72 pages • 2 hours read
Stephen KingThe Stand
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Randall Flagg
Randall Flagg represents the force of evil in the world. He is a real man, as well as a symbolic concept. While he is a shapeshifter who can change into a crow, a weasel, or a wolf, his physical features as a human are also malleable. He can appear sympathetic as well as demonic. His smile unnerves people, and he projects an attitude of gleeful anticipation for the havoc he intends to create. Flagg is known as the Dark Man, the Walkin Dude, and by a variety of other epithets. Physically, he’s most often identified with sharp-toed cowboy boots, jeans, and a denim jacket.
Flagg is a devil, but no one literally identifies him with Satan. Rather, he represents the eternal concept of evil incarnate. Flagg finds himself reborn into new eras and new identities though his core purpose remains the same. He seeks to take over the world and bend everyone to his will. He motivates his followers through fear since they fear disobeying him. At the same time, he attracts people because he promises security and order during times of chaos. His greatest ambition after the plague is to destroy anyone who opposes his absolute rule, which includes all the citizens of the Free Zone. By the end of the novel, the forces of good defeat him, but he finds himself reanimated in another part of the globe to begin the battle for control of the world all over again.
Abagail Freemantle
Abagail is a 108-year-old black woman who has spent her entire life on a farm in Nebraska. She is a devout Christian who has taken on the role of God’s prophet in the days after the plague. Abagail has the ability to communicate with survivors in their dreams, and she is aware of their arrival at her farm days before they appear. She believes it is her destiny to gather the plague survivors and lead them to Boulder, Colorado. Once there, they will face the forces of the dark man. She, herself, has haunting dreams where Flagg confronts her, but she determines to confront her fear anyway.
Once established in Boulder, Abagail functions as the spiritual leader of the Free Zone. She briefly allows her powerful role to go to her head as everyone treats her like the voice of God. To atone for her pride, Abagail wanders out into the mountains and nearly dies from hunger and exposure. After she returns, she gives four men a mission to march into Flagg’s territory and make their stand before him. Shortly after conveying this message, she dies.
Flagg’s Allies
· Lloyd Henreid – Lloyd is a loser locked in jail and dying of hunger when Flagg rescues him. Grateful for this assistance, Lloyd pledges to serve the dark man and becomes his second in command. Lloyd feels that Flagg has given his life purpose, and he doesn’t abandon the dark man even when he’s given the choice to do so. He dies in the Las Vegas nuclear explosion.
· Harold Lauder – Harold is a 16-year-old social misfit who is in love with Frannie. He resents all the petty insults he’s received over the course of his life and vows revenge. When Frannie rejects him in favor of Stu, Harold schemes to kill them both and the rest of the governing council of the Free Zone by blowing them up. He dies after a motorcycle accident on his way to join Flagg’s faction.
· Nadine Cross – Nadine is a schoolteacher whom Flagg first contacted psychically when she was in college to tell her he chose her as his bride. Though she tries to fight his will, she eventually succumbs to his control and travels to Las Vegas, where he impregnates her. Seeing no other way out of her plight, she taunts Flagg into hurling her out of a window, killing both herself and his unborn son.
· Trashcan Man – Trash’s real name is Donald Merwin Elbert. He is a schizophrenic who is always in trouble with the police for lighting fires in people’s trash cans. Flagg promises to feed Trash’s pyromania by offering him the chance to start huge fires. Trash travels to Las Vegas, where he assists in building an arsenal for Flagg. After an insult from one of his co-workers, Trash kills them all and blows up their aircraft. In an effort to atone for his mistake, he brings Flagg a nuclear warhead that ends up destroying Las Vegas.
Abagail’s Allies
· Stu Redman – As a small town, east Texas resident, Stu finds his life altered dramatically after exposure from the first wave of plague virus and surviving. He escapes from a government hospital and then makes his way to Abagail with Harold, Frannie, and Glen. Stu becomes Frannie’s lover as well as a leader of the Free Zone. After Abagail sends him on a mission to confront Flagg, Stu breaks his leg during the journey and returns to Boulder, where he reunites with Frannie. After the birth of Frannie’s baby, they leave Boulder for a less-populated world in Maine.
· Frannie Goldsmith – Frannie is a pregnant, 21-year-old college student at the beginning of the story when the plague strikes. As she travels west with Harold, she meets and falls in love with Stu. Frannie is terrified that her baby will die of the plague shortly after birth. When the child survives, Stu and Frannie make a new life for themselves in Maine.
· Larry Underwood – Larry is a musician whose songs are just becoming popular when the plague strikes. Though he has always considered himself to be a coward and a user, Larry matures during the struggle to reach Boulder and assumes a leadership role in the Free Zone. He redeems himself in his own mind by making a stand against Flagg and sacrificing his life. Larry dies in the Las Vegas nuclear explosion.
· Glen Bateman and Kojak – Glen is a retired sociology professor who joins the Boulder migration with Stu, Harold, Frannie, and an Irish Setter named Kojak. As they travel, Glen offers frequent observations about the nature of human society and the possibility of forming a better civilization in the aftermath of the plague. He sacrifices himself by taking a stand in Las Vegas while Kojak tends to Stu’s needs after he breaks his leg.
· Nick Andros – Nick is a deaf-mute in his early twenties. After thugs beat him up in a small Arkansas town, Nick dreams of meeting Abagail and teams up with Tom in Oklahoma. He also becomes a leader of the Free Zone and communicates by writing insightful messages to the rest of the leadership group. Nick dies in the explosion that Harold rigged to kill everyone on the committee. Afterward, he appears in Tom’s dreams to guide his friend back to Boulder.
· Tom Cullen – Tom is a young man with the mental ability of a child. He is good-hearted and wants to help the Free Zone survive by becoming a spy to infiltrate Flagg’s ranks. On his way back to Boulder, he stumbles across the injured Stu and helps get him home alive.
Related Titles
By Stephen King
