The Doctor Is In By Stephen King Dr Sleep Analysis

Johanna Schulz
12/15/14
F Block
The Doctor Is In

Dr. Sleep by Stephen King is a horror book, rated 9.5/10. Stephen King is the best-selling horror, sci-fi, and fantasy writer of our time. This book, written in 2013, is the sequel to his 1977 book, The Shining, which was also made into a movie. Dr. Sleep continues Dan Torrence’s life after the Overlook Hotel. Dan has been trying to get his life together and failing, until settling into a small town in New Hampshire. Then he meets the powerful 12-year old, Abra Stone and the True Knot, which will turn his life upside down and forever change him. Dan’s old demons are reignited and he is dropped head first into a battle between those who save and those who destroy.
Anyone who likes very dark

Dr.Sleep is told mainly from three perspectives, Dan, Abra, and Rose. You can see how their minds analyze information and how they respond to other’s actions. Because part of Dan and Abra’s shine is telepathy, you can see their thoughts and how they process stimuli. Very few other books can do this without seeming odd or forced. Dan had Tony, a voice in his head as a child, that was part of his shine. Tony would warn him about his parents moods or tell Dan where a lost object was, but the thing that Tony always had told him was to never go into room 217 at the Overlook Hotel. After leaving the Overlook Hotel as a child, Tony stopped seeing and talking to Dan. When Dan tries to forget his past and action to start oven in Teenytown, Tony unexpectedly comes back to talk with Dan again: “You take yourself with you, wherever you go. He pushed the thought into a mental closet. It was a thing he as very good at. There was all sorts of stuff in the closet.” (59). Dan is unsettled by Tony’s sudden reappearance and tries to push the thought out of his mind. Seeing into the minds of the characters and understanding them makes the book seem all the more

You can see how The Shining ties into and relates to Dr.Sleep in Dan’s actions; from trying to quell and resist his father’s destructive habits to doing what he needs for himself or doing what is best for others. After The Shining, you find yourself meeting Dan as an old friend and rooting for him the whole way. The plot unfolds brilliantly and you keep turning the pages until you are looking at the back cover wanting, needing, craving more of the story. Dan as a child had always vowed to himself to stay from his father’s habits; mainly of violence and alcoholism, but after the Outlook Hotel, Dan turns to alcohol to face his problems. He would drink daily and see the bottle as a break from reality and come back in a different location with less money and no memory. He was losing the war to destructiveness and finds himself needing to stop and turn his life around. As this happens, the story explodes with fiery twists and turns, with only our reliance on King’s writing and guidance to get us through the inferno relatively unscathed, except for a suspicious glance or thought towards any group traveling in an RV. This book is an extremely well organized work of literature, especially when paired with The Shining. Even though Dr. Sleep is wonderfully interesting and dark, the beginning can be a bit slow for some readers and you can sometimes predict the vague plot direction. In the start of Dr.Sleep, it seems to be just introducing the book