Plot summary
In a future where teleportation—called “The Jaunt”—allows instant travel between planets, the Oates family is preparing to move to Mars. While they wait, the father tells his children the story of The Jaunt and the experiments that revealed a disturbing detail: although the physical journey lasts a fraction of a second, the conscious mind perceives it as an unbearable eternity. For this reason, before traveling, all passengers are anesthetized so that they face the procedure asleep. Fascinated by the story, the eldest son decides to experience the journey awake. Upon arriving on Mars, his body survives, but his mind goes mad when confronted with the temporal abyss of consciousness without stimuli.
Summary of Stephen King’s The Jaunt
In a future where interstellar travel has been made possible by teleportation technology known as “The Jaunt,” the Oates family prepares to move from Earth to Mars. In a sterile and secure waiting room, the father, Mark Oates, takes advantage of the time before the procedure to tell his children, Ricky and Patricia, how The Jaunt system was invented, hoping to calm their nerves about the first trip. The story, as well as being a lesson in history and science, is also a warning.
Mark begins by explaining that the inventor of the process was Victor Carune, an eccentric scientist who developed the method of teleportation in the midst of a deep global energy crisis in the late 20th century. The experiment that started it all was accidental: Carune managed to transport his own fingers a short distance within his laboratory. He then conducted tests with inanimate objects such as keys, pencils, and a clock. Everything seemed to indicate that the process was perfect and did not alter matter.
However, things took a disturbing turn when he began experimenting with live animals. The first mice sent through the portal while fully conscious appeared on the other side catatonic or dead. In contrast, those that were sent unconscious—drugged or asleep—survived and showed no after-effects. Carune then realized that something terrible was happening on a mental level during the transition. Although the results with unconscious mice were positive, questions remained: what happened to the mind during that brief interval when the body was transported? Carune theorized that although the physical journey was instantaneous, the mind continued to function within the vacuum of The Jaunt for what could seem like a subjective eternity.
With no better explanation, it was concluded that consciousness was not compatible with the teleportation process and had to be “anesthetized” to prevent irreversible damage.
Over time, the government took control of the technology and made it the cornerstone of a new economic and social order. The transport of goods and people revolutionized the world, facilitating the colonization of planets and the extraction of resources. However, the use of The Jaunt on conscious people remained strictly prohibited and was carefully regulated. Even so, rumors persisted: there was the story of Rudy Foggia, a man sentenced to death who agreed to be sent away while awake in exchange for a pardon. He was found with white hair and completely insane, and his last words were: “It’s eternity in there.”
Back in the waiting room, dispatch service assistants approach with gas masks to anesthetize the passengers. Mark concludes the story by suggesting that the mind cannot withstand the conscious experience of the journey and that it is necessary to sleep in order not to perceive that inner eternity. While Patricia still expresses concern, Ricky seems fascinated by the story.
When the time comes for the journey, Mark falls asleep with the gas. When he wakes up at the Mars station, chaos surrounds him. His young daughter screams desperately and Marilys, his wife, faints when she sees her son’s stretcher. Ricky has not fallen asleep: during the anesthesia process, he held his breath to experience the journey awake. The child who is now writhing and screaming madly on the stretcher has completely white hair and an aged, demented expression. His face and his screams (“Longer than you think, Dad! Longer than you think!”), encapsulate the ultimate horror of the story: consciousness confronted with infinity.
Characters from Stephen King’s The Jaunt
Mark Oates is the central character of the story. A family man and worker transferred to Mars by his company, he embodies the figure of the modern adult: educated, rational, and functional. His role as narrator within the narrative—telling his children the story of the origin of The Jaunt—makes him a mediator between the reader and the universe of the story. Through his account, King unfolds the history of teleportation technology and its philosophical implications. Mark appears as a protective father who tries to reassure his family by softening the darker aspects of the story, but also as someone who, despite his experience with The Jaunt, harbors deep fears that he cannot fully control. The apparent serenity of his narration contrasts with his inner anxiety, especially in the final moments, when his understanding of the danger is overtaken by his son’s curiosity.
Marilys Oates, the mother, appears less developed than her husband, but plays a key role as an emotional counterpoint. She represents sensitivity, vulnerability, and silent concern in the face of the unknown. Her initial nervousness, her need to calm her children, and finally her breakdown upon arriving on Mars and discovering what has happened to Ricky reveal the emotional weight of the story. Although she does not have an active narrative role, her presence humanizes the situation and emphasizes the family nature of the drama.
