human being’s life, isn’t there?” (61). This quote makes me think that Stephen King is trying to hit home about the bad things in society.
King’s short story “The Return of Timmy Baterman” no doubt makes use of the elements of horror described by Noel Carroll. On the very surface of the story lies the element of category disturbance; Timmy Baterman’s very existence after his return home from World War II defies the category definition between what is living and what is dead: “Everybody knew Timmy was dead; there was his obituary in the Bangor Daily News…just the week before….” (54). Timmy’s defiance of the categorical divisions between life and death cause confusion, particularly in the case of Jud, who expresses an inability to define Timmy’s state of being: “There was something more. There was something goin’ on behind his eyes, and sometimes you could see it and sometimes you couldn’t see it…I don’t think that thinking is what I want to call it. I don’t know what in the hell I want to call it” (55).
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, there is a sense of incompletion in Timmy Baterman that cannot be ignored. Timmy’s eyes are described as “raisins stuck in bread dough” (54), a particularly striking depiction given the common phrase that “the eyes are the windows of the soul”. In the absence of such a feature, it is implied that Timmy’s body has been returned to life deprived of a soul which makes him human. This implication is further evidenced when, following in the vein of films such as The Exorcist, Timmy begins to reveal a private knowledge of the secrets kept by members of the community: “He said something bad about Hannibal, and then he said something bad about me too…It was true” (60-1). This distinct lack of a soul, combined with Timmy’s mangled features as a result of his experience in the war, affords King’s story the sense of horror at his incompletion.
“The Return of Timmy Baterman”, while taking place during World War II, bears the potent social attitude of Vietnam-era America, the time at which it was written. The driving action of the story evolves from an aversion to war and a sense of the loss of youth; Bill Baterman, Timmy’s father, presumably revives his son because he feels he has been robbed by the government: “They had no right to take my boy. He was only seventeen. He was all I had left of his dear mother, and it was ill-fuckin’-legal” (58).
The social commentary perpetrated by King in his story was common during the early 1970s; disillusionment with the authority of government and a questioning of the need for war are prevalent. There is an implication that both Bill and Timmy Baterman lost a part of themselves during the war. While Bill lost his entire family, driving him to drastic measures to recapture it, Timmy lost his identity, shown by the fact that he only returns to his home as a veritable husk, in which resides a being that is not entirely human. The violent end to Timmy’s story, coupled with Jud’s reflective questioning of his own actions, show that a side of humanity that had previously gone in shadow is exposed to the world as a result of Timmy’s unnatural revival from the dead.
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ReplyDeleteThe Return of Timmy Baterman
ReplyDeleteBy: Morgan Buckingham (ENG281_06)
The first characteristic of horror that Carroll describes is category disturbance, which is the disordering, mixing or blurring of classifications. Carroll explains that the blur between living and dead, human and non-human instills fear into us because it disturbs our understanding on morality and human life. In Stephen King’s short story, “The Return of Timmy Baterman”, the Zombie character is a 17-year old boy returned home after fighting in World War Two. King’s description of the zombie is a good example of category disturbance as he lingers on the edge of living and dead. Timmy Baterman, the zombie, is described as “pale,” “all his hair was sticking up in the back. His eyes were like raisins stuck in bread dough,” (54). The characters describe Baterman further by explaining, “He stank of the grave. It was a black small, like everything was lying there, spoiled,” (59). King’s description of the zombie eliminate Carrols definition of category disturbance, Timmy Baterman’s character is a walking dead man, lingering between dead and alive, human and non-human, which disturbs the other towns people and the readers of the story.
King’s story also considers social-attitudes in the 1940s concerning American experiences and feelings with World War 2. King’s story is set in a rural, small town with working-class characters, which were unlikely to make a lot of money. Most of the men who were sent off to fight in World War 2 were young boys from similar towns and situations as Timmy Baterman. This lead to a lot of resentment from the American people because boys who were not even old enough to buy alcohol and were barely out of high school, were fighting in war. This resentment is shown through Bill Batermans father, who is expected to have been the one to bring his son back to life. King writes, “They had no right to take my boy. He was only seventeen. He was all I had left of his dear mother, and it was ill-fuckin’-legal. So fuck the army, and fuck the War Department, and fuck the United States of America,” (58). Bill Baterman eventually would kill himself and the monstrous creature that he created, because of the implication of the war on the country and the low-income American fighting in war.
King’s short story is a social commentary to American feelings of soldiers when they return from fighting in war. Timmy Baterman is a dead soldier, that came back as a zombie, however King touches on the idea that even if Baterman would have survived and wouldn’t have returned in a coffin, he would have still come home like a zombie. Also, seen through Bill Batermans dialogue in the quote stated above, King is insinuating that the government is the real monster in this story, not him or his son. The final social critique that King’s story gives is the idea that the rural community and Batermans’ demise is a reflection of all the bad aspects of American society as this time.
King’s story highlights category disturbance and the balance between living and dead, human and non-human. It also exemplifies the bad societal elements during the historical contexts of the time.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hkcSyN8tajmSMSn2KCm80fdrBU9WzTb_SEhy5PJL9V8/edit
ReplyDeletePosted by Gregory Hunter
ReplyDeleteOne of the major aspects from Carol’s definition of Horror that is discussed in Stephen King’s The Return of Timmy Baterman is category disturbance. According to Carol, category disturbance is defined as a notion or a set of notions that contributes to whether a being is human or nonhuman. In King’s story, Timmy Baterman exemplifies these characteristics. Through the recollection of the letter Bill received from the lieutenant, Timmy was “shot down” in Rome and was shipped home two days later. However, it was reported that Marjorie Washburn, the mailwoman saw Baterman was alive and well as he was “walking in the road toward York Livery Stable” (53). Baterman was viewed as a pale figure that appeared to be disfigured. Many thought this was because of the war, but many began to understand that something was odd about him, and that he wasn’t human. His dad, especially which was evident as he shot his son twice in the chest with a pistol (62).
