Puppet Masters Essay, Research Paper

PUPPET MASTERS The two novels Winter Moon and The Key To Midnight, written by Dean Koontz, havemany different things in common. For illustration, Koontz puts great item into both books and hetries to portray the most realistic scene as possible ; which in both books is the same scene in footings of the clip period and life style of the chief characters. He uses a great trade of suspense inboth books go forthing the reader hanging in between chapters. Besides, he deals with the commonconflict of adult male versus himself which will be looked at in this essay. The essay will exemplify how Koontz uses this struggle as the chief thought in both novels. Both trade with the common subject of head control and human use, though each in acompletely different manner. One manner is through telepathic head control and the other throughdrugs, hypnosis, and the influence and control of powerful people and organisations. Koontzshows how people are marionettes being controlled by more powerful people or existences, puppetmasters. First, in the fresh Winter Moon, Koontz introduces an foreign life signifier to the planet Earthand some of Earth s residents. The foreigner takes over animate and inanimate objects through thepower of head control. It uses sound moving ridges and wireless moving ridges to hypnotise its topic. Thebeing is a power hungry force on a mission to command and go everything. To accomplish it sgoal the foreign signifier controls assorted animate beings in its environing country larning more and more eachtime it takes over a different animate being though it can non rather get the hang the control of a human head. When the foreigner eventually gets close to commanding John, an aged adult male populating on a ranchnear by, he commits suicide non leting something to take over his head. The character loseshis struggle of adult male against himself as he is non mentally strong plenty to reject the interloper fromcontrolling his head. He gives into fright and can non travel on populating any more. Not cognizing what will transpirate over the following few hebdomads, a household from Los Angeles, ahusband, married woman, and a immature boy, travel into the spread antecedently occupied by John. The household istrying to get down a new life as they were antecedently faced with the calamity of Steve, the male parent, weaving up about dead after a gun battle while on responsibility as a constabulary officer. The household, justhaving been challenged emotionally and mentally, will shortly hold to confront their frights andovercome another major mental obstruction in order to last and acquire on with their lives. Knowing that Toby, the immature male child, is the most vulnerable in the household, the foreigner formgoes after him foremost. The foreign utilizations sound moving ridges and telecasting signals to seek to act upon him. Toby has to reject the suggestions of the foreigner and non give into it or else the foreign life signifier willbecome Toby. Koontz uses this to demo that the most vulnerable and most influenced heads arethose heads of immature, immature kids. Toby goes into enchantments for long periods of clip pass oning with the foreigner. It learnsfrom Toby but at the same clip Toby learns from it. All the while the foreigner is stating Toby togive in. The male child can reject the foreign suggestions at first but as clip goes by it becomes harderand harder for him. This can be taken that the more something is told to person andhammered into their caput, the harder it becomes for the individual to defy something and sooner orlater they will interrupt and give in. The foreigner goes after both of Toby s parents but they resist much easier than their boy doesthough it becomes progressively harder each clip. They both fear that their boy will non be ableto resist much longer and they decide to acquire out but non before a large winter storm hits go forthing

them stranded and stat mis off from any signifier of civ

ilization with the power knocked out. Soonthe boy will have to face the ultimate battle, which is going on in his head, in order to defeat thecreature and be freed from it. Koontz uses a dramatic ending to the novel as a final confrontation occurs between thealien and the boy. The boy uses what he has learned from the alien to take control over the thinghimself. In the end it works and the creature is defeated. The boy overcame his fears and theinfluence of the creature on his mind in order to survive. In the second novel, The Key To Midnight, Koontz uses a different approach to mindcontrol. Throughout the novel hypnosis is used as one of the main tools to influence someone toremember something from their past or to shape the persons mind in order to create falsememories and characteristics in someone. Koontz shows how hypnosis can be either a good orbad tool, depending on the person in control of it, as it is used in both good and bad ways. First, Koontz uses it in a bad way as a doctor uses hypnosis to create false memories in awoman named Joanne to make her someone she is not. The doctor implants memories andsuggestions into her subconscious mind in order to control her life. He totally erases part of herearlier life so that she will never remember her past again. Later in the book, another doctor uses hypnosis in order Joanne to remember who sheonce was and a life which she once had. It works to reveal part of her past including how shebecame the person she is now and who the people who did this to her were. The whole book centers around how Joanne lost her old life and the personal obstaclesthat she has to overcome in order to find her old life and move on. This is made easy for herbecause throughout the book the main characters are puppets being controlled by very powerfulpeople in order to accomplish their dirty work. Joanne s life had been programmed into her mind with the use of powerful mind drugsand hypnosis. Certain thing have been programmed into her to ensure that she doesn t leaveher present location in Japan and so that she does not reveal her past which has been hiddenaway somewhere in her head. When ever she becomes close to someone it becomes impossiblefor her to keep the relationship going and she breaks it off. If Joanne ever tries to leave thecountry she becomes sick and passes out leaving no hope of ever traveling outside of Japan. Through the use of hypnosis, the support of a detective named Jack, and the will of herself sheovercomes these barriers. As Joanne gets nearer to finding her past the obstacles become larger but at the sametime she becomes more and more determined. With the help of Alex and a doctor usinghypnosis, she discovers her past and is freed from the puppet masters which were controllingand running her life. But as Joanne discovers her past, she and Alex discover that all along theyhad been programmed to find her past and that they had been puppets in a larger game beingplayed out. What happened to them was all planned and programmed into them unknowingly. Koontz also brings in powerful groups including the CIA and KGB In the book, they alsohelp in controlling the fate of the two main characters, Alex and Joanne. No matter what theydid they could not escape the control of someone or something else on them. Though, at the endof the book, Koontz turns the tables on everyone and gives some control to Alex and Joanne. Koontz used two completely different story lines in the two novels but each had acommon theme: man versus himself with the focus being on the battle going on in one selvesmind. He shows how people can be control and manipulated and if they aren t strong enoughmentally to say no than they will become puppets controlled by someone else.