With experience comes knowledge. Sometimes, the experience might not make sense, and it helps to have a guiding hand. No, this is not the introduction to Chicken Soup for the Soul, but more like an intro for Chicken Soup for the Soulless. The spiritual world is difficult for the hardened realist to understand, there are many questions but few answers. In particular horror stories, there is a character that helps as a "Dark-Forces Mentor", someone to explain and inform characters about the mysterious, sometimes evil, ways of spirituality. In Pet Sematary by Stephen King, the character Jud Crandall fulfills this role by teaching his neighbor, Louis Creed, about the power of the Micmac burial ground. However, this is just one aspect of Jud, as mentoring is just one aspect of being a father. He represents a father figure for Louis Creed, a man who grew up without a father. Jud is a source of information, he is wise beyond his years, and can explain things that Louis cannot possibly fathom. Although Jud knows and understands the dark ways of spirituality, he is a good man, whose character is more concerned with helping Louis than acting as an agent of the dark forces.
[...] Despite all of Jud's fatherly-like benevolence and advice, how could Louis follow his neighbor's words? Jud had not lost a child. Jud had lost his wife Norma, but it is hard to cope for a father that outlives his son. Louis must take advantage of this opportunity to bring Gage back. He justifies the notion by making himself believe that his love for Gage would not change, it would be better for Gage to be alive, even if part of his brain was “undead”. [...]
[...] Jud is a good friend and neighbor, just informing Louis for his own good, and not because Jud is an agent of dark forces. As a father would, Jud Crandall teaches Louis about the ways of the world. Instead of teaching his son how to drive, Jud teaches him about the power of the Pet Sematary. Before Louis buries Churchill up at the Micmac burial ground, Jud tells him about the past behind the soil. Micmacs believed this hill was a magic place,” he said. [...]
[...] Why would Jud, a man whom Louis trusts like a father, bring him there to bury a cat and have it return only as a zombie and have to kill it again? But Jud asserts that he has good intentions by burying Church. think it's a dangerous place,” he said softly, not for cats or dogs or pet hamsters. Go on and bury your animal, Louis” (176). Jud believes that it is fine to bring an animal back to life. [...]
[...] He meets Louis, a man who he treated like a son, a person capable to share the burden with. It was a moment for father and son to share an otherworldly secret and bond them even closer. Wouldn't a father, one that could prove God infallible by resurrecting the dead, pass that secret on to his son? Jud asks Louis to keep this secret about the burial ground. He also stresses that it is wrong to use the burial ground for anything other than an animal. [...]
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