World War 2 was a war that many were against but deemed as a necessary evil at the time. Many lives were lost, and the ones who did come back were not who they once were. Whether it was by battle fatigue (known as PSTD now), or amputation, the war changed the views and lives of others worldwide. Timmy was a victim of the war, his dad blamed the government for his “initial” death and others blamed the war for actions alone (54-56). This collates to the fact King wrote this in 1970 which was near the end of the Vietnam War, and a lot of people were against this war as well.
King’s biggest message in this story is that the Military and the Government are to blame for the events caused by Timmy. It is evident that King is against the War based on his characterization of Bill Baterman who practically blamed the Military for his child’s death. Also, that War affects everyone’s well-being. Baterman’s actions throughout the story contributed to people’s dissatisfaction in the war.
In reading Stephen King's short story “The Return of Timmy Baterman,” it becomes evident that the characteristic of horror that Noel Carroll is describing is disturbance. It is obvious that there is disturbance throughout the story after the main character Timmy returns from the war. A main example of this disorder would be the confusion the characters feel towards Timmy. His presence causes a disturbance within the town. A quote from Jed which shows this disturbance is “there was something going on behind his eyes and sometimes you could see it and sometimes you couldn't see it.” (55) This is the same of the other characters; they do not know what to make of Timmy considering he has many zombie characteristics that baffle the townspeople considering he wasn’t like that before he left. It is possible that you could say his confusion also falls under Carroll’s category of being ambiguous. Carroll describes the category ambiguous as somewhat creating an “unusual” representation of a character causing confusion much like disturbance. As previously stated, the townspeople didn't know what to make of Timmy Baterman after his return. Timmy speaks like the living, but has the appearance of being dead or zombielike. He is described as seeming more like a "ghost" then a person. (54) It seems as though Timmy went to war as a person they came back more like a zombie which confused the town causing disturbance and ambiguous horror characteristics.
ReplyDeleteIn this time period, many men were returning from war different than when they left. The images and events seen during the war was enough to scar any soldier. Soldiers in World War II were experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder and were having difficulty erasing the horrific images of war. Even young men in their teens who fought in the war had to live with these troubling images. Bill Baterman said it best when he said, “he was only seventeen… it was (illegal),” when describing the army taking his son away to join in the war efforts. (58)
This example of pulling young men into a war many Americans disagreed with is a social commentary King pushes for discovery. Bill Baterman’s feelings towards the war taking his seventeen year old son away from him were the feelings of many parents of teenage son’s in this time period. The images of any war can be too much on immature soldiers. Stephen King may have been trying to convey this message through Timmy going to war with personable qualities and coming home with zombie-like qualities.
-Leah Warner
In Stephen Kings, “The Return of Timmy Baterman,” Timmy is a character that dies in war and is sent home to be buried. Though, in this story Timmy doesn’t stay dead. Timmy exemplifies Carroll’s horror theory of category disturbance or ambiguity. Timmy is both alive and dead. He shows many living human characteristics, unlike other zombie-like creatures. Frequently in the story, Timmy is talking to the living characters. He talks to the first person to see him after he reanimates and later talks to the main character. He doesn’t discuss normal things with the later characters, and somewhat reads their minds. He has an otherworldly knowledge of the people in the town.
ReplyDeleteI think this story very much shows social attitudes of the time. I think making Timmy a zombie after he was in war is a demonstration of how many people return from war. People become traumatized from what they experience and what they see during war, and many return in a zombie-like state. Though Timmy died in the war, this story shows his zombie state as an effect from it.
I think this story also shows how people back home, who are separate from the war, might view the war. People had very negative attitudes in the story and, like most people, weren’t okay with Timmy’s zombie state. I think this shows that people weren’t very supportive of the war and how it effected people after wards.
King's actual social attitude is that soldiers with PTSD are like talking zombies. King uses Timmy to bring up only the bad parts of people's lives. This is a magnification of how soldiers were a reminder of a time people would rather forget. Bill is a critique about how soldiers returning how affected their families negatively. Bill looks as dead as Timmy but feels all the pain. The narrator along with he group that travel to Bill's place only go there, so the government doe not send someone over. This is a critique of how he government has enough power to make a community do its dirty work just by the idea that if they don't the government will. Also they group does not care about Timmy or Bill they just want to bury Timmy and move on with their conservative lives.
ReplyDeleteThe Return of Timmy Baterman applies aspects of Nolan Carroll's horror theories. In particular, I immediately recognized the category of disturbance/ambiguity and fission/fusion. I thought of this because in the story, Timmy Baterman is a soldier in that dies in war and he becomes reanimated. Both of these categories are applicable because they both are about combining two things that do not belong together or are considered opposites. By being reanimated, Timmy is both living and dead. “There was something going on behind his eyes and sometimes you could see it and sometimes you couldn't see it.” (55) is an example of disturbance because the reader is led to believe that not only is Timmy disturbed as a dead/undead being but also that others around him are disturbed by his odd behavior. Timmy would talk to people of the town but the conversations were always a bit peculiar.
