Needful Things

“‘Oh now,’ Mr. Gaunt said, steepling his fingers below his chin and looking at Brian roguishly. ‘With an item like that—and with most of the good things I sell, the really interesting things—that would depend on the buyer. What the buyer would be willing to pay. What would you be willing to pay, Brian?’”

Stephen King’s use of repetition in this passage establishes a sinister, wheedling tone as Mr. Gaunt inveigles Brian to pay a significant price for the object of his desire. Brian’s initial interaction with Mr. Gaunt serves as a primer of sorts, establishing crucial aspects of King’s world-building and emphasizing the transactional nature of Mr. Gaunt’s activities. With his final suggestive question (“What would you be willing to pay?”), Mr. Gaunt also indicates that his items are priced quite dearly indeed, even if the currency is largely intangible. Thus, even at this early stage, King foreshadows the fact that Mr. Gaunt is encouraging the townsfolk to make Faustian bargains.

“The buyer must never tell the seller how much he has! You might as well hand the vendor your wallet, and turn the contents of your pockets on the floor in the bargain! If you can’t tell a lie, then be still! It’s the first rule of fair trade, Brian my boy.”

Part of what makes Mr. Gaunt an effective manipulator is his ability to deceive his customers into believing that he has their best interests at heart. Rather than trying to convince his listeners that capitalism is not evil, Mr. Gaunt shows them how to manipulate the system, and his use of the phrase “fair trade” becomes all the more ironic given that the “trades” conducted in Needful Things are anything but “fair.”

“That interest and anticipation do not change the small-town shopper’s conservative code of conduct, however. Certain things are simply Not Done, particularly not in the tight Yankee enclaves north of Boston.”

By this point in King’s writing career, the oft-employed setting of Castle Rock is so well-defined that the setting itself becomes a character—one that King is essentially set upon “murdering” by the end of the novel. In these early chapters, however, King focuses on building upon the mythos of the town that he has already established in his previous novels, using strategic capital letters to poke fun at the small-town New England codes that dictate behavior and maximize surveillance.

“His weeping was undramatic, silent and exhausted. It seemed that his tears had a lot in common with the possessions of his dead loved ones; you never got to the end of them. There were too many, and just when you started to relax and think that it was finally over, the joint was clean, you found one more. And one more. And one more.”

The plodding tone of this passage articulates the unrelenting nature of grief, emphasizing Alan’s spirit-deep weariness as he continues to mourn the untimely deaths of his wife and son. By comparing the tears of grief to the possessions of lost loved ones, King emphasizes the complex nature of materialism and introduces the idea that people’s most meaningful possessions are largely intangible. Ironically, Mr. Gaunt’s activities soon prove that even the term “possessions” has a double meaning, for the townsfolk do find themselves becoming “possessed” by that which they seek to own.

“For a moment the possibility stunned and excited him, the way a long-term prisoner might be stunned and excited by the sight of the key left in the lock of his jail cell by a careless warder.”

As Hugh begins to fall under Mr. Gaunt’s spell and the vision of self-improvement promised by the fox-tail, he considers a better future, and King employs a strategic metaphor to compare alcohol addiction to a form of imprisonment. In this light, he begins to see Mr. Gaunt as a “careless warder” who might release him from his disease. Entranced by the possibility of escape from the consequences of his own unchecked desires, Hugh ironically shackles himself to Mr. Gaunt’s manipulations.

“Very few people appreciate the beauty of carnival glass these days—most people are just dealers, with cash registers for hearts.”

Mr. Gaunt uses flattery to ingratiate himself to customers, and in this case, he makes an appeal to Nettie, who often feels ostracized from Castle Rock society. Rather than emphasizing her isolation, he recasts it as evidence of her moral superiority, implying that she is different because she is special, not because she is bad. His persuasiveness relies on convincing customers that their transaction in his shop is a way to achieve the best version of themselves.

