- After the Flood (1957)
- After the Carnival (1984)
- Six Phone Calls (1985)
- Derry: The First Interlude
- Ben Hanscom Takes a Fall
- Bill Denbrough Beats the Devil (I)
- One of the Missing: A Tale From the Summer of '58
- The Dam In the Barrens
- Georgie's Room and the House On Neibolt Street
- Cleaning Up
- Derry: The Second Interlude
- The Reunion
- Walking Tours
- Three Uninvited Guests
- Derry: The Third Interlude
- The Apocalyptic Rockfight
- The Album
- The Smoke-Hole
- Eddie's Bad Break
- Another One of the Missing: The Death of Patrick Hockstetter
- The Bullseye
- Derry: The Fourth Interlude
- In the Watches of the Night
- The Circle Closes
- Under the City
- The Ritual of Chud
- Out
- Derry: The Final Interlude
- Epilogue: Bill Denbrough Beats the Devil (II)
Epilogue:
Bill Denbrough Beats the Devil (II)
On his last day staying in Mike's house in Derry, Bill decides to finally try something. He has already forgotten what exactly It was and what happened in the sewers; he just vaguely knows that something has happened to Audra that he must try to fix. And so, he rides out with her on Silver, pedaling wildly into danger, riding to beat the Devil, and like a child, throws all caution to the wind. It works: Audra is revived and despite her surprise, laughs in excitement. Furthermore, Bill discovers that he has also overcome his stammer for good. Much like the Ritual of Chud, the optimism of childhood has overcome the anxieties of adulthood.
The narrative is interspersed with passages of Bill dreaming about leaving Derry and thus saying his final goodbye to this tale. Bill reflects on how childhood may be a wondrous time, but adulthood is even more important because it is what gives meaning to childhood. His childhood influenced his adulthood, and his adulthood influences how he perceives his childhood. It is important to ultimately come of age, to grow as a person, to progress. As this entire novel has shown us, children and adults perceive the world in a vastly different way, neither way is necessarily superior to the other. A child and a grownup are just two different things, and the entire spectrum of human life is seen through that dichotomy. And because one's childhood is perpetually redefined into one's adulthood, life is a wheel.
This is why the novel is structured the way it is: because memory is nonlinear. If we examine our lives in linear progression, we are children first, then adults, and we are mortal. But if we examine our lives in a nonlinear fashion, then we drift between childhood and adulthood, and we are immortal.
In the final paragraphs, the line begins to blur between the story we have been told, the story Bill is dreaming, and the story Bill tells us he will write. King ends his mammoth novel with one final thought: that the act of Remembering as a Dreamer and the act of Creating as a Storyteller are the same, because although Bill may never fully remember the story behind his dreams, he will write the truth in his fiction.
Or so Bill Denbrough sometimes thinks on those early mornings after dreaming, when he almost remembers his childhood, and the friends with whom he shared it.
The narrative is interspersed with passages of Bill dreaming about leaving Derry and thus saying his final goodbye to this tale. Bill reflects on how childhood may be a wondrous time, but adulthood is even more important because it is what gives meaning to childhood. His childhood influenced his adulthood, and his adulthood influences how he perceives his childhood. It is important to ultimately come of age, to grow as a person, to progress. As this entire novel has shown us, children and adults perceive the world in a vastly different way, neither way is necessarily superior to the other. A child and a grownup are just two different things, and the entire spectrum of human life is seen through that dichotomy. And because one's childhood is perpetually redefined into one's adulthood, life is a wheel.
This is why the novel is structured the way it is: because memory is nonlinear. If we examine our lives in linear progression, we are children first, then adults, and we are mortal. But if we examine our lives in a nonlinear fashion, then we drift between childhood and adulthood, and we are immortal.
In the final paragraphs, the line begins to blur between the story we have been told, the story Bill is dreaming, and the story Bill tells us he will write. King ends his mammoth novel with one final thought: that the act of Remembering as a Dreamer and the act of Creating as a Storyteller are the same, because although Bill may never fully remember the story behind his dreams, he will write the truth in his fiction.
Or so Bill Denbrough sometimes thinks on those early mornings after dreaming, when he almost remembers his childhood, and the friends with whom he shared it.