ReplyDeleteI believe that social attitudes play a large part in the story. In the 1940's nationalism was a huge deal. People were proud of their nation and the majority of the population supported the war effort. In the story however, Timmy's dad blames the government for his son's death. This relates to when the story was written, in the 1970's, which is during the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War had strong anti-war sentiments in America because many people did not believe we had a need to be there. The draft also did not help at all to ease these issues. Since the majority was against the war in the 1970's, it is easy for me to believe that looking back on WWII, people would have the same opinion.
The part of the commentary that stood out to me was Bill. Bill blamed the government for all of the losses of life. He says that the government is the problem, not the people in the war. The government takes away kids from their mothers and sends them off to war so and in saying this, it is obvious that Bill sees the family environment as being much more important than any military or government-based need.
The people of, "The Return of Timmy Baterman," are from the middle and lower classes. They are a tight knit community where everyone knows each other. Bill Baterman or families with soldiers felt they were the lowest citizens because they couldn't afford to pay their way out of the war or even use college as an excuse to delay the draft. Everyone in this small community is effected by Timmy's return, but the only one who feels the pain is his family. Not even Timmy himself understands there has been a change in him.
ReplyDeleteCaroll discusses the idea of monsters in horror stories being categorically contradictory. This category can be applied to Stephen King’s story very well. In King’s story, as well as many others, the idea of being living and dead is huge. This particular passage comes to mind to help describe how Timmy Baterman was both living and dead, “Timmy Baterman was like that, Louis, like a zombie in a movie, but he wasn’t. There was something more. There was something goin’ on behind his eyes, Louis” (55). Jud believed that Timmy was dead but, in some way he was also alive because he could speak and she could see something in his eyes. This theme is prevalent in not only Zombie stories, but in vampire, mummy, and ghost stories. I believe this makes the story more interesting because the “monster” can do more than just walk around.
ReplyDeleteThis story is definitely influenced by World War II. Not only was Timmy a soldier in World War II, but his image as a zombie may speak to the state of soldiers who came back from the war. Many soldiers who came back from World War II, or any war, experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This causes many men/women to have a change in attitude and mentality. Timmy’s father described him as being “shell-shocked” (58). The zombie figure may be a way to describe the mannerisms of those who came back from a war.
It is clear that King dislikes war and wanted to make it apparent. Timmy’s father blames the death of his son on the United States government and not on the people who actually killed him. King is clearly criticizing war and what it does to young, or old, men who participate. He seems to believe that everyone either dies, or is ruined by what they experience. In essence, war makes zombies out of men.
Noel Carrol defines one horror mechanism, category disturbance, as the distortion, blurring or cross-over of familiar groupings. People naturally seek order and patterns in everyday life to better understand and interact with their world. When the patterns one is accustomed to are disrupted it causes one to feel threatened or uncomfortable, this is why category disturbance is such a powerful device in horror. In Stephen King’s “The Return of Timmy Baterman” the monster figure of Timmy is a good example of category disturbance. He is both dead, and alive. While he was known dead to all the people in the town and had the physical attributes of a corpse, Timmy Baterman maintains the same motor function and even the ability to talk that he did while living. The narrator describes his appearance “He was floating in his clothes; I’d judge he lost 40 pounds. His eyes had gone back in his sockets until they looked like little animals in a pair of caves…and his jaw made a tick-tick-tick” (57) these images describe clearly show the fearfulness the narrator of the middle ground between life and death.
ReplyDeleteThe social attitudes in Stephen King’s work are very interesting. While the story is set in the 1940’s when America generally stood behind its war, it was written in the 70’s. It is obvious that in thirty years the attitudes of many had changed, as the story give an apprehensive and sinister feeling toward war and the toll it has on men in service. “The Timmy Baterman that went off to fight the war was a nice, ordinary kid, maybe a little dull but goodhearted. The thing that I saw that night lookin’ up into the red sun…that was a monster” (62) Timmy’s transformation could be an allegory for the tension between the people and the government on issues of war in the 70’s or perhaps it is a magnification on post-traumatic stress disorder that many soldiers suffered returning from World War II and Vietnam.
It is evident that King’s story is against the war, and perhaps war in general. Many of the characters find the war and the government at fault, not only for the abomination of Timmy, but also for their own personal issues that Timmy describes.
Timmy Baterman, the 'zombie' of Stephen King's, "The Return of Timmy Baterman," fits two of the nine Noel Carroll horror categories. Those two categories are Disturbance or Dosordering and Incompletion. Timmy Baterman fits into Catergory Disturbance or Dosordering because as a zombie he is both dead and alive. Intersectingly Timmy is also disturbance of the term zombie because he can talk and somewhat think or remember. He is also not fully human, which leads me to Catergory Incompletion. Timmy has been noted to be missing a part of him either in war or during the zombification process. Mentally he is also missing something the narrator cannot quite name.
ReplyDeleteIn King’s short story “The Return of Timmy Baterman,” a 17-year-old boy was shot down and killed during World War II. After his body was shipped home and buried, Jud and several other characters are taken back when they see Timmy strolling down the road. This is where Noel Carroll’s characteristics of horror come into play. Carroll defines “category disturbance” as, “any mixing, crossover or blurring of social/cultural classifications such as male/female, living/dead, whole/fragmented…” This is demonstrated in King’s story when Jud is attempting to explain what he saw and becomes frustrated when trying to explain that Timmy was not alive. When Jud is explaining what he saw he says, “Nobody could understand how bad it was unless they was there. He was dead, Louis. But he was alive too” (59).
