Quitters Inc.
Stephen King
Plot Line
Exposition: During the beginning of the story Morrison is a smoker who has no intention to quit. He then meets up with an old friend (McCann) who has quit smoking and become much healthier. His friend requests Quitters Inc. to him so he can hopefully stop smoking as well.
Rising Action: Morrison decides to give Quitters Inc. a try so he goes to set up an appointment, and during this time the author is building up the anticipation for finding out the Quitters Inc. methods that can't be shared.
Climax: Even though he knows that his family could be hurt from him slipping and smoking, Morrison decides to smoke a cigarette. He gets caught and his wife is electrocuted as threatened before.
Falling Action: Morrison doesn't want to hurt his family anymore, so he decides he's going to fully commit to not smoking.
Resolution: Morrison quits smoking and starts to visit his son more. He and his wife then meet up with McCann and his wife and he realizes that Mrs. McCann has undergone a threat that came from Quitters Inc.
The theme of this short story is that people will give up anything to protect the ones they love. Morrison gave up a hard habit to break because he didn't want anything to happen to his family.
Richard Morrison
Morrison is the main character of this short story. He is indirectly characterized as a short tempered but caring man. He decides to visit Quitters Inc. as suggested by a friend. It turns out that their quitting tactic for their clients is to threaten their family and he is indirectly characterized as a short tempered when he freaks out on his mentor for telling him this. When he decides to quit smoking to make sure his family doesn't get hurt. This indirectly shows that he is a caring man at heart.
Vic Donatti
Donatti is Morrison's mentor of sorts for his road to quitting smoking. Donatti is very focused on getting Morrison to reach his goal of stopping to quit. He is directly characterized as a pragmatist. "We don't bother with propaganda here, Mr. Morrison. Questions of health or expense or social grace. We have no interest in why you want to stop smoking. We are pragmatists." (4) Donatti is very firm on the policies, and carries out his pragmatist ways throughout the story. He is also portrayed indirectly as threatening through his tactics of how to get his clients to quit smoking.
The main conflict in this story is Morrison's struggle to stop his bad and addicting habit to protect his family. Tobacco is not a joke and it is very hard to stop, especially on command and all at once. It is a constant battle between habits and morals to choose that his family is much more important to him than a cigarette, even though he slips once.
Symbolism
"She is pretty in the radiant way plain girls sometimes have when they are very, very happy." (14) After this statement it goes onto say that McCann's wife is missing her little finger due to him slipping in his "program" at Quitters Inc. Even though she had to suffer due to his mishap, she is still so happy and grateful. She cares for her husband so much that it didn't matter if she had to lose a finger for him to quit smoking, as long as he is better off now. This shows that true love has no limits. A person can make a mistake that hurts their partner, but true love has no limits and so as long as they are improving their life from the mistake, their partner will still be happy and grateful even though they got hurt in the process.
You Will Want To Read Quitters Inc. Because...
it is not only intriguing with suspense filled rising action, but has edgy content that is very different from most short stories. It leaves you thinking and wanting more. It is also written by author Stephen King who is known for his intense story lines which Quitters Inc. is a fine example of. The most compelling part of this story is it's suspense-filled and edgy story line which will leave you on the edge of your seat.