“She had many such secrets, and kept them all for the same reason: in a war, you held onto every advantage. Some nights she would come home and there might be an hour or even two hours of skirmishing before she was finally able to prod Peter into a full-scale retreat, replacing his white pins on her interior battle-map with her red ones. Tonight the engagement had been won less than two minutes after she stepped inside the door, and that was just fine with Wilma.”

By describing the toxic, antagonistic relationship between Wilma and Peter, King offers a version of domestic abuse in which the wife is the abuser, thereby challenging the more dominant portrayals in popular media. However, because Buster Keeton is equally abusive to his wife, King uses these two abusive characters—Wilma and Buster—to imply that men and women have an equal capacity for abusing their loved ones. This particular passage also illustrates Wilma’s naturally combative nature and foreshadows her violet end.

“She had hung up before Nettie could reply. The cardinal rule governing engagements with the enemy (relatives, neighbors, spouses) was that the aggressor must have the last word.”

In this passage, Wilma continues her path of destruction, viewing Nettie as just another battle to be conquered. With every interaction that Wilma has, it becomes clear that she is at war with the world and sees her adversaries as lesser beings who should never be given a chance to defend themselves. She therefore becomes a prime target for Mr. Gaunt’s manipulations, for she never stops to reconsider her violent actions or pull back from his insidious control.

“She had a momentary certainty—silly, of course, but she couldn’t seem to rid herself of such feelings—that it would be Some Person in Authority, calling to tell her she must give the beautiful lampshade back, that it belonged to someone else, that such a lovely object could not possibly have accrued to Nettie’s little store of possessions in any case, the very idea was ridiculous.”

Nettie lives in a state of paranoia that makes her an easy target for Mr. Gaunt to manipulate. Because she was beaten down by an abusive husband and then by an institution, she is extremely vulnerable to the suggestions and demands of “Some Person in Authority,” believing them to always be superior to herself. Once again, by whimsically capitalizing this phrase, King captures the amorphous nature of Nettie’s conceptualization, suggesting that she has become willing to accept the commands and judgments of others without question.

“Wilma knew that she had cowed her husband, but she had no idea to how great an extent. He did not just live in fear of her; he lived in awe of her, as natives in certain tropical climes once supposedly lived in awe and superstitious dread of the Great God Thunder Mountain, which might brood silently over their sunny lives for years or even generations before suddenly exploding in a murderous tirade of burning lava.”

Though Wilma is abusive, King makes it clear that her husband holds her in strange regard, viewing her violent temper as a phenomenon that is no more to be avoided than a devastating natural disaster. However, by invoking an image of her as a vengeful goddess, King also injects the idea that Peter seeks to appease her, cowed by his own “superstitious dread.” It must also be noted that King’s use of the word “natives” invokes a distinctly colonial gaze, casting Wilma as an impetuous deity who wields power over an allegedly inferior group.

“The lie neither angered nor worried him. There were people who lied for gain, people who lied from pain, people who lied simply because the concept of telling the truth was utterly alien to them… and then there were people who lied because they were waiting for it to be time to tell the truth. He thought that Polly’s lie about Kelton was of this last kind, and he was content to wait. In time, she would decide to show him her secrets. There was no hurry.”

This calm, measured passage reveals the depth of genuine connection and trust that characterizes Alan’s relationship with Polly. Rather than seeking to strip away her secrets, he follows his intuition and allows her to refrain from telling him the true fate of her deceased son, Kelton. He trusts that she is a good person and knows that she must have a good reason for staying guarded. As the narrative reveals the firm bedrock of the two characters’ romance, King suggests that this dynamic will enable them to overcome the strife that is currently overtaking the town.

“He was not yet over the guilt of just being here and knowing where all the dishes and utensils were stored, of knowing which bedroom drawer she kept her nylon hose in, or exactly where her summer tan-lines stopped, but none of it mattered when he heard her voice. There was really only one fact that applied here, one simple fact which ruled all others: the sound of her voice was becoming the sound of home.”

