Themes and message

Escapism

The main theme of the short story “The Music Room” by Stephen King is escapism. The couple employ different methods to distract themselves from their social setting and from their job.

At first, the couple use their activities to escape from the negative consequences of the Great Depression and also to forget about their unhappiness caused by their inability to have children: “There were fallow periods, it was true, but when the job was on, they could afford to think of nothing else, and they both liked it that way” (p. 119, ll. 7-9).

However, the couple also use comic strips to distract themselves from the grim reality of their actions. Mrs. Enderby thinks about Timmons’ wife and children, imagining that they will be fine without him, and that the wife’s family, which she imagines as “a generous couple right out of a Dickens novel” (p. 121, ll. 19-20), “would take her in and care for her and her children, little boys who might be endearing scamps like Hans and Fritz, the Katzenjammer Ki...