Question

Disuss in regard to Bransfield's synopsis of Stephen King's book Needful things the following statement: His power is over need, not will ... Their need came from their emptiness and gave form to illusions upon which they staked their lives. Whose power is over need? Whose need came from emptiness? How is this story relevant to Christian Anthropology?

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) (1) Gaunt or rather the products he sells in his shop have the power over need. Considering that these products are knick-knacks and unnecessary items that are not particularly needed, they have the power of over need. Gaunt too has a certain power over his customers’ needs because he had the ability to smooth-talk with them and sold them products at seemingly low prices. Furthermore, he not only sold them products they did not need but also made they commit practical jokes on others that they did not need to commit.

(2) The customers had their needs come from emptiness. Once the customer purchased an item from Gaunt’s shop, it seemed that an empty place in their mind was tapped into. This emptiness or void was then filled with feelings of paranoia, jealousy, suspicion and other emotions. Because of these emotions, they felt like they had the desperate need to be destructive, boisterous and even commit crimes that Gaunt would hypnotize them to do.

(3) In Christian Anthropology, we see characters from the Old Testament who succumbs to the evils of society or even to their inner shortcomings. When that happens, we see God ending the evil of a certain populace by destroying the place and letting a new righteous people thrive. Similar to the flood and the exodus, ‘Needful Things’ sees a lot of destruction after the town’s people had given in to the devilish Mr. Gaunt. There is a lot of destruction in the form of forest fires, murders, suicides etc.