‘Apt Pupil’ is a symbolic novella about American society, Nazi atrocities and human life. ‘Life is a tiger you have to grab by the tail, and if you don’t know the nature of the beast, it will eat you up’ says Dick Bowden, Todd’s father. It is true. In ‘Apt Pupil’, Stephen King shows how Todd Bowden loses his hold on the tiger and becomes the nightmare of American society. The author analyzes the ups and downs of American society, the great human tragedy of the 20th century and human existence through the symbolic characters Todd Bowden, Kurt Dussander and Morris Heisel.
Stephen King uses a two way approach to criticize Americans. He creates Todd Bowden as a symbol for America. Todd Bowden’s personality reflects the positive and the negative aspects of his own society. If you compare Todd Bowden and America, you could easily see the similarities between them. Like America he is so young, healthy, energetic, hard working and positive. At the same time, his fondness for violence reflects the dark side of America. When Todd reads the war magazines, he reads with ‘a mixture of revulsion and excitement’ (King, 118). When he listens to the stories from Dussander , he is not concerned about the sufferings of the victims. Instead, he wants to hear about ‘the firing squads. The guys who had to dig their own graves… German doctors trying to mate women with dogs, putting identical twins into refrigerators to see whether they would die at the same time.’ ( King, 127, 128). Yes, he wants to hear about all the gooshy stuff. When he listens ‘his tongue came out and wetted his lips ‘(King, 127).