When people hear author Stephen King’s name, certain stories or characters stick out in their minds. Whether that is Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, or the terrifying monster known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the acclaimed story of IT, these and so many other novels have become instant classics in the world of literature and beyond. Yet the author is still producing stellar novels today, and one novel from 2019, The Institute, is getting ready to make its silver-screen debut as a series on MGM+. Like other works by the author, however, one thing that distinguishes The Institute from other works is how it connects to the other books King has written.
Whether through a story’s settings or specific characters that make multiple appearances across numerous novels, many of Stephen King’s books have instant connections to one another, and The Institute is no different. Much like many of Stephen King’s books share connections to The Dark Tower series, The Institute shares the lifeblood and even deeper themes of many of the author’s works over the years.
The Institute, Explained
The story of The Institute s child prodigy and genius Luke Ellis, who, at twelve years old, becomes embroiled in a massive conspiracy. One night, his parents are silently taken out, while Luke himself is kidnapped under the cover of darkness. When he wakes up, he is in a room similar to his own, but in the depths of The Institute, a facility for gifted children. Yet the gifts these children have received are not like most others. These children specialize in telekinetic and telepathic abilities, and Luke has been marked as one such child.
Run by Mrs. Sigsby, she and the staff at the facility are tasked with extracting these abilities out of the children, often by experimentation and more horrendous methods of torture. The goal is not only to enhance the skills of these children, but also to awaken abilities with telepathy, making them even more powerful. Once this experimentation is complete, the children “graduate” and are moved to Back Half, a separate facility area where children disappear forever.
Luke makes friends with some of the children in the Institute, and learns from one of them that, after they graduate, the children in the Back Half are used to assassinate targets using their abilities. They do this until their powers overload their bodies, which kills them. Desperate to save himself and the other children in the facility, Luke gets assistance from one of the housekeepers of the facility and escapes. He makes his way to a small town in South Carolina and enlists the help of the local law enforcement, giving them a USB drive containing damning evidence against the Institute.
After a shootout with staff from the Institute, the sheriff takes Luke with him to help free the other children, having captured Mrs. Sigsby. A revolution begins, with children capable of fighting, allowing others to escape. Not all survive, but those who do are visited months later by the head of the Institute. The head claims that the children were being used to combat threats that precognitive children saw coming in the future, and similar revolutions happened all at once at other facility locations around the world. The children are left alone if the secrets of the Institute stay hidden, leaving Luke to mourn the losses he suffered.
Connections to Other Stephen King Works
The most significant connection that The Institute shares with many other novels in Stephen King’s universe is the setting for most of the book: the deep woods of Maine. Most of Stephen King’s works take place in Maine, and even the small town in South Carolina in which other parts of the novel take place, DuPray, is similar to other locations Stephen King has created, such as Derry and Castle Rock, Maine.
There are also a lot of similarities between the characters in The Institute and those in other novels, including Firestarter and Carrie. The theme of children with special abilities, namely psychic and telekinetic abilities, being abused or mistreated has played across so many of Stephen King’s novels, including Doctor Sleep. Although there are no direct confirmations or connections made in the book, the children’s abilities do bare a similarity to the children marked as “breakers” in The Dark Tower series, used by The Crimson King to break down the beams holding The Dark Tower in place.
Other similarities exist, with minor characters like Tim Jamison from The Outsider appearing in this novel, as well as references to the show Castle Rock or the films IT part 1 and 2. These similarities showcase the true strength of King’s work as a master storyteller. Even the shadowy organization of the Institute itself resembles The Shop in Firestarter. It plays into the conspiracy theory regarding special children during the US Experiments known as MK ULTRA, a conspiracy also explored in Stranger Things. These connections will help draw in viewers and enhance the narrative of this series when it comes to MGM+ sometime later this year.
Stephen King
