Carrie Part 2, Section 8 Summary & Analysis

Summary: Part 2, Section 8

In the gym, Vic Mooney, senior class president, announces that voting for King and Queen will begin. When Carrie sees her and Tommy’s names on the ballot, she asks Tommy if he wants to decline, but he does not. He says that all you do is sit there looking like an idiot and the picture of you looking like an idiot is in the yearbook. He dismisses the idea of false modesty and insists they vote for themselves.

Vic announces a tie between Tommy and Carrie and another couple, and says there will be a run-off. At 9:53 p.m., Chris wonders aloud what is taking so long, and Billy tells her to shut up. Carrie asks Tommy not to vote for them again but doesn’t explain her feeling of dread. He votes for them anyway, and she has a premonition of her mother’s face. At home, Margaret cuts her palm while she sharpens her knife.

Vic announces that Tommy and Carrie have won by one vote. Someone gives Tommy a scepter and puts a robe over Carrie’s shoulders and leads the couple to the stage as the band plays. As the audience applauds, Carrie does not detect any sarcasm in it. Tommy takes her hand and thinks that he loves Sue but he loves Carrie, too; they both have the same light in their eyes. It is now 10:07 p.m.

Outside, Chris and Billy hear the band start to play the school song, their cue to pull the string. Chris is nervous and when Billy tells her that he won’t pull it for her, Chris screams and pulls with all her might. They hear shouts and then laughter from inside. At 10:25 p.m., Sue hears the whistle from Town Hall. She looks out the window and sees the school on fire. As she rushes outside, she hears an explosion.

In an excerpt from a 1980 magazine article titled We Survived the Black Prom, Norma Watson describes the sight of blood pouring down, the sound of a bucket hitting Tommy Ross on the head, and the awful laughter that followed. She recalls that everyone had been happy for Carrie to have her moment, but once someone started laughing then no one could stop. Norma sees Carrie’s face “break” before she covers it with her hands and hops off the stage “like a big red frog,” and she sees Miss Desjardin hitting the wall as Carrie runs past her. Somebody trips Carrie as she runs by but she finally makes it out of the gym. Norma describes the lobby doors slamming shut and the ensuing stampede. Before the first students reach the doors and try in vain to open them, Norma sees Carrie’s smiling face looking back at them through the glass. Only the students who go through the fire doors in the back will survive. The sprinklers turn on and Josie Vreck yells to his band to unplug their instruments. Norma and Tina see Josie being electrocuted on their way to the fire doors. They run to the hall and Norma looks back and sees electrical cables writhing in the air like snakes.

Analysis: Part 2, Section 8

From the clothes Margaret makes Carrie wear to the supplicating way that Margaret forces Carrie to kneel at the altar, modesty has been a constant presence in Carrie’s life. Carrie’s fraught relationship with modesty is contrasted with Tommy, who does not indulge in false modesty. It is understandable that Carrie would shy away from an opportunity that could result in everyone looking at her, but Tommy, who is far from conceited, welcomes the opportunity to shine without allowing it to puff up his ego. Just as he did during his conversation with Sue in Section 2, Tommy demonstrates his ability to put high school in context, and while he enjoys the rituals of the prom, he does not lend them any undue importance. Carrie’s modesty is not false, but it is also not fully hers because her mother never offered her the chance to decide for herself how to define it either in appearance or in deed. When she and Tommy ultimately win as prom King and Queen, Carrie allows herself to briefly bask in the victory despite her nervousness, representing the way she is re-claiming her space in the world from her mother’s tight grasp.

Chris has had several opportunities to reconsider the wisdom of her stunt prior to prom night, but her thirst for revenge will not allow her to retreat or to empathize with her intended victim. Perhaps Chris is simply consumed with the idea of revenge, as Sue surmises in her autobiography, or maybe this is simply the logical outcome of the lifelong pattern of abusive behavior that Principal Grayle identified in Section 4. It’s possible Chris simply can’t resist the symbolic nature of pouring pig blood on a girl she deems nothing but a barn animal, but it is Chris who actually taps into her animal rage when she finally pulls the rope.

When Carrie is covered in blood for a second time and everyone in school can see that she is forever the butt of the joke no matter who takes her to prom or how beautiful her dress is, Carrie feels this way as well. Whatever good will her peers felt for her in the moments leading up to this point is now gone, and Carrie’s resolve to forget about the past dissolves along with it. Any perspective that she has gained over the past several days shatters as she reverts back to acting on pure animal instinct, just as the girls did in the locker room and Chris did when she pulled the rope. Carrie’s initial instinct is to flee the herd rather than fight it, but when she does decide to fight, it is fitting that Norma be the one who lives to talk about the smile on Carrie’s face as she peers back at the trapped students. It has been less than two hours since Norma was the butt of what was possibly Carrie’s first joke, and it is clear from this moment on that Carrie will have the last bitter laugh.

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