I never deeply thought about the gender of a
cruel monster, did you?
IT, Stephen King
At least everyone has heard of the most famous story of Stephen King,
‘IT’, but something most people don’t know is that the monster itself turns
out to be some giant creature with eight legs and lays eggs. Reading this for
the first time, immediately got me wondering where in the book we get to
know this and what gender the monster has. There is even a group of
people who say that ‘IT’s’ true form is a group of three lights, the so-called
deadlight.
But why does the monster choose the form of a male clown all the time, or
better, why did the author decide to choose the form of a male clown so
frequently?
By my definition, the monster doesn’t have a gender, but why it takes the
shape of a male clown so frequently? Who knows!
The first time you read about the monster from the kids’ perspective it turns out
to shapeshifts into their worst fears, which later forms back into the clown,
Pennywise. Let’s take Ben, one of the Losers, as an example. His worst fear is
zombies. When he was helping his teacher with sorting books, he encountered a
zombie with red balloons somewhere in the library. A little while later in the
book the kids go to the house where the monster is supposed to live. They all
climb into a well which guides them into tunnels under the ground. They come
to the realization that the clown, that they have seen so many times, also takes
the shape of a giant spider and they even find spider eggs. But that’s not it.
When the losers ‘defeated’ the monster they all swore that they will come back
to Derry if it returns. They all move away to different places, except for one of
them, Mike Hanlon. He stays in Derry and while the others remove the trauma
from their memory, he can’t stop thinking about it. He does research and finds
out that the monster comes back every 27 to 28 years, a way to defeat ‘IT’
permanently and that the monster also takes the shape of the so-called
deadlights, the ones mentioned before. 1
Now my question is, is ‘IT’ Male, female, or something completely different?
The complicated thing is that it’s a bit difficult to understand what the original
form of the monster is. Is ‘IT’ the clown everybody knows, or the, not so
familiar, spider or the deadlights?
The answers that others were giving shows how differently everybody thinks
about this.
1
Book: IT, Stephen King
cruel monster, did you?
IT, Stephen King
At least everyone has heard of the most famous story of Stephen King,
‘IT’, but something most people don’t know is that the monster itself turns
out to be some giant creature with eight legs and lays eggs. Reading this for
the first time, immediately got me wondering where in the book we get to
know this and what gender the monster has. There is even a group of
people who say that ‘IT’s’ true form is a group of three lights, the so-called
deadlight.
But why does the monster choose the form of a male clown all the time, or
better, why did the author decide to choose the form of a male clown so
frequently?
By my definition, the monster doesn’t have a gender, but why it takes the
shape of a male clown so frequently? Who knows!
The first time you read about the monster from the kids’ perspective it turns out
to shapeshifts into their worst fears, which later forms back into the clown,
Pennywise. Let’s take Ben, one of the Losers, as an example. His worst fear is
zombies. When he was helping his teacher with sorting books, he encountered a
zombie with red balloons somewhere in the library. A little while later in the
book the kids go to the house where the monster is supposed to live. They all
climb into a well which guides them into tunnels under the ground. They come
to the realization that the clown, that they have seen so many times, also takes
the shape of a giant spider and they even find spider eggs. But that’s not it.
When the losers ‘defeated’ the monster they all swore that they will come back
to Derry if it returns. They all move away to different places, except for one of
them, Mike Hanlon. He stays in Derry and while the others remove the trauma
from their memory, he can’t stop thinking about it. He does research and finds
out that the monster comes back every 27 to 28 years, a way to defeat ‘IT’
permanently and that the monster also takes the shape of the so-called
deadlights, the ones mentioned before. 1
Now my question is, is ‘IT’ Male, female, or something completely different?
The complicated thing is that it’s a bit difficult to understand what the original
form of the monster is. Is ‘IT’ the clown everybody knows, or the, not so
familiar, spider or the deadlights?
The answers that others were giving shows how differently everybody thinks
about this.
1
Book: IT, Stephen King
