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DeLamar, John R.

English

2013

M.A.

This thesis explores Stephen King's novel It through the lens of queer and psychoanalytic theory, emphasizing a reading of the novel as an AlDS narrative. It argues that King's text is concerned with the AlDS epidemic, and figures the disease as well as same-sex desire on a male axis as the monstrosity that threatens heterosexual futurity. This project intends to contribute to the discourse surrounding HIV/AlDS in regard to identity formation and heterosexual notions of homosexual causality. It will make a radical claim regarding the contemporary creation of homosexuality as communal as a result of the emergence of AlDS. Further, it will contribute to the developing field of literary criticism focused on the works of Stephen King.