Hello! I've recently started reading Stephen King, and have only currently read The Shining and Pet Semetary. After finishing PS I had so many questions and kept thinking about the book, and after a while I found this message board and joined. I recently tweeted to SK in the hope of getting a reply about my question on if Norma really did cheat on Jud as Gage says so in the last pages of the book or if its a lie. I hope this is the right place for this and the tweet I sent is below but wondered if anyone had any answers for me.
I have a quick question and have a small hope of getting an answer. I recently finished Pet Semetary and I just couldn't figure out if Norma really did cheat on Jud as 'Gage' said so. The passage was so harrowing and it seemed so out of character for Norma who up until that point was a sweet old lady baking cookies. On the one hand the previous resurrected, the Baterman boy is said to speak the truth; when he reveals Jud frequented a whore house out of town. On the other it has to torment its victims with its worst fears, in Jud’s case it was originally that Norma would discover his infidelities, but the second time the creature cant reuse this so it has to move on to other things and since Norma is now dead the best way to do this is to make Jud doubt her, the cheating, the fact she’s in hell still suffering from her arthritis. It seems to only torment it’s victims with the truth when it is has to. It couldn’t in the form of Timmy torment Jud or his friends with something they hadn’t done as this would have had no effect. Norma’s death seems to allow the Wendigo to use Jud’s worse fears tenfold since Jud can never be certain by talking to Norma and involves not his actions directly (Maybe her cheating is a response to his visits to the brothel?) but those of his dead wife’s. The doubts I have relate to a few details mentioned earlier in the book, one is the sexualisation of Norma when he mentions to Louis that if he had seen her when she was younger he wouldn’t have been able to help himself, perhaps like his friends who couldn’t help themselves? What should give me some closure is Jud’s last words of being tricked one last time; but tricked how? Tricked by the lies of Gage, tricked by Norma, tricked into being the agent that initiated the events that led to his death? I simply had too many doubts about what the truth is and hoped you could clarify it somehow. Cheers
I have a quick question and have a small hope of getting an answer. I recently finished Pet Semetary and I just couldn't figure out if Norma really did cheat on Jud as 'Gage' said so. The passage was so harrowing and it seemed so out of character for Norma who up until that point was a sweet old lady baking cookies. On the one hand the previous resurrected, the Baterman boy is said to speak the truth; when he reveals Jud frequented a whore house out of town. On the other it has to torment its victims with its worst fears, in Jud’s case it was originally that Norma would discover his infidelities, but the second time the creature cant reuse this so it has to move on to other things and since Norma is now dead the best way to do this is to make Jud doubt her, the cheating, the fact she’s in hell still suffering from her arthritis. It seems to only torment it’s victims with the truth when it is has to. It couldn’t in the form of Timmy torment Jud or his friends with something they hadn’t done as this would have had no effect. Norma’s death seems to allow the Wendigo to use Jud’s worse fears tenfold since Jud can never be certain by talking to Norma and involves not his actions directly (Maybe her cheating is a response to his visits to the brothel?) but those of his dead wife’s. The doubts I have relate to a few details mentioned earlier in the book, one is the sexualisation of Norma when he mentions to Louis that if he had seen her when she was younger he wouldn’t have been able to help himself, perhaps like his friends who couldn’t help themselves? What should give me some closure is Jud’s last words of being tricked one last time; but tricked how? Tricked by the lies of Gage, tricked by Norma, tricked into being the agent that initiated the events that led to his death? I simply had too many doubts about what the truth is and hoped you could clarify it somehow. Cheers