{{Short description|1977 Stephen King novel}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Infobox book | | name = Rage | title_orig = | translator = | image = Rage (1977) front cover, first edition.jpg | caption = First edition cover | author = Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = United States | language = English | series = | genre = Psychological thriller | publisher = Signet Books | release_date = September 13, 1977 | media_type = Print (paperback) | pages = 211 | isbn = 978-0-451-07645-8 | preceded_by = | followed_by = }}
'''''Rage''''' (written as '''''Getting It On'''''){{Efn|The title was changed before publication.}} is a psychological thriller novel by American writer Stephen King, the first he published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It was published in 1977 and was collected in the 1985 hardcover omnibus ''The Bachman Books''. The novel describes a school shooting, and has been associated with several real-life high school shooting incidents in the 1980s and 1990s. In response, King allowed the novel to fall out of print. In 2013, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, King published the anti-firearms violence essay "Guns".
==Summary== In May 1976, Charlie Decker, a high school senior in Placerville, Maine, is called to a meeting with his principal about the cause of his suspension two months earlier—an incident in which he struck his chemistry teacher with a pipe wrench, leading to the teacher's hospitalization. After repeatedly insulting the principal, he is expelled.
Storming out of the office, Charlie retrieves a pistol from his locker and sets its other contents on fire. Returning to his classroom, he fatally shoots his algebra teacher. The fire triggers an alarm, but Charlie forces his classmates to stay in the room, killing a history teacher when he attempts to enter. As the school evacuates, the police and media arrive.
Over the following four hours, Charlie toys with the authority figures' attempt at negotiation, including the principal, the school psychologist, and the local police chief. Charlie gives them certain commands, threatening to kill students if they do not comply. Charlie admits to his hostages that he does not know what has compelled him to commit his deeds, believing he will regret them when the standoff is over. As his fellow students start identifying with Charlie, he unwittingly turns the class into an impromptu psychotherapy group, causing the participants to semi-voluntarily tell embarrassing secrets regarding themselves and each other.
Interspersed throughout are flashbacks to Charlie's troubled childhood, particularly his tumultuous relationship with his abusive father Carl. As the standoff proceeds, a police sniper attempts to shoot Charlie through the heart. He survives because he has placed the combination lock from his locker in the breast pocket of his shirt.
Charlie finally realizes that only one student is really being held against his will: "Big Man on Campus" Ted Jones, who is harboring his own secrets. Ted also realizes this and attempts to escape the classroom, but the other students brutally assault him. Charlie eventually releases the students except for Ted, who is in a catatonic state. When the police chief enters the classroom, the now-unarmed Charlie feigns reaching for his pistol, leading the chief to shoot him. Charlie survives the shooting and, in August 1976, is declared insane and committed to a psychiatric hospital in Augusta.
The final chapters contain an interoffice memo regarding Ted's treatment and prognosis at the hospital where he is now a patient, and a letter from one of Charlie's friends describing developments in the students' lives in the months following this incident. The story ends with an unidentified narrator (either Charlie or Ted) addressing the reader: "That's the end. I have to turn off the light now. Good night."
