Character Analysis

Jud Crandall

           In the story, pet sematary, Jud is the Creed’s new neighbor and friend. Jud Crandall is the one who revealed to Louis the secret of the pet sematary; what you bury in that ground, comes back. This, in turn, reveals to us the lengths a person would go in order to bring back the ones they love because, after he suffered a great loss, Louis risked everything in order to get his son and his wife back. Jud is a much older character who is very friendly to the creeds. In a way, there seems to be a father son connection between Jud and Louis. Louis’ father passed away when he was a child and right when he met Jud he immediately grew this trust and attachment with him. They both are always there for each other and continue throughout the whole story to look out for one another. Jud told Louis of the pet sematary, but, as the story goes on, he soon regrets it. He starts to become wiser and knew that a secret like this would cause Louis to bring back actual people, rather than animals, if he had the chance.  The problem with that is when anything is buried in the ground, they come back evil. Trying to talk Louis out of ever burying his son in that cemetery, it is already too late and he knew that. He knew the extent a person would go to bring their loved ones back if they had the chance to. Jud has had little character development; however, he was an important character in setting up the story into one of its major themes; the inability to accept that death is forever.

Rachel Creed

Rachel Creed, Louis’ wife, can be described as a loving wife and mother to her children, but somewhat hypocritical. As Louis was explaining the concept of death to their daughter Ellie, since she was scared of church dying, Rachel becomes enraged. What he was trying to tell Ellie was that death is a very natural thing and happens to everyone one day, but Rachel felt that it was too short of a time to talk to her about that. To counter this, Louis states that she has talked to the kids about where babies come from and, just like birth, death is very natural. Rachel then angrily says that “there is nothing natural about [death]”. Rachel wants to show the kids things that they should know and things that are natural, yet for the very reason that she does not want to teach Ellie about death, makes her hypocritical in a sense. This example also helps to characterize Rachel Creed as someone who wants power and control over parenting due to her arguing over something that was not much of a big deal to start with. She wants things to be her way. Rachel creed hasn’t developed as a character throughout the story but she does help king assess the emotional aspect and effects of a loss on the entire family. She helps show the consequences of secrecy; a minor theme king links back to throughout some parts of the story.

Louis Creed

In the story, Louis creed is a loving father, good husband to his wife, and an average human being. He is the head doctor and administrator at the university of Maine student medical center. Louis is good father for the most part, but often loses his patience with Ellie which is ironic considering his career choice. He was somewhat able to grow more patience and a stronger bond with Ellie throughout the story, however, he can be characterized as selfish in some things he has done to affect her. After all the event leading up to his wife’s death and him having to kill Gage at the end of the story, he chose to bury his wife in the sematary completely ignoring everything that had just happened. Rather than living for his daughter, he chooses to sacrifice everything and leave her all alone in this world. Louis also felt solely responsible for the three deaths that occurred throughout the story; Church, Gage, and Rachel. This demonstrates the amount of guilt one can have when put into these situations which is crucial in assessing the emotions within the family when dealing with a loss. He went from a being someone who was supposed to protect the whole family, to someone who unintentionally destroys it by his inability to accept death.  The inability to accept it fuels him to carry out these tasks which, to many people, is very disrespectful to the dead and to the rest of their family. With these acts, Louis reveals to the reader the lengths people would cross, if they ever had the opportunity to bring their loved ones back to life.