The Talisman

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1984

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2, Chapters 6-10

Part 2, Chapters 11-15

Part 2, Chapters 16-19

Part 3, Chapters 20-24

Part 3, Chapters 25-29

Part 3, Chapter 30-Interlude 3

Part 4, Chapters 34-38

Part 4, Chapters 39-43

Part 4, Chapters 44-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Discussion Questions

Part 4, Chapters 44-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4: “The Talisman”

Part 4, Chapter 44 Summary: “The Earthquake”

As the black hotel is crumbling, Jack sees many realms during the destruction and feels as if he is everywhere. When the power feels too immense, he realizes that he does not want to be God, he just wants to save his mother. Nearby, the earthquake destroys the Wolfs at Camp Readiness, and ruins most of the structures at the facility.

Jack hears Richard scream. He goes to him as the building continues falling around them. Richard is covered in bugs and the talking spider mocks them both. Jack burns the spider with the Talisman, and heals Richard with its light. The sphere turns black for a moment, but when he lets Richard hold it, the light returns. They say they love each other and prepare for a fight with Gardener and Sloat. Outside, Sloat sees them leave the hotel and tells Gardener to shoot the Talisman with his rifle. In a fit of rage and frenzy, Sloat bites off the tip of his own tongue.

The Talisman picks up the flash of Gardener’s rifle scope and amplifies it, shooting the light back at him and pushing glass into Gardener’s eyes as the gun explodes, tearing Gardener’s cheeks and blowing off the fingers of his left hand. Gardener takes a switchblade knife and runs towards Jack and Richard.

Part 4, Chapter 45 Summary: “In Which Many Things are Resolved on the Beach”

Gardener runs towards Jack as Sloat goes for Speedy. Jacks flips and is now in front of Osmond. He feels that the black hotel is now becoming something worse. Jack tells Gardener that he killed his father. Jack touches him with the Talisman and Gardener starts to melt.

Richard looks sick again. The rash continues to spread across his body and Jack thinks Sloat’s evil has poisoned him. Richard falls and drops the Talisman, which Jack allowed him to hold before the fight. Sloat kicks Jack in the groin, then Jack kicks him in the face with both feet. Jack grabs the Talisman and flips between worlds. Sloat begins shooting with the lightning rod, just as Lily sees a gull on her windowsill in New Hampshire. She punches through the glass and hits it.

It goes dark in Point Venuti and begins to snow as Jack shoots at Sloat with the Talisman. To surprise him, Jack flips in and out of the two worlds in a way that places him behind Sloat as Richard wakes. Jack lets the Talisman roll out of his hands and dares Sloat to break it. It absorbs the lightning from Sloat’s rod and shoots it back out, killing Sloat and destroying the hotel. Jack immediately goes to Speedy and heals him and Richard.

Part 4, Chapter 46 Summary: “Another Journey”

Later, Jack can’t remember how he healed them. When the healing was over, the light in the Talisman was gone. They flip into the Territories and Speedy becomes Parkus. He tells Jack that when he flips back, he must go east. Parkus will remain to spread the news of Morgan’s death. He calls himself the Judge General and Lord High Executioner and must capture Orris’s people before they leave. He tells Jack to take Route Seventeen to a town called Storyville, where he’ll meet someone he’ll recognize.

The next day, Jack and Richard reach Storyville, where Jack tells Richard he loves him. In Storyville, they meet a Wolf who is one of Jack’s Wolf’s brothers from the same litter. They talk about how much they each loved Wolf and he gives Jack a postcard from Parkus. It’s a picture of the Arcadia Beach carousel from 1894. Speedy has written that Jack should keep what is in his guitar case, which is in Wolf’s car. It’s filled with money. As Wolf’s brother drives them east, Richard begins forgetting things. Jack’s mother never answers the phone when he tries to call her. Wolf’s brother cries when they pass the ruins of the Sunlight Home.

Part 4, Chapter 47 Summary: “Journey’s End”

They reach the Alhambra on December 21. Lily weighs only 87 pounds and has pneumonia. Everyone is gone from the resort. As Jack heals her, he understands a shift in his future; when he is done, the Talisman will no longer belong to him. After Lily is saved, the Talisman disappears.

Epilogue Summary

In the Territories, the Queen, Laura DeLoessian, opens her eyes.

Part 4, Chapter 44-Epilogue Analysis

After defeating Sunlight Gardener and Morgan Sloat, Jack heals Speedy and Richard. His final conversation with Parkus is largely uneventful and primarily concerns their travel plans. The events that led to this point concerned the lost innocence of Jack and Richard, and these chapters are the beginning of a return to a partial innocence. As they travel, the boys begin to forget what has happened. Jack can’t remember exactly how he healed his friends. Richard begins to forget many parts of the journey. This is an optimistic sign. Rather than spend the remainder of their lives tormented by thoughts of their tragedies and horrors, Richard and Jack may be able to heal in the absence of those memories. After he heals his mother, Jack realizes: “His ordinary life of school and friends and games and music […] had been returned to him. The Talisman had done that, too” (766).

Jack has been willing to sacrifice himself for his mother’s life. As he hears the repeated refrain, “You don’t own a thing unless you can give it up” (734), it can apply to his willingness to relinquish the Talisman, as well as his willingness to gives up his own life; this proves that his life was fully his. After he heals his mother, the epilogue shows that he has also saved Queen Laura. However, Wolf’s brother says “Everything goes away, Jack Sawyer, like the moon. Everything comes back, like the moon” (746). Jack has won his mother’s life, but given the existence of multiple realities, all locked into their own cycles of death and rebirth, the victory may not be final.

For those interested in the extension of Jack’s story, the events of Bleak House, the sequel to The Talisman, also written by King and Straub, show that Jack did not forget everything.