ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 stresses the relationship between religion and the nature of evil in ’Salem's Lot. To do so, this chapter differentiates between two types of writers: Ben Mears as transcendent writer and Father Callahan as religious writer. This chapter also relates Barlow to a stagnated religious experience and presents Ben's psychological development as an antidote to stagnation. In this chapter, Barlow represents a stagnated religious experience, while Ben's psychological development is presented as an antidote to such stagnation. In the second part, the focus is on autobiographical aspects in King's novels. In contrast to the literary scholar Badley (1996), who believes King's style suggests a ‘death of the author’, I argue that King's style and his recurring themes rather point to the reverse: a ‘return of the author’.