ReplyDeleteKing portrays the idea that regardless if Timmy was dead or alive when he returned from war he would be zombie like. The story shows the frustration and struggle of a father who lost his son at war. Especially, when he begins to cuss and yell, “They had no right to take my boy. He was only seventeen. He was all I had left of his dear mother, and it was ill’fuckin’ legal” (58). Not only does this show his frustration, but he goes on to say, “…and fuck the United States of America,” which shows the disagreement and animosity of parents towards the government for deploying boys at such a young age.
In his book, Philosphy of Horror: or, Paradoxes of the Heart, Noel Carroll lays out nine qualities of art-horror, as he calls it. Many works of the horror genre employ a few of these qualities to create their “monsters.” One of these works is that of Stephen King’s “The Return of Timmy Baterman,” in which he uses some of the nine qualities that Carroll describes. One of these, and the most represented, is that of category disturbance. Category disturbance, as Carroll cites Mary Douglass’ classification system involving polar opposites to elicit a taboo or fear of something. Particularly in “The Return of Timmy Baterman,” Category disturbance is used in the clear statement that Timmy is an “abomination” (57). Abomination can be defined as something that is placed where it does not belong. Timmy is an abomination to the town because he does not belong in the living world, therefore, it can be understood that Stephen King employed Carroll’s quality of disturbance to create Timmy as a “monster.”
ReplyDeleteIn his short story “The Return of Timmy Baterman,” Stephen King is resurrecting the attitudes towards war and the return of GIs following World War II. King wrote this story during the 1970’s, a time period in which the United Sates had just removed itself from a Cold War and were entering a bloody and long contended Vietnam War. The influences King had to pull from to write this story was that of heartache and anger. He takes some of the feelings and attitudes of the time he is living in and projects them into the 1940’s when the story “The Return of Timmy Baterman” takes place. A large point made in the story that links to the social attitudes of King’s time is that of returning GIs being an abomination, simply because they fought in an overseas war the masses at home did not agree on.
A social critique Stephen King is making in that war changes men. Not only does it change the men who actually fought in the battles but it changes their families at home as well. In “The Return of Timmy Baterman” King emphasizes the fact that “the Timmy Baterman that went off to fight the war was a nice, ordinary kid” (62). However, he returns, battered and bloodied and dead. These traits can also be applied to Timmy’s father who is said to be “dead inside and just waiting for his soul to sink” (53). The war changed these men in the fact that it physically killed Timmy and emotionally killed Bill Baterman. With these statements made in King’s “The Return of Timmy Baterman,” it can be understood that King is pointing out how war changes all, not just the men that fight but their families as well.
Carrol’s theory of Category Disturbance plays a major roll in Steven King’s Return of Timmy Bateman. She defines Category disturbance as a major deviation from what we perceive as normal for something. For example, a man dead and buried is not expected to be seen pacing back and forth around town. “Everybody knew Timmy was dead; there was his obituary in the Bangor Daily News and the Ellsworth American just the week before, picture and all, and half the town turned out for his funeral up to the city. And here Margie seen him, walking up the road—lurching up the road… Pale as he was, she said, and dressed in an old pair of chino pants and a faded flannel hunting shirt, although it must have been ninety degrees in the shade that day… ‘His eyes were like raisins stuck in bread dough. I saw a ghost that day, George,” (51). Although physically himself, Timmy was obviously not the same as he had once been, fitting the bill for Carrol’s Category Disturbance.
ReplyDeleteThe townsfolk of King’s story share similarities with the views of the people in the time it was written. Bill Baterman, and the rest of the town blamed the government for the loss of Timmy and others the war had claimed. This leads us to believe that the story itself is a commentary on war and the American population’s attitude toward its effectiveness and necessity.
The attitudes of a number of characters, the drunk military officer aboard the train, Bill Baterman’s depressed state, and also t”e narrator’s comment on the letters sent to the War Office, “If It was just one fellow who had written one letter, they’d laugh it off. If it was just one fellow writing a whole bunch of letters, Kinsman says he’d call the state police up in Derry Barracks and tell ‘em they might have a psychopath with a hate on against the Baterman family in Ludlow. But these letters came from all different people,” (56). It says quite a bit about the government’s willingness to send aid to their own people in need.
Noel Carroll defines "incompletion" as a horror-effect involving a missing piece of a body, usually human. Incompletion works by disturbing the reader's or viewer's expectations: the human body should appear intact and whole with all its parts; instead, something is missing. It might be an arm, an eye, even a head. Stephen King's short story "The Return of Timmy Baterman" employs the incompletion effect to heighten the unsettling apparition of the zombie figure. Baterman is described as "a shambling figure, like an ambulatory trunk or torso, lacking as he did both of his arms, a considerable chunk of his left thigh, and most of the left side of his face" (98).
ReplyDelete1. In Carroll’s explanation of the nature of horror he states “the emotional response they elicit seems to be quite different than that endangered by art-horror”(42). Here Carroll is comparing the two types of horror; art-horror and art-dread. This relates to King’s story because I feel that King’s story is an art-horror. At first Timmy is not described gruesomely, just that he seemed like the walking dead. But, later in the story he was described in a more vile way. “Like everything inside him was just laying there, spoiled”(59). So King used “disgust as a central feature”(42) to convey the undead aspects of Timmy.
ReplyDelete2. In King’s story that was about Timmy who died in World War 2 showed a different perspective of how people felt about the war. Timmy’s father was in denial that Timmy was actually dead. “I got my boy back. They had no right to take my boy...He’ll come around”(58) are some of the quotes from Timmy’s father. He did not believe that his son had died since he was standing and walking around. He figured he was just getting use to being back home away from the war.
