The 2018 horror book The Outsider was written by American author Stephen King. Scribner published the book. The dismembered body of an eleven-year-old kid is discovered in a town park. Fingerprints and eyewitness account definitely identify one of Flint City’s most well-liked residents. Terry Maitland is a spouse, father of two kids, Little League coach, English teacher, and English teacher. Maitland previously coached Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son made the arrest. Maitland has a plausible explanation, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to the fingerprints, witnesses, and other available proof. Their argument looks unbeatable.
King’s compelling narrative picks up speed as the investigation deepens and frightening revelations start to surface, creating intense tension and nearly intolerable suspense. Although Terry Maitland appears like a kind guy, is there another side to him? You’ll be shocked by the response in the way that only Stephen King can.
1. “Thought only gives the world an appearance of order to anyone weak enough to be convinced by its show.” -Stephen King
This book’s opening epigraph is taken from Colin Wilson’s essay “The Country of the Blind.” The idea is that the universe is chaotic below a thin veneer of apparent order imposed by human reason. This is especially pertinent to Ralph’s portrayal because he depends too heavily on that surface to understand the world and, as a result, makes crucial errors.
2. “Reality is thin ice, but most people skate on it their whole lives and never fall through until the very end. We did fall through, but we helped each other out. We’re still helping each other.”-Stephen King
The quotation above discusses the idea of change, a concept that has persisted in civilization. In his novel “The Outsider,” Stephen King created a situation in which ideologies shift as a result of a single event to illustrate how ideologies may alter. The Outsider himself, a being that could never have existed according to logic, was the element of change. Ralph was aware that his atheistic ideas would be undermined and that his reality would fundamentally transform the instant he came into contact with such a power. In fact, the reality is unstable and relative depending on how one observes it. The movie “The Outsider” eloquently illustrated this idea.
3. “He felt that if they did get out of here, he could drink daylight like water.”-Stephen King
Every human has a fundamental longing for freedom, which in “The Outsider” developed into an insatiable desire. Ralph dreamt of being let free from his captivity. Ralph’s yearning to see the light above ground developed into a human instinct while he was trapped under a cave, demonstrating the value of freedom.
4. “He realized something else, as well. He was angry, probably angrier than he’d ever been in his life, and as they turned onto Main Street and headed for the Flint City police station, he made himself a promise: come fall, maybe even sooner, the man in the front seat, the one he’d considered a friend, was going to be looking for a new job. Possibly as a bank guard in Tulsa or Amarillo.”-Stephen King
Terry was in a position to feel every strand of betrayal and wrath towards the man who had destroyed his life by orchestrating a public arrest on him for a crime he did not commit. Betrayal makes one feel angry. Terry believed that seeking retribution was his best option, although not aware that Ralph likewise acted as a result of feeling betrayed by the person he trusted with his son.
5. “I would like to believe in God,” she said, “because I don’t want to believe we just end, even though it balances the equation—since we came from blackness, it seems logical to assume that it’s to blackness we return. But I believe in the stars and the infinity of the universe. That’s the great Out There. Down here, I believe there are more universes in every fistful of sand because infinity is a two-way street. I believe there are another dozen thoughts in my head lined up behind each one I’m aware of. I believe in my consciousness and my unconscious, even though I don’t know what those things are. And I believe in A. Conan Doyle, who had Sherlock Holmes say, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”-Stephen King
The above quote exemplifies how paradoxical belief and disbelief are. After a man approached Jeanie Anderson in her kitchen, she came to the realization that the supernatural could only be seen if it manifested itself before her eyes. She knew it existed because she had experienced it. She had always denied the existence of the supernatural, but after running into The Outsider, she began to wonder. Jeanie was aware that The Outsider had challenged everything she held dear, and it had helped her make sense of the notion that a God might exist—something that defied reason and simultaneously frightened her.
