1408

Content Warning: The source material features discussions of suicide, self-harm, and distressing imagery, which is discussed in this section.

Setting is one of the most prominent elements in King’s body of work; his stories and novels often take place in memorable places like the Overlook Hotel or Salem’s Lot. “1408” is no exception, as King spends much of the first section of the story characterizing the Hotel Dolphin as the kind of establishment that would fit into New York’s Upper East Side while keeping one foot in a glamorous, worldly past. The rest of the hotel stands in contrast to room 1408, which is outdated, typically vacant, and plain-looking on its face.

The strange events that occur within room 1408 seem to hint at the idea that the room is not only malevolent, but conscious. It appears to have a certain level of agency that enables it to antagonize Mike. At one point, it responds to Mike’s falsified anecdote about his brother by transforming the doorknob menu into a woodcut image of the very thing Mike has described. In this way, it functions as a kind of character whose precise motivations, schemes, and limitations are left obscure to the reader.