Four Past Midnight-Stephen King

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Melody Rose Mr. Miralles English 3 4/6/15 Four Past Midnight by Stephen King is a volume of four short stories: “The Lagoliers”, “Secret Window, Secret Garden”, “The Library Policeman” and “The Sun Dog”. All of these stories are fictional adventure or horror stories. The most memorable character is mort Rainey from the story “Secret Window, Secret Garden”. He has a very interesting story and role in his own downfall. Mort Rainey is a middle-aged writer who has recently divorced his wife. He had walked in on her and another man in his bed and soon left to live in their summer house near Lake Tashmore, alone with his cat, Bump. In his past, he wrote many books and had his short stories published in magazines. One story, he called “Eye of the Crow”, he had plagiarized from a fellow college student named John Kinter who shared a writing course. For years after, he had waited for John to come to his door and demand that Mort make it right but he never came along. Now after the divorce, he’s become depressed and withdrawn from everyone. He felt that he needed to be punished for the plagiarism of the story so in his own mind, John Shooter was created. Shooter came to his house and accused Mort of copying his story “Secret Window, Secret Garden” and publishing it in a magazine under the title “Sowing Season”. Shooter tormented Mort for a while, first killing his cat then burning his ex-wife’s house to the ground. At the end of the story, Mort realized there was no John Shooter and that he had done all of these horrible things himself. He had killed his only companion, burned his old house and killed two of his closest friends. He became John Shooter and tried to kill his ex-wife which led to his death; another man who was nearby shot him in the head while he tried to cut his wife with a kitchen knife. Mort Rainey is a believable character because sometimes
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