Themes

1.      “Be able to accept death, no matter how difficult it may be. “

Throughout the story, Pet Sematary, Stephen King depicts his view of humanity through Louis creed, a character faced with difficult obstacles in his life that, when given the opportunity to do so, brings his loved ones back to life despite the fatal consequences. King’s message to the reader is that, though you may go through a difficult loss in your life, you must be able to let go and accept their death because no matter what you do, you can never bring your loved one back to life. The more you are stuck with not being able to cope with death, then the more likely you will be to not be able to function within the present (which results in irrational actions to put yourself in harm’s way). In the story, Louis couldn’t cope with cage’s death. He went through a series of grieving stages; guilt, anger, and sadness. As a father would do, he went through great lengths to get his son back. Despite multiple warnings not to bury his son into the pet semetary, he did it anyway. He was irrational and driven on not being able to cope and accept his son’s death. Since he buried his son in the pet semetary, his son came back; the only problem is it wasn’t really his son, but a demon in his son’s body.  No matter how hard he tries, he can never bring his son back to life. Once releasing this demon, it kills Louis’ wife and Jud; trusted friend and neighbor. One can say that this is just some ending which was put to scare the reader, but symbolically it holds so much more than that. The demon killing his wife and friend is the result of Louis not being able to cope with his son’s death. His own grief is affecting those around him and it’s just hurting his chances of ever moving on from this experience. Of course after he fixes everything, he decides to also bury his wife in the pet semetary despite all that has just happened. After a loss so great, the consequence wasn’t enough to convince him that whatever you put in the ground “isn’t what comes out”. This exemplifies the lengths one would go to bring back their loved ones. More importantly, it all comes back to king’s overall message to the reader; learn to accept death, because, if you are not able to accept it and move on, you’ll only be affecting the ones around you and not being able to think rationally. Life is essentially a game of chess; when you move without truly thinking about what you are doing, you lose. This metaphor works in Louis’ case as well; if he cannot move on from this experience, the results may be fatal due to him letting that same grief, destroy him emotionally and physically.

2.      “Keeping a secret, or even telling a lie, can bring terrible consequences”

            In the story, Pet Sematary, king touches on the consequences of telling secrets throughout a few of the scenes throughout the book, however, those parts clearly demonstrates king’s message to the reader; keeping something hidden, will only make matters worse. After church, Ellie’s cat, was run over by a truck, Louis buried him in the pet sematary to bring church back to life; a secret he keeps from not only Ellie, but his wife Rachel creed. Even after cage, his son, dies, he never told his wife that he buried him in the pet sematary. As he was waiting for cage to come back, Rachel was killed by the demon that possessed cage. This happened due to secrecy because had she known that it was dangerous to be around there, she wouldn’t have been in harm’s way. These effects demonstrate that you should never keep things hidden because there are consequences for doing so; a short theme that Stephen king touches upon throughout the story.