3. A social critique could be how people are not always themselves when they return from war. In this instance Timmy was actually dead. But, it is quite common that war veterans have issues adjusting back to civilian lifestyles. Many go through post traumatic stress disorder. It also shows how the wars was a struggle for the family members at home. Timmy’s dad said “God never helped me. I helped myself”(59).
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ReplyDeleteIn Stephen King’s “The Return of Timmy Baterman”, the horror theme category disturbance, as described by Noel Carroll, strongly pertains. Carroll describes category disturbance partly as the disconnection between being alive and dead. The character of Timmy Baterman comes back in a coffin from being killed in the war, and days later he is seen walking about by citizens living in his hometown. One such instance of his being living but appearing dead was when he was spotted by the mailwoman: “’His eyes were like raisins stuck in bread dough” (54). There is a disconnect between being dead and being alive for Timmy Baterman. He is not living, yet he is walking the earth and speaking. Carroll’s term of category disturbance can be heavily applied to the character of Timmy Baterman by his appearances as a walking corpse.
ReplyDeleteThe social attitudes towards war come through in “The Return of Timmy Baterman” when we learn of his father’s opinions on his son being sent to war illegally, “They had no right to take my boy. He was only seventeen” (58). The attitudes held by Timmy’s father are rage towards the war for having taken his son, and in fact the death of his son. There may also be a play on Timmy perhaps having become “shell-shocked” (58). The story may in fact be about returning war veterans being walking corpses, living in the hell of war once they return home, unable to live normally again. However, it seems pretty clear that Timmy is in fact, deceased, since he came home in a coffin.
The possible social critique going on here is that of veterans returning from war deceased, or possible “shell-shocked” (59). It is possible that King was attempting to relate returning war heroes to zombies, and how their lives are never the same after returning from war.
1) Using Noel Carroll’s “Theory of Horror”, Stephen King uses his concept of Incompletion. Incompletion is when a character or monster isn’t fully formed or is missing something that one would consider normal to have, like a body part is missing. In this case with, Timmy his eyes aren’t fully there, “His eye’s were like raisins stuck in bread dough” (54). This makes Timmy appear less human like and scarier, adding the horror affect to this story. The eyes are focused on a lot in this story reinforcing the fact that Timmy is no human in the readers mind.
ReplyDelete2) The richer and powerful upper class decides to send the lower class, no matter the age, into war. “They had no right to take my boy. He was only seventeen. He was all I had left of his dear mother, and it was ill-fuckin’-legal” (58). King is commenting on how children of the lower class were being drafted into the war illegally.
3) Stephen King’s short story, The Return of Timmy Baterman, he brings up the war. King is possibly alluding to post-traumatic stress disorder soldiers can get when returning from the war. Timmy is described of having. “There was something goin’ on behind his eyes, and sometimes you could see it and sometimes you couldn’t see it. Somethin’ behind his eyes, Louis. I don’t think that thinking is what I want to call it. I don’t know what in the hell I want to call it” (55). It’s like they are there physically but not mentally and King makes this evident with Timmy.
-Lauren Lee
1. One of the nine characters of horror ,according to Noel Carrol, was that the creature must be threatening/impure. Besides being physically threatening, the creature can also be a psychological , moral, or social threat. Psychologically threatening creatures are a threat to one’s mind. In Stephen King’s “The Return of Timmy Baterman”, Timmy, although physically frightening in appearance, does not attack anyone in the neighborhood. For example, when the group of men confront Bill Baterman, Timmy insults each of the men by bringing up things in their lives. “ ‘Old wooden-leg’, Timmy says, ‘and won’t they shit when they find out you’re poor as a church mouse because you lost it all in 1938...’ “ (King 60). In doing so, he’s not physically attacking the characters but hitting them where it hurts.
ReplyDelete2.The results of the feminist movement can be seen in the story. Majorie Wasburn holds a job as a mailwoman and Missus Stratton lives in a house by herself and even throws parties. which gives the reader insight on the time period without actually knowing the year. Before this time, women were viewed as objects and weren’t their own legal entities. “She could have been single or divorced or grass widowed...she had a little two-room house down where the Pederson Road…”(King 54).
3. This story also addresses the war and people’s opinions on the draft. Bill Baterman explains how he was against them sending his son off to war at such a young age. Although he’s dead, Timmy’s conversations are described as coming from elsewhere. One can compare this to the symptoms on someone with post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from war. There’s always a description that they don’t come back as themselves.
1. This story contains so many of Carroll's horror principles, it's hard to choose just one. However, the one that seems to repeat it's self over and over is in-completion. The story really emphasizes that when Timmy rises from the graveyard, he is no longer the same. Many people see him and react in horror because the shell (body) of Timmy is still there, but whats inside can't be human. The story even alludes to the fact that Timmy may be possessed after coming back. This is especially true when Jud and his friends come to confront Timmy and he reveals all the things that each of them had done that Timmy had no way of knowing. This story really shows that the human is 2 separate parts: body and soul, combined to make one.
ReplyDelete2. The story does play on social class a bit. The middle class working family leads a hard life. Their son, who had to go away to war, was killed and they are devastated. Had the family been wealthy, they may have had the means to buy off someone to look the other way when Timmy was draft. The story also makes a comment on the social scale of how people who were war stricken at the time, became so listless and desperate for a sense of normalcy in their life.
3. The story plays with social aspects in many ways as well. Timmy was a loyal patriot who died for his country. His family was a working class family, but once Timmy died, an argument could be made that the government simply didn't care about the family because they were not of a higher class. The government simply saw Timmy as a tool in their grand scheme; a chess pawn essentially that was expendable.