==Connections to actual school shootings== The plot of ''Rage'' vaguely resembles actual high school shootings and incidents of hostage-taking that have transpired since its publication. As a result, King became uncomfortable with the idea of having it remain in print, for fear that it might inspire further such occurrences.<ref name="Blaze">{{cite news|last=King|first=Stephen|title= Foreword|work=Blaze|date= June 2007}}</ref> The novel has been associated with several events:
*Jeffrey Lyne Cox, a senior at San Gabriel High School in San Gabriel, California, took a semi-automatic rifle to school on April 26, 1988, and held a humanities class of about 60 students hostage for over 30 minutes. Cox held the gun to one student when the teacher doubted Cox would cause harm and stated that he would prove it to her. At that time three students escaped out a rear door and were fired upon. Cox was later tackled and disarmed by another student. A friend of Cox told the press that Cox had been inspired by the Kuwait Airways Flight 422 hijacking and by the novel ''Rage'',<ref name="Press-Courier">{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6MFdAAAAIBAJ&pg=3128,4824971 |title=Hijack Tied to Teen Classroom Siege|newspaper=The Press-Courier|location=Oxnard|agency= Associated Press|date= April 27, 1988}}</ref> which Cox had read over and over again and with which he strongly identified.<ref name="LA Times">{{cite news |last=Katz |first=Jesse |date=January 14, 1990 |title=A High School Gunman's Days of Rage |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-01-14-ga-143-story.html}}</ref> *Dustin L. Pierce, a senior at Jackson County High School in McKee, Kentucky, armed himself with a shotgun and two handguns and took a history classroom hostage in a nine-hour standoff with police on September 18, 1989, that ended without injury. Police found a copy of ''Rage'' among the possessions in Pierce's bedroom, leading to speculation that he had been inspired by the novel.<ref name="NY Times">{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE7D8133EF93AA2575AC0A96F948260 |agency=Associated Press|location=McKee, KY|title=Kentucky Youth Frees 11 Hostages and Surrenders|newspaper=The New York Times|date= September 18, 1989}}</ref> *On September 11, 1991, Ryan R. Harris walked into a math class at Stevens High School in Rapid City, South Dakota, pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, and ordered the teacher to leave. The teacher complied and Harris held the rest of the class hostage for the next four hours. Harris had been inspired by Stephen King's novella ''Rage''. Harris demanded pizza and cigarettes, which were delivered, and $1 million and a helicopter, which were not. He fired a total of 10 shots in the room, at objects such as the overhead projector and intercom. No students or faculty were injured or killed. Upon receiving the cigarettes he had demanded, Harris set down his shotgun to pull out a lighter and light his cigarette. In this moment 17-year-old senior Chris Ericks picked up the shotgun and police swarmed in, bringing the standoff to an end.<ref name="Capital Journal">{{cite news|url=https://www.capjournal.com/opinions/columnist/memories-of-a-sd-school-shooting/article_7650a826-1de5-11e8-a9f0-5fb6b9995b1e.html|agency=Capital Journal|location=Rapid City, SD|title=Memories of a SD school shooting|newspaper=Capital Journal|date= September 11, 1991}}</ref> *On January 18, 1993, Scott Pennington, a student at East Carter High School in Grayson, Kentucky, took a .38-caliber revolver that was owned by his father and fatally shot his English teacher Deanna McDavid in the head during her seventh-period class. He subsequently shot and killed the school's custodian Marvin Hicks and held the class hostage for 20 minutes before releasing them.<ref>{{cite news|title=Two Killed in School Shooting in Kentucky|newspaper=The New York Times|date=January 19, 1993}}</ref> Just before the shooting, he had written an essay on ''Rage'' and was upset that McDavid had given it a C grade.<ref>{{cite news |last=Buckley |first=Jerry |date=October 31, 1993 |title=The Tragedy in Room 108 |work=U.S. News & World Report |url=https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/1993/10/31/the-tragedy-in-room-108}}</ref> *In December 1997, Michael Carneal shot eight fellow students, three of them fatally, at a prayer meeting at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky. He had a copy of ''Rage'' in his locker as part of the Richard Bachman omnibus. This was the incident that moved King to allow the book to go out of print.<ref name="interview"/> *One school shooting was compared to ''Rage'' due to inaccurate reporting. Barry Loukaitis, a student at Frontier Middle School in Moses Lake, Washington, walked from his house to the school on February 2, 1996, and entered his algebra classroom during fifth period. He opened fire on students, killing two and wounding another. He then fatally shot his algebra teacher Leona Caires in the chest. As his classmates' shock turned to panic, Loukaitis reportedly said, "This sure beats algebra, doesn't it?"