46
Populär Culture Review
Suddenly something wizzed over Mort’s shoulder, just
missing his head. The orange. As Mort cringed back, the
orange struck the blackboard, burst open with a rotten
squashing sound, and splattered göre across what had been
written there. ... Shooter dipped into his bag again. What’s the
matter? Shooter asked in his calm, Stern voice. Don ’t you
recognize blood oranges when you see them? What kind o f
writer are you? He threw another one. It splattered crimson
across Mort’s name and began to drip slowly down the wall.
No more! Mort screamed, but Shooter dipped slowly,
implacably, into the bag again. ...; blood began to sweat its
way onto the orange’s skin in pinprick droplets. No more! No
more! Please! No more! Admit it, I ’ll admit anything,
everything, ifyou just stop. (King, Window 275-76)
In contrast to the first two dreams, the focus of this third dream has
shifted from Mort’s private life and his interaction with Amy to Mort’s
Professional life and the unavoidable interaction with John Shooter. Due to
dream condensation, distortion, and displacement the manifest dream-thoughts
“seem disconnected, confused, and meaningless” (Freud, Dreams 19). A closer
look, however, shows that the domineering dream-thought of the “secret garden”
links the three dreams with each other.
Instead of the vast comfield, Mort is now sitting in a classroom. As the
farmer sows com seeds onto a field in Order to harvest comcobs in the fall, John
Shooter plants seeds of unease and repressed knowledge into Mort in the
classroom of the “SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS” reminding Mort of the
publication of his short story “Sowing Season.” In this sense, John Shooter
reduces Mort, the established writer, to a Student. He forces Mort to reflect upon
his former Student life and to answer the question, “ What kind o f writer are
y o u T (King, Window 215).
Since this question has been occupying Mort’s mind for a long time,
Shooter’s articulation of the same spurs Mort’s already existing identity
confusion and fear of ego liquidation even more. It indirectly illustrates Mort’s
weakness and Shooter’s power. In regard to this dream, Stephen King expresses
the juxtaposition of weakness versus power and life versus death in three ways:
First, via the positioning of Shooter and Mort in the classroom; second, through
Shooter’s aggression towards Mort; third via Mort’s uncontrolled screams for
help.
The fact that Shooter sits behind Mort, but yet is able to read the title of
Mort’s short story written on the board Supports our analysis and illustrates
Shooter’s unearthly power to see through things as well as Mort’s vague, almost
transparent and fading existence. Furthermore, Shooter’s removed position
suggests that some hidden secret has re-emerged from Mort’s unconscious and
now occupies the young man’s mind to the extent that it provokes what the