FREE ESSAY ON THE STAND

THE STAND

By Stephen King 
Stephen King's The Stand is a thrilling novel that portrays 
the forces of good against evil. In the year 1991, a plague 
strikes America, leaving only a few thousand people alive who are 
immune to the epidemic. Of the survivors, those who serve G-d 
instinctively join in Boulder, Colorado, while those who worship 
the Dark Man are drawn to Las Vegas, Nevada. The two groups 
separately re-build society, until one must destroy the other. 
Franni Goldsmith comes very close to killing herself. She 
thinks she can not deal with her parents' deaths, being unwed and 
pregnant, and having the only other survivor in her hometown of 
Ogunquit, Main be her recently deceased best friend's weird brother 
Harold Lauder. Fran puts aside her personal feelings for Harold 
aside, and goes with him to the place in her dreams, to Boulder, 
Colorado. 
On their way, they meet up with six people from various states 
in the United States who joined them on their journey. Fran is 
disturbed by her dreams, as all of them are by their own. She 
dreams of an old lady named Abigail, in Colorado. This lady is 
kind and loving and promises to protect them from the evil. In the 
dreams there is also a Dark Man. He is always there lurking, 
waiting to attack. 
Harold admits to himself that he is in love with Fran and goes 
crazy when he realizes how serious Fran has become with Stuart 
Redman, one of the newcomers to their traveling group. Harold 
becomes insanely jealous and plots to separate them, even if it 
means murder. 
Harold doesn't admit it to any of them, but his dreams are 
different from theirs. In his dreams the Dark Man offers Harold 
power and respect, something Harold could never imagine in the 
past. Harold knows his destiny is to go to Las Vegas. 
The group arrives in Boulder, and soon after are joined by 
over one thousand others who dreamt of Abigail and this place. 
They inevitably form a society where they settled and has meetings 
to decide what they would do about the Dark Man. Abigail tells 
the people that three of them, including Stuart, must be sent to 
destroy the Dark Man. Meanwhile Harold secretly leaves with the 
Dark Man's bride-to-be, Nadine, to Las Vegas. Harold is ready to 
kill Stuart, but is killed instead by the will of G-d. Nadine 
makes it safely to Las Vegas before Stuart and his two companions 
are about to be hanged. Out of the sky the hand of G-d comes and 
destroys the Dark Man sparing the three men. After much 
hardship, Stuart returns to Fran and her newborn son and together 
they plant the seeds of a new society. 
The Stand is a book about human nature. It shows people's 
inclination toward good or evil. Mostly, it shows how it is in 
man's nature to build society and to fight for his beliefs. I 
found this book to be extremely entertaining because it was well 
written and somewhat realistic, despite it's supernatural aspects. 
I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys roller coasters, 
horror movies, or a good old fashioned suspense novel.