Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated (130 page)

15. Take a look at the tarot reading Walter does for Roland in the golgotha. How many of these cards are from the traditional tarot deck? Are there any others that seem to be versions of traditional cards? Which cards did King create anew? Which ones actually come from other sources? (Hint: Take a look at T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land.”) What is your interpretation of this reading? Why do you think Walter burns the card of Life?

16. At the front of the revised edition of
The Gunslinger
(2003), King adds a quote from Thomas Wolfe’s novel
Look Homeward, Angel.
(This quote did not appear at the front of the previous edition.) What emotions does this quote arouse in us? Why do you think King added it? Does it affect your interpretation of the novel?

1. How does King’s writing style change between
The Gunslinger
and
The Drawing of the Three
? What about his storytelling process? What are the strengths of each approach?

2. In the prologue of
The Drawing of the Three,
Roland has a dream in which he becomes the human embodiment of Walter’s tarot card the Sailor. Why does he consider this a good dream? What is actually happening to him, and with what results? Do you believe that this is an existential punishment for his previous actions, a violent joke played upon him by the Man in Black, or simply a chance event?

3. What is
ka,
and how does it affect Roland’s life? Does it seem to imply predestination? Are human beings trapped by
ka,
or do we retain free will?

4. Describe the three magic doors. How do they work? Does
ka
have anything to do with their existence?

5. What disembodied voices echo inside Roland’s mind? What part do they play in Roland’s internal monologue/dialogue? Are they forces for good or for ill? In turn, how does Roland
become
a voice in the minds of other people? Does this affect your interpretation of the voices inside Roland’s consciousness?

6. Unlike the action of
The Gunslinger,
which takes place in Roland’s world, much of the action of
The Drawing of the Three
takes place in our world. In fact, many of Eddie’s problems, and most of Detta/Odetta’s problems, have their roots in U.S. culture and U.S. history. What social, economic, and cultural problems of 1980s America touched Eddie Dean’s life? What long-range effect did the Vietnam War have upon Henry Dean and, in turn, upon Eddie? How did racial hatred, segregation, and then the Civil Rights Movement affect Odetta Holmes’s life? What about Detta Walker’s?

7. Why is Eddie Dean willing to put his life at risk for his brother, Henry? Does Henry deserve this kind of loyalty?

8. What, in Roland’s treatment of Eddie, shows that Roland comes from a warrior culture, not our culture? What part does patriarchal lineage play in gunslinger culture? Why would this be especially alien to Eddie?

9. Some warriors cultivate battle frenzy, using this altered state of consciousness to achieve feats that would otherwise be almost impossible. A famous historical example of this phenomenon can be found in the Norse berserkers. What is Roland’s battle frenzy like? What about Eddie’s? Is
frenzy
the right word?

10. Why did Odetta’s father refuse to tell her about his past? What metaphor does King use to describe Dan Holmes’s protective silence? How does Dan Holmes’s treatment of his past contribute to Odetta’s fragmentation?

11. How does Roland help to cure Odetta? Why is his timing so significant?

12. Were Jack Mort’s attacks upon Odetta racially motivated?

13. How does Roland assess the people of our world—both those he sees on the plane and those he deals with while controlling Jack Mort’s body? What does this say about the difference between a world that has “moved on” and one that has not?

14. The second section of
The Drawing of the Three
(the one immediately following “The Prisoner”) is entitled “Shuffle.” One of the images that King is conjuring is that of a cardsharp, shuffling a deck of cards. Why does King use this image? What kind of deck is being shuffled? What event, from
The Gunslinger,
does this remind us of? Why is the final section of the book entitled “Final Shuffle”?

15. The verb
to draw
has many meanings and can be used in many contexts. Roland, Eddie, and Detta all draw guns. Roland draws his two companions into his world. However, the verb
to draw
can also be used to describe the action of drawing poison from a wound so that the wound can heal. What role does this kind of drawing play in
The Drawing of the Three
?