At this point, Alan is still grieving the loss of his wife Annie, who died in a car accident. He now feels tremendous guilt over his relationship with Polly, which has progressed much more quickly than he was anticipating, and although he deeply loves Polly, he must nonetheless contend with the fact that moving on romantically makes him feel disloyal to his wife. By including a cascade of concrete details about Polly, King relays the sense that she is becoming just as dear and real to Alan as his deceased wife once was, and although he clearly benefits from thinking of her voice as “the sound of home,” he must still overcome his guilt over the idea that Annie is no longer a part of his life.

“He knew that doctors are almost as attuned to the body’s language of lies as cops. Patients are almost as apt to lie as suspects, and from the same motive: simple fear. And when Ray saw Annie, he had not been off-duty.”

Alan, distraught after his wife’s death, seeks a medical explanation for what could have caused the car accident that claimed her life. He has some hope that his wife’s history of migraines could have indicated a seizure or tumor. In this passage, Alan trusts Doctor Ray’s professional opinion, confident that he demonstrates the same vigilance toward his patients that Alan demonstrates in the field. The passage also conveys Alan’s belief that his own job is to discern truth from lies, and this is what he will have to do in order to overcome Mr. Gaunt’s influence on Castle Rock.

“The smile was not just friendly; it was a smile of commiseration, and he suddenly understood that he was in the presence of a fellow sufferer. Which just went to show how flaky he was getting around the edges, because when he had shaken Gaunt’s hand, he’d felt a wave of revulsion so sudden and deep it had been like a muscle spasm. For that one moment he had been convinced that he had found his Chief Persecutor. He would have to watch that sort of thing; there was no sense going overboard.”

The initial revulsion that Buster feels toward Mr. Gaunt hints at the proprietor’s supernatural, infernal nature. However, Mr. Gaunt exploits Buster’s paranoia that a group of authoritarian figures called The Persecutors are keeping him under constant surveillance. By claiming that he is also followed by The Persecutors, Mr. Gaunt gains Buster’s trust despite the man’s visceral reaction to his touch.

“Her self-esteem, which had never been very high, plummeted to new depths. She knew as well as any woman ever has that abuse does not have to be administered with the fists to be effective. Men as well as women can wound with their tongues, and Danforth Keeton knew how to use his very well; he had inflicted a thousand invisible cuts on her with its sharp sides over the last year.”

This passage makes it clear that Myrtle is a long-time target of domestic abuse. Danforth “Buster” Keeton is a neglectful and sometimes violent husband, but his preferred weapon is found in his capacity for emotional abuse. The domestic violence of Buster is juxtaposed with that of Wilma, and King makes it clear that both abusers maintain power over their respective spouses through fear.

“I DO NOT ISSUE REFUNDS OR MAKE EXCHANGES CAVEAT EMPTOR!”

The bombastic, aggressive sign in Mr. Gaunt’s shop warns customers that they are responsible for assessing the quality of goods before they purchase them. Ironically, this sign is the most honest aspect of Mr. Gaunt’s business, for although he exerts all of his persuasive wiles to compel them to make poor trades (their souls and their moral integrity in exchange for worthless items), the sign on the front door issues fair warning. The Latin phrase “caveat emptor”—“Let the buyer beware”—also invokes a sense of antiquity, obliquely referring to the fact that Mr. Gaunt has been striking such nefarious bargains for hundreds of years.

“In men like Ace Merrill, the only urge stronger than the urge to dominate is the deep need to roll over and humbly expose the undefended neck when the real leader of the pack puts in an appearance.”

Ace Merrill is a bully and a criminal who first appeared as a local gang leader in King’s novella, The Body. When Ace reappears in Castle Rock partway through Needful Things, Mr. Gaunt finds him easy to manipulate, for Ace is desperate and lives by a predictably immoral code. In Mr. Gaunt, Ace perceives a bully more powerful than he will ever be, and so he eagerly assumes the role of lackey in the hopes that he will get to commit violence beyond his usual limitations.

“Because every choice had consequences. Because in America, you could have anything you wanted, just as long as you could pay for it. If you couldn’t pay, or refused to pay, you would remain needful forever.”

