The Cookie Lady” as a Horror Story
P. K. Dick’s short story “The Cookie Lady” is a horror story as it instill
all the elements of horror.
The author is regarded as the master of paranoid fiction and
imagination and he has created the atmosphere of horror by using
psychological abnormalities of the relationship. The author creates
horror by using suspense, mysterious plot and a shocking
climax which left the reader dumbfounded. Dick does not bring out
something specific to create horror but introduces the aspect of the
unknown in hints.
Bubber’s abnormal craving for cookies hints something
disastrous to be happened. The “wonderful warm smell” of cookies
makes his “mouth water”. His mother also describes his craving for
cookies as “He’d do anything for a plate of cookies”. Mrs. Drew
knows that the cookies are his weakness and she used these cookies
as a bait to trap him. This seems to be quite horrifying.
At first sight Mrs. Drew’s appears to be a lonely, kind, old lady,
longing for companionship so she bakes Bubber cookies. She urges
Bubber to “stay and talk” to her “for a while” and “read” to her,
revealing her longing for company. But there is something strange in
the old lady, the author also describes her as “she had been alone
so long that she found herself saying strange things and doing
strange things”. Bubber’s father Ralf Surle also don’t like their
interaction. He feels “something strange about that old lady”.
When Mrs. Drew laughs cunningly “with excitement”, gazes at
her “full, rounded body” she is evil and sinister.
In his last visit to her, Mrs. Drew asks Bubber, “You don’t mind if
I touch your arm, do you?” is a premonition of Bubber’s cursed fate.
Mrs. Drew’s transformation gives the reader a shock, a jolt. This
shock also adds in the element of horror in the story.
After each visit to Mrs. Drew the young and energetic Bubber is “all
worn out”; ” what’s going on?” His father Ralf Surle is suspicious.
The readers are also curious about it.
When Bubber tells her that his parents forbade him to visit her and it
is his “last time”. Mrs. Drew becomes furious and desperate mto
become young again as soon as possible and at any cost. Her anxiety
and desperation filled the readers with fear.
The ending is bleak, the “plump” Bubber has lost his human texture
and reduced to “a bundle of weeds and rags” blown away by the
strong wind. While the “dried up old lady” Mrs. Drew is “blooming
again” and “filled out with the sap of vigorous youth”. This
ending is quite eerie and unbelievable. Sucking out the young boy’s
life force, the cookie lady is quite scary and evokes a feeling of shock,
disgust and fear in the readers. The open ending adds to psychological
horror.
The setting of the house as “shabby” and “a little grey box”,
overgrown with “weeds” along the front of the house adds an eerie to
the story.
The author compares the oldness of the lady with the “dried up
weeds” that “grew along the front of the house” makes it
quite strange and quite mysterious. The movement of the old lady is
compared with “rustling” of the weeds also makes her suspicious
and eerie.
All these efforts makes “The Cookie Lady” a horror story.
