The Stand by Stephen King

First published: 1978

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Fantasy

Time of plot: June 13, 1980, and after

Locale: North America, principally the United States

Principal characters

• Stuart Redman, an easygoing Texan in his mid-thirties
• Frances Goldsmith, a pregnant college student from Maine in her early twenties
• Harold Lauder, a social outcast teenager from the same town as Goldsmith
• “Mother” Abagail Freemantle, an elderly African American from Nebraska, who gathers the forces of good in Boulder, Colorado
• Randall Flagg, an ageless demoniac being who gathers the forces of evil in Las Vegas, Nevada
• Charlie D. Campion, the original carrier of the superflu
• Nadine Cross, a virginal teacher from Vermont destined to become the wife of Randall Flagg
• Glen Bateman, a retired sociology professor from New Hampshire
• Kojak, an Irish setter who, after his owner dies, stays with Bateman
• Nick Andros, a deaf-mute drifter from Arkansas
• Tom Cullen, a mildly retarded, illiterate man in his thirties from Oklahoma
• Ralph Brentner, a midwestern farmer in his forties who is skilled with tools and machinery
• Donald Merwin Elbert (Trashcan Man), an Indiana pyromaniac and schizophrenic who has a savant talent for destruction and destructive devices
• Lloyd Henreid, a petty criminal in his thirties from Nevada who becomes Flagg’s second-in-command
• Peter Goldsmith-Redman, infant son of Frances Goldsmith, the first living human being to contract the virus and survive

The Story:

Charles D. Campion, a soldier working in a military biological weapons facility, discovers that the containment measures securing one of the base’s weapons have been breached. Campion narrowly eludes the lockdown that follows and escapes the base, where people are already dying of the plague they have unleashed, an augmented strain of influenza known as superflu or Captain Trips. Campion flees home to pick up his wife and daughter and drives them east from California. He does not realize that he was infected by the superflu before he managed to flee the base.

Campion travels across the country, infecting many people. Roughly 99.4 percent of the human population is susceptible to the virus, and everyone infected by it dies. The other 0.6 percent are completely immune; on them, the virus has no effect. Finally, after stops in many states, Campion crashes his car into a gas station in a small town in Texas. He dies on the way to the hospital.

The medical examiner cannot determine what killed Campion and calls the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. Federal officials quarantine the small town of Arnett, Texas, while the military escorts the survivors to the CDC in Atlanta. Stuart Redman, an East Texas plant worker, ends up quarantined in Stovington, Vermont, after a brief stay in Atlanta. He is one of those who are immune to the disease. Doctors try to determine why he is immune in the hope of making a vaccine. After days of tests, the lone survivor at the CDC facility in Vermont is Redman.

Leaving the CDC, Redman roams New England, meeting Glen Bateman (a retired New Hampshire sociology professor) and Kojak, an Irish setter. The three travel together toward a farmhouse in Nebraska to which they are drawn by dreams of an old woman (Mother Abagail) sitting on her front porch. About half of the survivors of Captain Trips are having these dreams of the old woman. They travel toward Nebraska and the farmhouse from all over the United States. The travelers begin to find each other on the road, and they form groups to travel together safely. Redman, Bateman, and Kojak join Harold Lauder—a teenage social outcast—and Frances Goldsmith—a pregnant young lady in her early twenties. Harold and Frances are the only survivors from Ogunquit, Maine.

In New York City, Larry Underwood, a singer, meets Rita Blakemoor, a wealthy socialite and cocaine addict. They decide to travel together, but Blakemoor dies from a drug overdose, leaving Underwood alone. Underwood makes his way to Maine, where he meets Nadine Cross, a virginal teacher destined to become the wife of Randall Flagg, and a young boy she calls Joe. Before leaving Ogunquit, they see signs that Lauder has painted indicating that he and Goldsmith are going to Stovington. On the way to Vermont, the party of three meets others traveling toward what they hope is a place of sanctity.

Meanwhile, Nick Andros (a deaf-mute drifter from Arkansas on his way to Nebraska) finds Tom Cullen, a mildly retarded man, in Oklahoma. Later, the two men find Ralph Brentner, a farmer who seems to understand tools and machinery, on a stretch of highway somewhere between Oklahoma and Nebraska. These three travelers meet others who eventually become what Andros perceives as his family. Andros leads his group to Nebraska and Mother Abagail. Together, the parties of Redman, Andros, Underwood, and many others then set out for Boulder, Colorado, led by Mother Abagail.

While these groups are gravitating toward Mother Abagail and Boulder, other groups are traveling toward Randall Flagg and Las Vegas. Flagg, known by many names, is the counterpart of Mother Abagail, a beacon who appears in the dreams of the other half of the survivors. The people who are drawn toward Flagg are not pure in thought, deed, or heart; they crave power and destruction. One of them is Donald Merwin Elbert, a pyromaniac and schizophrenic who has a savant talent for sowing destruction and creating destructive devices. Known as the Trashcan Man, Elbert sets fire to oil tanks and cities just because he can. When he arrives in Las Vegas, Elbert receives a black stone with a red flaw, to symbolize his allegiance to Flagg. Flagg instructs Elbert to search the desert for weapons and to assist in arming fighter jets at a nearby military base.

