Title page/ Summary

Javier Rivera

Mr. Whetstone

SSR quarter 2 project

11-23-2013

Sparknotes

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

Summary:

In the story, pet sematary, Louis creed, his wife, and his two kids, Gage and Ellie, move to a small town in Maine where Louis is taking up a position at the university of Maine student medical center as the head doctor and administrator. As they are moving in, they meet their neighbor, Jud Crandall, who warns them to keep their children away from the road due to the trucks always speeding past it, which will be important to keep in mind. Jud and Louis immediately form this bond with each other; having a beer on the porch every night and talking just as friends would do. A little after they start to get settled into their new home, Jud takes them along a path which leads to a pet sematary, spelled with an “s”, where all pets were buried after they died. Soon after this, Ellie starts to fear for her own cat, church, who could very much end up there at that pet sematary one day as well. Louis tries comforting her but soon begins conflict with his wife, Rachel, over her not wanting Louis explaining the concept of death to Ellie at “such a young age”. At his work soon after, Louis confronts a student injured by a collision with another vehicle, Victor Pascow, who soon passes away in front of Louis. Later that night, Victor's spirit leads him to the pet sematary in order to give him a warning; “don't go beyond, no matter how much you feel you need to-the barrier was not made to be broken”. When Louis wakes up the next morning, he shakes it off as a dream but is shocked to find dirt on his feet to indicate that he was outside the other night.

            After Rachel and the kids left to visit her parents in Chicago, Louis was at home watching her cat. As he was sleeping, the cat ran across the road and was hit by a truck late at night. Not wanting to explain this to Ellie, Louis realizes that he has no choice but to break the news to her somehow. Jud, who was very grateful of Louis for helping his wife with her heart attack, decides to repay Louis by taking him up to the pet sematary to bury his cat. He reveals to Louis that the sematary was an Indian burial ground and whatever is buried in the ground, will come back. Later on the next day, the cat returns only something was not quite right with it; it was more violent rather than cheerful, but he does not tell Ellie or his family. As a little bit of time passes, the family head out on a picnic. During the picnic, Gage wanders off and walks over the road. The family notice he’s gone and finally spots him on the road, but they couldn’t get to him in time; he was killed by a truck that was speeding on the road.

            During the funeral, much of the blame was directed towards Louis. Heartbroken and saddened by the loss of his son, Louis did not want to accept that his son was gone forever. Having witnessed the power of the burial ground, he decides to bury Gage in the sematary. Jud warns Louis and tells him he has to accept that Gage is gone forever just as Jud did when his wife passed away, but Louis ignores it. After Louis drops off Rachel and Ellie at the airport to go spend time with her family, he then re-buries Gage. Meanwhile, Rachel was returning to Maine because she was worried about Louis’ behavior and Ellie’s nightmares about him. Unaware of what Louis has done, she goes to Jud’s home to look for him, but, just like Jud, Gage killed her. Louis discovers the bodies and this basically sends him on a psychological breakdown. He killed Gage, and church as well, so he can put an end to all of this. However, after this was all over, he burned Jud’s house down and tries to bury his wife in the burial ground despite everything that has just happened. King is touching on the emotional factors connected to grief and the loss of a loved one which cause us to do just about anything to have them back. His wife soon returns to him as he is sitting in his kitchen and the story ends, but king describes her as “it” when she places her hand on Louis’ shoulder, which causes us to infer that Louis has made a fatal mistake.