1) In Stephen King’s short story “The return of Timmy Baterman,” some aspects of Noel Carroll’s definition of horror such as disturbance, fusion, and fission are observed. Carroll described disturbance as a disordering or distortion of social-cultural classifications. Disturbance is observed in this short story in two different spectrums, on one hand Timmy’s revival as an “abomination” (57) and on the other Timmy’s truth revelations changed the lives of all the people who confronted Bill Baterman. Norma decided to call Timmy an abomination because the fact that he was alive and walking around Pederson Road after being buried disturbed conventional classification of living and dead. Then, when Timmy voiced out the truth about the man who confront him, the normal perception of the people in town was disrupted. For example, Hannibal loses his job and reputation “because of something that was just like Timmy accused him of” (61).The lives of the people who had an encounter with Timmy were affected in a negative way which makes this a good example of disturbance.
ReplyDeleteIn Stephen King’s short story fission and fusion are in a way intertwined with one another. Carroll described fission and fusion as one entity splitting into two and two or more entities combined in one, respectively. The first example of this combination is appreciated when Jud says that Bill “looked like the devil had gotten him after his seven years of highfalutin” (57). In this particular description, Bill could be considered as both a human and a monster.
2) Based on the time the story setting was developed, I believed that King imprinted certain social attitudes on the story. Bill’s reaction against the war and United States government could have portrayed the feelings of all those families who had to send their loved one to war. We can feel his discontent when he says “They had no right to take my boy. He was only seventeen” (58), then we see that he starts cursing everybody.
3) I think there could be several social critiques to consider in King’s short story. For example, one of the big critiques we encounter in her is how sometimes a social group can easily sacrifice/blame a person for the benefit of the group. This is observed when Alan, Hannibal, and George decide to go confront Bill for the sake of the town; “Bill you have caused yourself and this town a lot of trouble” (58).
1. In Stephen King’s The Return of Timmy Bateman, there are several horror techniques that are used. One that interested me in this story was metonymy. In the short story, Bateman speaks with Missus Stratton “But he saw her…and he grinned…and she said he talked to her. Asked her if she still had those records because he wouldn’t’ mind cutting a rug with her. Maybe that very night” (54, 55). Normally, this would not be a frightening situation, Timmy has grown up in this town and Missus Stratton is a known partier. The reason it becomes so creepy is that Timmy is dead and he is speaking with the woman in an almost menacing way.
ReplyDelete2. The social attitudes in this story are largely negative toward the war. This can be seen with Timmy’s father, Bill. When the men are confronting Bill concerning the resurrected Timmy, he has this to say “Well, I got my boy back. They had no right to take my boy. He was only seventeen. He was all I had left of his dear mother, and it was ill-fuckin’-legal. So fuck the army, and fuck the War Department, and fuck the United States of America, and fuck you boys too” (58). The emotion is clear, there was a draft and parents were forced to watch their children go to war and many not return.
3. The overarching motif seems to be the change that men experience during war. It comes as no surprise that going to war changes people. King portrays how war changes soldiers in a more extreme way. Bill Bateman describes Timmy as being “Shell-shocked.” When people come back, they sometimes have a difficult time adjusting to “civilian life”; appearing as a shell of their former self and at times zombie-like.
1. In Stephen King’s story, “The Return of Timmy Baterman”, various horror characteristics from Noel Carroll’s “Philosophy of Horror”, come into play. Of these characteristics, the one that stood out to me the most is Carroll’s theory of category disturbance. This states that the “monster” is a mixing of human and nonhuman, of living and dead, which is exactly what Timmy Baterman exemplifies; a living corpse. In the story, Jud also explains that Timmy, as a zombie, had a completely different personality than when he was alive. “That Timmy Baterman that went off to fight the war was a nice, ordinary kid, Louis, maybe a little dull but goodhearted. The thing we saw that night looking up into that red sun…that was a monster” (62). Even though it Timmy appears to be present, it’s almost as if he’s a completely different person, which adds to the opposing dualities that category disturbance implies.
ReplyDelete2. After reading King’s story, it’s interesting to note that while it takes place in the 1940s, this short was written in the 1970s. Views of war have changed greatly over the course of this time span, and it’s pretty clear that King focuses on the negative aspects of war. Anti-war beliefs are prevalent in the story when Bill Baterman blames the government for his son’s death, and shows resentment towards the United States. Other negative aspects are present when King describes all of the grieving family members waiting to receive their loved one’s bodies.
3. In terms of a social critique, “The Return of Timmy Baterman” depicts how war affects and changes people. Timmy is almost a completely different person when he returns home; this could very well be a direct relation to post-traumatic stress disorder, which is present in many war veterans, after having experienced the horrors of battle.
Stephen king really uses the physcological aspect of horror to convey a terrible feeling in his story “The return of Timmy Baterman”. When a group of Confrontors arrive at the Baterman house, they see Timmy standing out in the backyard facing the sun. He turns and smiles at the group, a smile that King describes as “made you want to just scream”(54). Timmy then comes up to the men and starts to talk. This is very odd because of his supposed status as a zombie. He then begins to reveal to the men very personal and damaging truths. Probably the most Phsycologically effective truth that is revealed is to Mr. Purinton. Timmy Goes on to say “Your wife is fucking that man she works with at the Drugstore, Purinton. What do you think of that? She screams when she comes. What do you think of that?”(59). This touches on peoples fear of infidelity.