While the Trashcan Man makes his way to Las Vegas, Flagg rescues Lloyd Henreid from a Phoenix jail cell. Henreid, along with a partner, is responsible for a series of murders across three states. Police captured Henreid and fatally shot his partner. The superflu has killed everyone in the jail, and Heinreid is slowly starving to death and desperate to escape. Flagg makes Henreid his second-in-command and gives him a black stone with a red flaw. Henreid oversees the day-to-day operations that Flagg plans. He is privy to the knowledge that there is a day of reckoning coming between the people in Las Vegas and the ones in Boulder. The survivors in Boulder are striving to rebuild society as it existed, and the survivors in Las Vegas seek to destroy them.

In Boulder, the followers of Mother Abagail form the Free Zone Committee. Mother Abagail says that Bateman, Brentner, Redman, and Underwood must go to Las Vegas to confront Flagg. Kojak decides to go with the four men. Along the way, Redman breaks his leg and must stay behind, while the others continue to Las Vegas; Kojak stays behind with Redman. He hunts small animals for Redman to eat. The three others continue, then meet forces of Flagg who take them into Las Vegas. The captured men have a choice: serve Flagg and live, or deny Flagg and die. Bateman dies by a single bullet fired by Henreid at Flagg’s insistence.

The Trashcan Man, in the meantime, has a schizophrenic episode and destroys almost everything and everyone at the military base, including the pilots. When he realizes what he has done, he goes into the desert to find something very special to bring back to Flagg to make up for it. He finds a nuclear bomb, which he attaches to his all-terrain vehicle (ATV). He travels back toward Las Vegas with the nuclear weapon in tow, but he contracts radiation sickness from his proximity to it. Out of his mind with the sickness and overjoyed at the prospect at how happy Flagg will be at his discovery, Elbert drives the bomb into the heart of the city. Everyone has gathered in front of a casino, at the behest of Flagg, to watch the executions of the two men from Boulder.

At that precise moment, everyone in the crowd sees what appears to be a giant hand forming in the sky—the Hand of God. As they watch, the Hand descends and activates the warhead. Everything is destroyed, with one exception: the embodiment of evil, Randall Flagg. In Boulder, everyone sees the giant mushroom cloud as it ascends into the sky. Redman and Kojak see it as well. Tom Cullen, who had been a spy in Las Vegas with a posthypnotic suggestion to leave at a certain time, was on his way back to Boulder when he saw the cloud.

Cullen finds Redman and Kojak on the road toward home; Redman has a high fever. They spend much of the winter holed up in a lodge while Cullen nurses Redman back to health. After many hardships, they end up walking the last few miles into Boulder. In Boulder, Redman finds out that Goldsmith has given birth to a boy she named Peter Goldsmith-Redman; he contracts the superflu but survives, indicating that he has partial immunity. Boulder has become what Redman sees as an organized civilization, much like what was wiped out during the epidemic; he wants no part of it.

When winter is over, some of Redman’s friends have decided to travel to Mexico, maybe farther, to see if any people survive in that area of the world. Goldsmith wants to go home to Maine to raise her son, so she and Redman begin the journey back to Maine, stopping at the farmhouse in Nebraska for a while. They ponder the question of whether or not humankind will repeat the same colossal mistakes that destroyed the world as they knew it; no answer is forthcoming.

Bibliography

Beahm, George. Stephen King: From A to Z—An Encyclopedia of His Life and Work. Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel, 1998. Examines King’s life as a publishing marvel who has published more than forty books. Complete with photos.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Stephen King. New York: Chelsea House, 1998. Collection of essays by scholars in the field, who examines most of King’s works from a variety of critical perspectives.

Hoppenstand, Gary, and Ray B. Browne, eds. Gothic World of Stephen King: Landscape of Nightmares. Madison, Wis.: Popular Press, 1987. Analyzes King’s interpretations and his mastery of popular literature.

Magistrale, Tony. A Casebook on “The Stand.” Mercer Island, Wash.: Starmont House, 1992. Collects scholarly essays on issues raised by The Stand; includes political, theological, and philosophical readings of the text.

Russell, Sharon A. Stephen King: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996. Interpretive overview of King’s oeuvre. Includes a complete bibliography of all King’s work, critical sources, and a listing of reviews of the novels examined in depth.

Spignesi, Stephen J. ShapeUnder the Sheet: The Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Popular Culture, Ink, 1991. Includes an eighteen-thousand-entry concordance to every character, location, and physical object mentioned in King’s novels and short stories.

Wiater, Stan, Christopher Golden, and Hank Wagner. The Complete Stephen King Universe: A Guide to the Worlds of Stephen King. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2006. Details the scope and interconnections of King’s various realities. Begins with the worlds of The Stand and The Dark Tower (1982-2004).