6. “A person did what a person could, whether it was setting up gravestones or trying to convince twenty-first-century men and women that there were monsters in the world, and their greatest advantage was the unwillingness of rational people to believe.”-Stephen King
In “The Outsider,” Stephen King explored how a lack of faith affects the administration of justice. The aforementioned quotation demonstrates how unwillingly humans adopt ideas about which they are ignorant or powerless. The Outsider understood that people would never believe the concept of a supernatural being that could change into others and perform a horrible crime, so he used this lack of belief as his greatest weapon.
7. “Strip away the metaphors, Jeannie had said, and you are left with the inexplicable. The supernatural. Only that’s not possible. The supernatural may exist in books and movies, but not in the real world.”-Stephen King
Ralph’s wife, Jeanie, advised him to have a tiny bit of faith in things he couldn’t explain with reason alone, but he still struggled to accept that there might be some sort of supernatural force at work. Though he was atheistic, the guilt he knew would come with acknowledging the existence of greater power was what kept him from wanting to recognize the supernatural.
8. “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”-Stephen King
We refer to the possible and the impossible as the result of the world’s rigorous rules. We can have an existence that complies with these principles if this boundary is drawn. What occurs, though, is when the line we currently perceive as solid disappears. Ralph’s distinction between the feasible and impossible did begin to blur, and he was forced to concede that the truth must remain when the impossible is removed.
9. “People are blind to explanations that lie outside their perception of reality.”-Stephen King
Change is difficult, and it’s much more difficult to accept a change that goes against your beliefs, but what do you do when the change matches your reservations exactly? Ralph was hesitant to respond because he understood that if he admitted to the existence of a creature like The Outsider, Terry’s death would be directly attributable to him. Ralph refused to acknowledge that someone else was accountable for Frankie’s death, and the innocent man died as a result of his refusal.
10. “Until the real killer of Frank Peterson was found—if he ever was—the people of Flint city were going to believe that Terry Maitland had gamed the system and gotten away with murder.”-Stephen King
An accusation usually sticks around once it has been made, often even after the accused has been legally cleared. Over 1,000 sequences will be shown instead of the contradicting evidence in Terry’s case in the courtroom, mirroring Ralph’s concentration on empirical proof.
11. “It was no dream she said. Dreams fade. Reality doesn’t.”-Stephen King
There was a fine line between reality and dreams in “The Outsider.” Jeanie was aware that what she had gone through was not a sensation she had imagined. Reality sticks in one’s mind like a sore thumb and Jeanie’s meeting with The Outsider caused her to become excessively anxious and terrified. She came to the conclusion that it couldn’t have been a dream.
12. “Doesn’t look like a monster, does he?’
‘They rarely do.”-Stephen King
This conversation sets up Holly’s claim that outsiders are no more comprehensible than serial killers like Ted Bundy. Ralph acknowledges Terry as a monster but disregards the Outsider’s evidence since it goes against his sense of order. In a profoundly satirical way, the description of Terry as a “monster” plays on the figurative use of the word; despite Ralph’s ignorance, the Outsider is indeed a monster that doesn’t look like one.
13. “Dreams are the way we touch the unseen world.”-Stephen King
Dreams serve as a portal to the vast, uncharted subconscious world. Does a dream exist solely for the mind to remove all doubt, or may dreams be real? This query was subtly posed in “The Outsider.” In the book, Jeanie and Grace both encounter entities but then wake up sound and healthy as if they were dreaming; this raises the question of whether the subconscious is involved.
14. “He’s with kids all the time, for Christ’s sake. Young boys. If he killed one of them, never mind losing our jobs, we’d never forgive ourselves.” -Stephen King
Samuels uses the possibility that Terry would harm another child. As one of his justifications for wanting Ralph to detain him right now. Samuels further implies that they would feel bad. If another kid died and Terry hadn’t been arrested. Furthermore, they most likely would lose their jobs.
The poor boy would have to endure the humiliation for the entirety. Of the following middle school year if Terry lifted him for a pinch hitter. On the other hand, if he succeeded in getting a single. He would always remember it over beers and backyard barbecues.