ReplyDeleteA male dominant society is definatley seen here in this story. Having the group of confronters being all male is classic to the time it was written but more so as to when it takes place. The men all group up and go to take care of business. Theres not even really mention of any women except for Purintons cheating wife who is later described as leaving town on a train, sporting two shiners.
The social stigma of being a decent host to your guests is seen here in the interaction with Bill Baterman and his confronters. The whole time Timmy is battering the "guests" with secret truths, Bill is yelling at him telling him to stop. however it is obvious that Bill doesnt give two shits whether timmy stops or not because he too want the guests to leave.
JESSE SOTO
ReplyDelete1. Of Noel Carroll’s elements of horror, metonymy and categorical ambiguity are very present in Stephen King’s The Return of Timmy Batterman. Metonymy is defined as innocuous things turning into horror objects via association with the monster. I would argue that while most people will take into account Timmy’s speech, it is actually more present in Timmy’s smile. “Timmy looked around at us and grinned. Just seeing him grin made you want to scream” (King, p.57). A smile is a harmless gesture in most cases, but King makes Timmy’s one that will send a shiver down your spine as it is on the face of a dead man. Categorical ambiguity is defined as the monster being in two classifications at once, the obvious being both living and dead as is the case in this story. Other classifications can also be drawn from Timmy being both a monster and a son to Bill much to the point of joy for the presence of the son, but a repulsion/rejection of the monster he has become. “What he’d done, or so it looked like, was to kill his boy, lay him on the bed, and then spill out that range oil. Then he sat down on his easy chair by the radio, flicked a match, and ate the barrel of that Colt.45” (King, p.63). Bill is overcome by this categorical ambiguity and destroys the monster that is using the shell of his son, only to then turn the pistol on himself for destroying what was left of his son.
2. It is clear to see that King holds anti-war sentiments. On several occasions throughout the story he describes the military/war with malice. “And when he got close enough, you could see red marks across his face on the slant, like pimples or little burns. I reckon that’s where the Kraut machine gun got him. Must have damn near blowed his head off” (King, p. 59). Even in descriptions of Timmy we can see the brutality associated with war. Bill even goes on a rant when confronted by the coalition of men from town about his extreme dislike of America and the military for sending his boy off to die in war. These types of attitudes were echoed after World War II and during the Vietnam War (around the time King wrote this story).
3. As mentioned above, King most likely is critiquing war. However, these critiques about war are not the only critiques King makes. Surely, one of the most powerful scenes described in the story was Timmy’s outrage following the arrival of the coalition. He brings to light dark secrets and horrible truths for all the men to hear. The narrator remarks that all the men were good men, but who has not done something bad in their life? Kings really gets at the underbelly of society and shows that even the “heroes” have a dark side and are vulnerable to everyday life just like an ordinary person.
Maegan Jones
ReplyDelete“The Return of Timmy Baterman” by Stephen King did well in embracing Carroll’s horror theory of fission. Fission focuses on the contrasting of two different categories, living and dead here, that meet to create an opposing feature in the story. King wrote that Timmy “stank of the grave” he was just buried after all, “ It was a black smell, like everything inside him was just lying there, spoiled” (59). Yet this very obvious dead reference is coupled with the facts that he also was very much alive. Timmy walked, was able to acknowledge people, able to do things, but most of all, unlike most zombie stories, Timmy could speak and know things about people that no classic zombie could. Though he might appear dead in some aspects, he was very much alive and that created a situation of eerie fission.
The social critique that is most evident here is the simple truth that the men who fought in war never returned home the same, as in that no man returned home living. The man that left for war was never the same man who returned home to you. One way or another he had died in Vietnam and was brought home either by pine box or walking back in the door, but each and every man who came back had lost something over there, had died a little bit and you could see the effects as time went on. You could see the toll war had on each and every person that it touched.
King makes a great parallel to the kind of changes that can be seen in the many young men who came back from war. The depression, the lost in their own thoughts and not speaking really to others until a random thought comes to mind that they might share. As the amount of time they are away from the horrors they faced grows so does their feelings of the differences between themselves and others, the fear, hatred. The darkness inside them that can drive them mad grows much as the mind of Timmy altered the longer he was out of the ground in which he was buried.
Totally meant category disturbance on first paragraph...........
DeleteDonald Rhoads
ReplyDeleteThe Stephen King short story “The Return of Timmy Baterman” is really not your run of the mill zombie story. Sure it’s about a person that comes back to life but what makes this story different from others is the zombie can talk and maybe able to think. One such example of this would be on page 57 where Bill says that they saw him grinning at us. I would apply the category of disturbance for a majority of this story because people think of zombies as mindless but as the case in King’s story that is not the case.
King’s story takes place during World War II and for the most part people were on board with it. However, some were not as key to the idea of a draft as we see on page 58 where Bill says “…it was ill-fuckin’-legal. So fuck the army, and fuck the war department, and fuck the United States of America, and fuck you boys too…” all because his boy was drafted.
I feel the social aspect of this story could be anti-war because of how Bill reacts to his boy being taken away but more so it would be anit-draft. Another social aspect that is to be considered is people are afraid to lose things that remind us of a love one. Bill says that Timmy is the only thing that is left of his late wife and they just took him away and he was killed in Europe (p. 58) When they tried to tell him that he was dead he wouldn’t listen and said that he wouldn’t lose him again.
