"The Man Who Loved Flowers"" is yet another horror classic from the well renowned author Stephen King. Stephen King is primarily known for his contemporary, outstanding horror novels and short stories. However, in "The Man Who Loved Flowers,"" Stephen King manages to add an interesting psychological layer to the short story. Nevertheless, in this essay I will focus on the narrator, point of view, character and setting.
Stephen King uses an omniscient 3rd person narrator, which is a narrator who is all-knowing in the fictional world of the story. This element offers a comprehensive insight to the most intermit thoughts of all the characters in the story and it also gives an insight into information which are unknown to the characters themselves. This element is clearly used on page 5 on line 12 to 14: "She backed away, her face a round white blur, her mouth an opening black O of terror, and she wasn't Norma, Norma was dead, she had been dead for ten years."" First of all in this quote we see that pronouns are being used by the narrator, which points towards a 3rd person narrator. However, in this quote we also clearly recognize how the narrator has some information, which one of the characters clearly doesn't have any knowledge of. We learn that the young man is unequivocally sure that Norma is still alive, however, through the narrator, we learn that this is false. This fact clearly substantiates the point about how the story is using an omniscient 3rd person narrator. This element works really well for me and creates a perfect understanding for the reader who with this type of narrator understands the motive behind every single action of the young man. For example the motive behind the young man calling this woman Norma, is because of the grief and sorrow that the young man felt after she passed away ten years ago. This has most likely driven the young man to insanity and may have persuaded him to think that every woman is Norma.
