59 pages 1 hour read

Stephen King

The Outsider

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Important Quotes

Quotation Mark Icon

“Thought only gives the world an appearance of order to anyone weak enough to be convinced by its show.”


(Epigraph, Page vii)

This epigraph at the front of the book comes from the essay “The Country of the Blind” by Colin Wilson. The implication is that human reason imposes a thin shell of apparent order on the universe, hiding the chaos underneath. This is particularly relevant to Ralph’s characterization, as he relies too heavily on that surface to make sense of the world and consequently makes critical mistakes.

Quotation Mark Icon

“‘Doesn’t look like a monster, does he?’

 

‘They rarely do.’”


(Part 1, Chapter 13, Page 47)

This exchange foreshadows Holly’s argument that serial killers like Ted Bundy are no more explicable than the outsider. Ralph accepts Terry as a monster but rejects the evidence of the outsider because it violates his sense of order. The description of Terry as a “monster” plays on the metaphorical usage of the word in a deeply ironic way; although Ralph doesn’t know it, the outsider is literally a monster that doesn’t look like one.

Quotation Mark Icon

“Until the real killer of Frank Peterson was found—if he ever was—the people of Flint city were going to believe that Terry Maitland had gamed the system and gotten away with murder.”


(Part 3, Chapter 3, Page 203)

Once an accusation is made, it tends to stick—sometimes even when the accused is formally exonerated. Most people won’t be in the courtroom to see the conflicting evidence in Terry’s case, but over 1,000 scenes, paralleling Ralph’s insistence on empirical evidence.