16. What role does Jake play in this novel? Why is this so significant in terms of Roland’s development?

1. Between the end of
The Drawing of the Three
and the beginning of
The Waste Lands,
the relationships among Roland, Susannah, and Eddie shift. Describe these changes. What causes them? Does Eddie now trust Roland? Does Susannah?

2. What is the gunslinger litany? What worldview does it imply—from what a gunslinger should honor to how he/she should attack his/her enemies?

3. In what ways are Roland’s new friends much like his deadly old friends? What happened to those old friends? Do you think the same fate awaits Roland’s new friends?

4. What is
ka-tet
? How do the forces of
ka-tet
bind individuals together, and how do they ultimately bind a society together?

5. Describe the metaphysical map that Roland draws at the beginning of the novel. What is its linchpin? What sits upon its circumference? What forces hold the world together? What part did the Great Old Ones play in the devising of this map? Do you think that the forces described there predate them? Why or why not? Does this map describe the actual origins of the world or of the linked worlds? What role did North Central Positronics play in the making of this world, or in the remaking of it?

6. What are the Drawers? Are they objective places—places that you could find on a map—or is their existence more subjective? Have you encountered any such places in your life? If so, what are they? Do you have a special term for such places?

7. What paradox tears Roland’s mind apart at the outset of the novel? What causes it? What eases his suffering? Why is this significant?

8. What voices does Jake hear in the Vacant Lot, just before he sees the Rose? What happens to him when he actually sees this flower? How does Jake’s vision of the Rose differ from Eddie’s vision of the Tower amid its sea of roses?

9. What is the White?

10. While contemplating the rose, Jake sees that it grows out of alien purple grass. Roland sees the same purple grass during his vision in the golgotha, at the end of
The Gunslinger.
Why does King seem to want us to compare these otherwise dissimilar visions? What is he telling us about the nature of the Rose?

11. What is the difference between Jake’s door, labeled
The Boy,
and the beach doors?

12. The scene in which Roland and his new
ka-tet
cross the bridge into Lud eerily echoes the passage in
The Gunslinger
where Jake falls to his death. Compare these two scenes. What do they tell us about the changes happening within Roland?

13. The third book of the Dark Tower series takes its title from T. S. Eliot’s long poem “The Waste Land.” Two themes that thread through Eliot’s poem are fragmentation and alienation—the fragmentation of modern culture and its inevitable loss of meaning, and the sense of alienation that individuals experience in reaction to this. (It must be remembered that “The Waste Land” was written in the aftermath of World War I, when Europe was still in shock over the death and destruction caused by modern weaponry.) How does King’s novel reflect these themes? How does this fragmentation extend to the psyches of the characters themselves, and even to the computerized personalities of machines?

14. In his notes on “The Waste Land,” T. S. Eliot stated that he was extremely influenced by the Grail legend. What is the legend of the Grail? Do you think it influenced Stephen King when he wrote
The Waste Lands
?

15. Eleven dimensions, worlds made out of vibrating strings, parallel universes
that contain alternative versions of you . . . sounds like another Dark Tower book? It’s not, but it does seem as though the scientific community is finally taking Jake Chambers seriously. There
are
other worlds than these. For a fascinating description of string theory (and as a way to begin discussing the similarities between contemporary physics and the multiple worlds of the Dark Tower series), visit the following Web sites:
www.pbs.org/nova/elegant
(a terrific introduction),
www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/parallelunitrans.shtml
(another great introduction),
http://superstringtheory.com
(for brave folks who are used to technical language),
www.scientificamerican.com
(in the “search” section, type
Parallel Universes
).

1. Why, do you think, did the Great Old Ones build Blaine? What purpose did he serve in their world? What do you imagine the Old Ones’ world was like?

2. While riding in Blaine, Eddie thinks to himself,
Not
all
is silent in the halls of the dead and the rooms of ruin. Even now some of the stuff the Old Ones left behind still works. And that’s really the horror of it, wouldn’t you say? Yes. The exact horror of it.
How does Eddie’s statement prefigure the coming action? Does his observation hold true for the first three novels of the series?