This passage occurs during the scene in which Norris considers his beloved fishing pole, and the nature of the man’s ruminations indicate that just like Polly and Alan, he has a stronger conscience than many of his neighbors and can recognize that what he is doing is wrong. However, Mr. Gaunt’s final threat about the fishing pole is enough to push him over the edge. On a broader level, King also uses this scene to deliver a sharp critique of the materialism that runs rampant through American society. When the narrative asserts that those who cannot or will not “pay” will “remain needful forever,” King offers up a succinct and cynical summary of capitalism at its worst.

“She had done a lot of comparing herself to Alan Pangborn in the last four or five months, and that meant she had done a lot of coming off second best. His tears; her deceptive calm, which hid so much shame and hurt and secret defiant pride. His honesty; her little stack of lies. How saintlike he had seemed! How dauntingly perfect! How hypocritical her own insistence that he put the past away!”

The despairing, self-loathing tone in this passage portrays Polly’s inner catastrophizing after Mr. Gaunt sends her the false letter from San Francisco, which claims that Alan is investigating her. Quickly sliding into a spiral of despair, Polly clearly feels lesser in comparison to her pillar-of-the-community boyfriend, but in this moment, her belief in his deception poisons her idealistic view of him.

“Lester was beyond noticing nuances. He was one of those large and normally placid men who own a short, nasty temper beneath that placidity, a damaging emotional tornado-in-waiting.”

Lester defines himself by his relationship with Sally, and when he believes this relationship to be compromised, he tries to beat a man to death. This brief passage demonstrates King’s proficiency at creating succinct yet powerful characterizations that convey the essence of a person without getting into details. By calling Lester “a damaging emotional tornado-in-waiting,” King employs a potent metaphor that renders Lester’s reaction as inevitable and as devastating as an extreme weather event—something that can neither be avoided nor reasoned with.

“CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. The visitors stepped back, identical expressions of frustration and distress on their faces—they looked like hurting junkies who had discovered the pusherman wasn’t where he’d promised to be.”

King often compares Gaunt to a drug dealer and labels his customers “junkies.” This unhealthy dynamic underlies every character’s actions in one form or another, reflecting the fact that Needful Things was King’s first novel after he completed a session of rehabilitation for his own addictions. The novel therefore depicts King’s own struggles with addiction. In this context, it is clear that Mr. Gaunt has nothing more to offer his desperate customers than a deceptive placebo for their deeper hurts: a “solution” that only causes them greater problems. In the moment of his departure, they are forced to realize that he never truly cared about them and has no interest in helping them at all.

“Times changed; methods changed; faces, too. But when the faces were needful they were always the same, the faces of sheep who have lost their shepherd, and it was with this sort of commerce that he felt most at home, most like that wandering peddler of old, standing not behind a fancy counter with a Sweda cash register nearby but behind a plain wooden table, making change out of a cigar-box and selling them the same item over and over and over again.”

In this passage, the demonic entity that is Mr. Gaunt steps back and cynically considers the unchanging elements of human nature. By comparing humans to “sheep who have lost their shepherd,” the passage invokes a deliberate reference to Christian imagery and more firmly cements Mr. Gaunt’s status as a devil of one kind or another. He has pursued this trade for centuries, taking advantage of the vulnerable in exchange for their souls, and as he presents the same scams “over and over and over again,” it is clear that he preys upon “needful” desperation.

“Magic—wasn’t that what this was all about? It was mean-spirited magic, granted; magic calculated not to make people gasp and laugh but to turn them into angry charging bulls, but it was magic, just the same. And what was the basis of all magic? Misdirection. It was a five-foot-long snake hidden inside a can of nuts… or, he thought, thinking of Polly, it’s a disease that looks like a cure.”

The sudden sense of sharp interest and hope in this passage marks Alan’s inner turning point as he realizes that he holds the means of vanquishing Mr. Gaunt and ensuring the demon’s departure from Castle Rock. Because Alan’s late son loved magic tricks, Alan now considers the parallels between his own harmless use of legerdemain and the tricks of Mr. Gaunt, realizing that both approaches utilize “misdirection” and deception to achieve a hidden goal.