[Editorial] Carrie White in Carrie (1976)

From the opening moments of the film and before a word is spoken, the eponymous character is pitted as the outsider. A team of teenage girls are playing on a sports court and a meek, lost looking girl stands on the edges tentatively; this is Carrie.

Brutally and cruelly vilified by her peers when she happens to get her first period during a post-gym shower, Carrie might seem lost and forlorn, but this moment also marks the finding of a strong power. She doesn’t know it yet, but Carrie has the ability to tap into a telekinetic energy. It’s not just her fellow students who perceive Carrie as an outcast, but her reputation extends to the teachers and staff of her school too; adults in positions of authority who she should be able to turn to for help and support. When she enters the office to be granted a dismissal for the day and for a week’s break from gym she is met by ignorant and inattentive treatment from the Principal who repeatedly refers to her as Cassie, despite her correcting him. In response to this, Carrie purposely utilizes her powers (although with a little struggle) to upturn the ashtray on the Principal’s desk. 

In the church that is their home, Carrie’s mother acts as Minister to her congregation of one and to whom she punishes with guilt and threatening promises. In a heart-breaking moment, when Carrie returns from school after the shower incident, she attempts (and not for the last time) to share her feelings with her mother. Recounting the scene, she tells of her fear and how everyone laughed at her, a remark that ironically Mrs White herself will later echo as her daughter leaves for the prom. In a desperate bid to help her mother understand, Carrie advises that she: ‘wants to be normal before it’s too late’ but this is met with nothing but contempt. This marks the second significant turning point which sees Carrie’s approach towards her mother grow bolder, asserting herself: ‘I’m going Momma and things are going to change around here’.

Arrival at the prom, it turns out, isn’t too traumatic and Carrie is able to enjoy her time with the ever-obliging Tommy Ross. When Mrs Collins joins Carrie at her table to check in on how the evening is going, despite her being polite and encouraging, she also appears nervous for the teenager. In a touching moment, she relates her own prom story and asks if it’s like ‘magic’ for Carrie who replies: ‘it’s like being on Mars’. When crowned Prom Queen (the perceived ultimate American reward of acceptance for a teenage girl) the entire scene is played out slowly in a style that recalls the shower scene. Just as this came to a horrific and bloody end for Carrie at the hands of her bullies, so will the prom become a tragic end for them at her hands.

When the rope is finally pulled and Carrie is soaked in blood there is silence, with the exception of the liquid hitting her and the bucket swinging back and forth. True to her mother’s word, everyone does indeed laugh at Carrie, however, not for being herself but as a result of the actions of others. Carrie’s subsequent vengeance lets rip and is not specific to any one person but instead her anger at being rejected is inflicted indiscriminately. As she walks out of the hall decorated with a ‘heavenly stars’ theme, heaven now becomes representative of hell as the school hall burns in flames.

Returning home, Carrie lingers over the doorway and there is a similar fire like glow radiating from the windows of the White house signifying that this has always been hell for Carrie. She holds her mother close in a moment that seems to mourn the absence of a close relationship that never was. The house then begins to collapse, and the walls (representative of the oppressive force of her mother) are able to come down now that she is dead. In the infamous epilogue, the emergence of Carrie’s hand, which can be seen as both grabbing vengefully and reaching out for support, conveys that she is doomed to suffer alone, eternally.

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