3. What is a thinny? What effect does it have on those near it? Is it alive? How does the image of the thinny help to bridge the two parts of
Wizard and Glass
—the section that takes place in Topeka and the one that takes place in Hambry?

4. Why does Roland say that in Hambry “the waters on top and the waters down below seemed to run in different directions”?

5. 
Ka
is a wheel; its one purpose is to turn and (inevitably) repeat. In what ways have we seen the wheel of
ka
turn so far in the series?

6. What is the story of Lord Perth, which we learned about in
The Waste Lands?
How did that myth play out in the novel? How does it continue to resonate throughout
Wizard and Glass
? Do you think the theme of the Lord Perth tale is also one of the themes of the Dark Tower series?

7. Who is Rhea of the Cöos? What role does she play in the novel? How does she compare to Roland’s other major enemies—the Man in Black and Sylvia Pittston? If Rhea had been a male character, would she have been as convincing or as formidable? Why or why not?

8. What is the Wizard’s Rainbow? What do we know about it? How many of the balls are still in existence, and why are they said to be alive and hungry? What is the relationship between the White, which Roland and the other gunslingers serve, and the spectrum of colors that make up the Wizard’s Rainbow?

9. The imagery surrounding Maerlyn’s Grapefruit is often sexual; even its color is described as “labial pink.” Why does King use this imagery? What is the relationship between the Grapefruit and emotions such as desire, jealousy, and vengeance? How do these emotions drive the action of Roland’s Hambry adventure? How did they begin his journey into manhood, even down to the early winning of his guns?

10. How does Roland’s experience of Maerlyn’s Grapefruit differ from that of
the other people who have it in their possession? Why do you think this is so? What visions does Roland have while the ball is in his possession? How does the ball lead to his downfall?

11. The tale of Hambry begins under a Kissing Moon and ends under a Demon Moon. Why is this significant? How does the transition from one of these moons to the other reflect the darkening of the novel’s atmosphere?

12. At the beginning of the Hambry portion of
Wizard and Glass,
Susan Delgado must “prove” her honesty. What does this mean? In what other ways does Susan continue to prove her honesty throughout the book? What other characters prove themselves to be honest? Which characters prove to be dishonest?

13. 
For if it is
ka,
it’ll come like a wind, and your plans will stand before it no more than a barn before a cyclone.
In what ways have we seen Pat Delgado’s description of
ka
hold true, both in this novel and in the three preceding ones?

14. How would you describe Cuthbert Allgood? What does Roland love about him? What about him angers Roland? In what ways is he like Eddie? Is this similarity also
ka
?

15. What do you think the relationship is between Walter (also known as the Man in Black), Marten, Flagg, Fannin, and Maerlyn? What part do these nasty characters play in this novel?

16. In what ways does gunslinger culture actually inflame the rebellion led by Farson?

17. When Roland first meets Susan Delgado, King tells us, “Roland was far from the relentless creature he would eventually become, but the seeds of that relentlessness were there—small, stony things that would, in their time, grow to trees with deep roots . . . and bitter fruit.” Why does King tell us this? Do you agree with this assessment of Roland’s character?

18. Where do we see the
sigul
of the open, staring eye? Why is it so sinister? How does it connect Hambry, Topeka, and the Green Palace? What does it tell us about Roland’s world?

1. In his author’s note, Stephen King acknowledges the influence that several films and film directors have had upon the Dark Tower series. Most notably, he mentions Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood
(A Fistful of Dollars; For a Few Dollars More; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly),
and Akira Kurosawa’s classic
The Seven Samurai.
He also gives credit to John Sturges’s 1960 Western (a remake of the Kurosawa film),
The Magnificent Seven.
Can you describe the influence that any or all of these films have had upon the Dark Tower series as a whole and upon
Wolves of the Calla
in particular?