—a line erroneously reported to be from ''Rage''. (No such line appears in King's story. The closest is when Charlie Decker quips, "This sure beats panty raids.") However, subsequently, Stephen King in his essay "Guns" wrote that it ''was'' a quote from the novel. Upon hearing the gunshots, gym coach Jon Lane entered the classroom. Loukaitis was holding his classmates hostage and planned to keep one hostage to safely exit the school. Lane volunteered to be the hostage, and Loukaitis kept Lane at gunpoint with his rifle. Lane grabbed the weapon from Loukaitis, wrestled him to the ground, and then assisted the evacuation of students.<ref>{{cite news |author=AP |date=25 August 1997 |title=Loukaitis trial starts today |newspaper=Ellensburg Daily Record |location=Seattle |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=myofAAAAIBAJ&pg=3693,4576912&dq=barry+loukaitis&hl=en |access-date=5 May 2011}}</ref>
==End of publication== When King decided to let ''Rage'' fall out of print in the United States, it remained available only as part of ''The Bachman Books''. In contrast, the other novels that appeared in that compilation—''The Long Walk'', ''Roadwork'', and ''The Running Man''—are available separately in the US. ''Rage'' remained available in the United Kingdom and other countries in ''The Bachman Books'' for a time, but later appeared to become unavailable.<ref>{{cite web |year=2008 |title=The Bachman Books |url=http://www.hodder.co.uk/books/work.aspx?WorkID=3029 |access-date=May 5, 2011 |website=Hodder & Stoughton |archive-date=July 19, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719124013/http://www.hodder.co.uk/books/work.aspx?WorkID=3029 |url-status=dead }}</ref> New editions of ''The Bachman Books'' do not include ''Rage''. In a footnote to the preface of the novel ''Blaze'', dated January 30, 2007, King wrote of ''Rage'': "Now out of print, and a good thing."
King said, in his keynote address at the VEMA Annual Meeting on May 26, 1999: "The Carneal incident was enough for me. I asked my publisher to take the damned thing out of print. They concurred."<ref name="interview">{{cite web|last=King|first=Stephen|url=http://www.horrorking.com/interview7.html|title=Stephen King's Keynote Address, Vermont Library Conference, VEMA Annual Meeting|date=May 26, 1999|website=horrorking.com|access-date=June 18, 2005|archive-date=June 26, 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050626070625/http://horrorking.com/interview7.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> King went on to describe his view on this subject, which acknowledged the role that cultural or artistic products such as ''Rage'' play in influencing individuals, particularly troubled youths, while also declaring that artists and writers should not be denied the aesthetic opportunity to draw upon their own culture—which is suffused with violence, according to King—in their work.<ref name="interview"/> King went on to describe his inspiration for stories such as ''Rage'', which drew heavily upon his own frustrations and pains as a high school student.<ref name="interview"/>
In an article on the ominous writings of Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho for ''Entertainment Weekly'', King said: "Certainly in this sensitized day and age, my own college writing—including a short story called 'Cain Rose Up' and the novel ''Rage''—would have raised red flags, and I'm certain someone would have tabbed me as mentally ill because of them..."<ref>{{cite magazine|last=King |first=Stephen |url=https://ew.com/article/2007/04/23/stephen-king-virginia-tech/ |title=On Predicting Violence |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |date=April 23, 2007 |access-date=March 14, 2010}}</ref> After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, he elaborated in a non-fiction essay, titled "Guns" (2013),<ref>{{cite book|edition=Kindle|title=Guns|last=King|first=Stephen|date=January 25, 2013|asin=B00B53IW9W|publisher=Philtrum Press |url=https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B00B53IW9W/}}</ref> on why he let ''Rage'' go out of print. King's website states: "All profits from 'Guns' will benefit the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://stephenking.com/promo/guns/|website=StephenKing.com|title=Promo: ''Guns''}}</ref>
== Notes == {{Notelist}}
==References== {{reflist|2}} {{Stephen King}} {{Authority control}}
Category:1970s novellas Category:American novellas Category:1977 controversies Category:1977 American novels Category:1977 English-language novels Category:American psychological novels Category:American thriller novels Category:Psychological thriller novels Category:Novels set in Maine Category:Novels set in secondary schools Category:Novels about mass murder Category:Fiction about gun violence Category:Literature controversies Category:Books withdrawn after publication Category:Self-censorship Category:Works published under a pseudonym Category:Novels by Richard Bachman Category:Signet Books books Category:Fiction about school shootings