1. One of Noel Carroll’s categories of horror is category disturbance, and this was used most frequently in Stephen King’s “Return of Timmy Baterman”. Category disturbance is a mixing, crossover, blurring, or distortion of social-cultural classifications. Some examples, in general, include a crossing of living and dead, or human and nonhuman. When Missus Stratton encounters Timmy, his demeanor is similar to a drunk man, not a dead one. He spoke with Missus Stratton, referencing the past and remembering her records, and Timmy even grinned. This made him appear very much alive, but then his eyes, they “looked as dead and dusty as marbles” (54). Though it was hot, Timmy was seen wearing a faded flannel hunting shirt and an old pair of chino pants (54). He may have been dressed as though he were still alive, but he clearly wasn’t, “there was something goin’ on behind his eyes… like a radio signal that was comin’ from somewhere else” (55). By observing Timmy walking, he seemed only slightly more human and living than nonhuman and dead, but when spoken to, Timmy seemed nonhuman and controlled by something else. At the very end of the story, King reminds readers Timmy was in fact deceased by explaining after the Baterman house was burned down, though responders immediately arrived at the scene, a medical examiner had been certain Timmy passed weeks before (63).
ReplyDelete2. This story could be seen as commentary on wars fought and the damage they do on those fighting. Timmy originally returned deceased, but after being brought back to “life”, his actions were similar to that of a veteran returning from deployment and having had rough experiences. He was mostly quiet and seemingly delusional. He also acted as though he were brainwashed, and when he spoke, he only spoke of negative things and appeared to be against everyone, even his own father, who told him to stop speaking, but he just kept going. Bill Baterman also shows a common view of fathers losing their sons during wartime. He was less sad, and more angry that the government took his son at too young of an age to fight a seemingly unnecessary war.
3. “The Return of Timmy Baterman” could be seen as a social critique on small town, lower social class culture. Jud seems to not be fully educated, a common misconception of southerners. Many words end with an apostrophe and there were a few grammatical errors, intentional by King. Timmy’s revelations also seemed to be a social critique on the town. Alan marries three times, his second wife was his second cousin, and was cheating on him with multiple men. Jud went to “whorehouses”, George owns a store, but is “poor as dirt” (60), and Hannibal is a dishonest, embezzling “selectman”(62).
1. The horror theory that I believe relates most to Timmy Baterman is categorical disturbance. Noel Carroll defines category disturbance as any mixing or distortion of social-cultural classifications. In The Return of Timmy Baterman, the characters cannot seem to define Timmy as being alive or dead. Since the first sightings of Timmy are after his “resurrection” nobody was there to actually witness his return to this earth. Timmy’s father Bill is asked whether or not his son was killed in Italy, during the war, and his response is “That was a mistake” (255). Another example of disturbance is seen during the same scene. When the men walk up to the Baterman house, Timmy is in the back yard staring at the setting sun (254). If Timmy were alive wouldn’t this cause him pain and agony? King’s use of categorical disturbance creates a truly eerie monster in Timmy Baterman.
ReplyDelete2. Most of the main characters are part of the lower, working class. I think that Timmy reflects how the poorer or less fortunate are the ones most often burdened by goals and objectives of those in power. Although Timmy was only seventeen, the Army would take anyone they could in order to be victorious.
3. The insights that Timmy makes about the characters secrets appeal to the idea that he has returned ‘from the dark side’ of death. If he has the ability to read the living’s minds it seems that Timmy’s only want is to divulge the negative and grotesque. I believe King is trying to portray the idea that when faced with our mortality, humans tend to focus on the worst case scenario.
The short story, “The Return of Timmy Baterman”, is a zombie horror story written by Stephen King. It portrays the living mystery and public reactions behind Timmy Baterman, who was reportedly shot and killed as a 17 year old during World War II before being returned to his home town of Ludlow in a casket and buried with military honors. King uses several characteristics of art-horror in his writing, most obviously ‘category disturbance’, which is defined by Noel Carroll as “any mixing, crossover or blurring of social/cultural classifications such as male/female, living/dead, whole/fragmented”. The story highlights the town people’s confusion and subsequent fear from both witnessing Timmy alive, and hearing stories about his presence. When Jud vividly describes Timmy to Louis, the readers are exposed to the idea of him being both alive and dead. Although Timmy could still communicate and perform basic human tasks, he is described, as being all but physically dead and nothing like his former self “Timmy Baterman was like that, Louis, like a zombie in a movie, but he wasn’t. There was something more. There was something goin’ on behind his eyes, Louis” (55). This category disturbance adds to the zombie depiction of Timmy and encourages the feelings of horror associated with such creatures within the readers.
ReplyDeleteKing wrote this story during the 1970’s, which were a war highlighted time period in American history. The cold war was coming to an end whilst the war in Vietnam was just beginning to take center stage in the American media spotlight. King’s inspiration for this story most likely came from societies general feelings towards past and present troops. Encouraged by the media, the general public in the 70’s did not embrace soldiers as they once did. People were frustrated at the government for involving the country in arguable conflicts overseas, and expressed this frustration in their disregard and disrespect for military personnel. King uses the character of Timmy to further alienate the military and express his disturbance with America’s international agenda.
Throughout King’s story, he subtly addresses several conflicts that existed in society towards the military during the 1970’s. His major social critique is in regards to the effects that war has on both the men and women directly involved, as well as their family and friends. The characters of Timmy and his father Bill are both described as being lifeless and unpleasant, “to the sight of Bill Baterman, who, he said, looked like he was dead inside and just waiting for his soul to stink” (52-53). The depictions of these characters are made to be very different to how they were earlier remembered. Readers feel as if the men have changed as a result of the war. This negatively associated with the characters is deliberately constructed to cast a negative light over the issue of international conflict.