Ricky Oates, the twelve-year-old son, is a particularly significant character because he embodies the central conflict of the story: the tension between intellectual curiosity and the limits of knowledge. He is a restless and bright child, fascinated by the story of The Jaunt, and unable to resist the temptation to discover the truth for himself. His decision not to inhale the gas reveals a disturbing boldness and a desire for knowledge that transcends prudence. The result—his transformation into an elderly creature, driven mad by an experience that no conscious being should endure—makes Ricky the embodiment of the price paid for unmediated knowledge and the punishment that awaits those who cross certain boundaries.
Patricia Oates, the younger daughter, appears as Ricky’s counterpoint. At nine years old, she is more emotional, insecure, and dependent. Through her questions, fears, and childish gestures, King shows how the human mind, even when immature, perceives and reacts to the unknown. Although her role is minor, she embodies the expected response to danger: fear, incomprehension, and the need for protection.
Victor Carune, the scientist who invented The Jaunt, is a central figure in Mark’s story. Although he does not participate in the main action, his biography occupies a crucial place in the narrative. He is presented as an eccentric, solitary, and obsessive genius whose discovery transformed the world. His figure evokes the archetype of the visionary scientist who faces forces he can barely understand. His discovery of the effects of teleportation on consciousness plunges him into a mixture of fascination and anguish. Carune embodies the power of knowledge, as well as its inherent limits and dangers.
Rudy Foggia, a marginal and probably apocryphal character in Mark’s story, represents the extreme experiment: the human being who goes through The Jaunt awake. His brief appearance condenses the essence of the story’s cosmic horror: the notion of a subjective eternity lived in a state of consciousness without a body or stimuli. His fate—sudden aging, madness, death—acts as a final warning, emphasizing the story’s main theme: the human mind cannot withstand certain experiences.
Literary analysis of Stephen King’s The Jaunt
What genre and subgenres does the work belong to?
The Jaunt belongs to the science fiction genre, and more specifically to the subgenre of speculative science fiction with elements of psychological horror. The story begins with a typical technological science fiction approach, focusing on teleportation as a revolutionary advance, but quickly delves into territory where the threat is not external, but internal and mental. The real core of the story is not the machine or its precision, but what happens to the human mind when faced with the absolute void of The Jaunt without being anesthetized. Thus, King merges the mechanisms of science fiction with a deeply disturbing vision of human beings and their psychological fragility, approaching existential horror.
Where does the story take place?
The action takes place in the distant future, in a context where humanity has managed to colonize other planets thanks to teleportation technology. The action initially takes place in the waiting room of New York’s Port Authority Terminal, which now operates as a departure station for interplanetary travel, specifically to Whitehead City on Mars. Although it is mentioned that the building has not changed much in three hundred years, its interior has been transformed into a sterile space, with rest rooms, automated armchairs, and staff trained to administer anesthetic gases. This almost clinical transit setting contrasts with the story told inside: a story that goes back to Earth’s past, with makeshift laboratories in barns, laboratory mice, discussions about the energy crisis of the 20th century, etc.
The story thus moves between two planes: the futuristic present, controlled and civilized, where everything seems to be under human control, and the experimental past, where a technology full of potential and, at the same time, unknown threats is discovered. But there is also a third setting that is not shown, but which is increasingly intuited: the interior space of The Jaunt, the place where consciousness is lost upon being teleported. That impossible void, that region without time or form, becomes the true heart of the story: a setting that is not shown visually, but which represents the core of the horror.
What kind of narrator does the story have?
The narrative is constructed using a framed structure: the main story is told in the third person, with an external narrator who positions himself above the scene and describes the Oates family, their interactions, and the atmosphere in the departure lounge. This narrator adopts a sober, detailed, and progressively disturbing tone. However, much of the story, especially the origin story of The Jaunt, is presented through the speech of Mark Oates, who acts as an internal narrator within the main story.
This device allows Stephen King to articulate two overlapping narrative planes: on the one hand, the present of the family about to board the plane; on the other, the story told by the father, which encompasses both the anecdotal and the technical and gradually becomes a grim chronicle. The main narrator gives way to Mark’s account, whose voice, although partial and filtered by his intention to protect his children, reveals a story laden with warnings. This framed narrative strategy allows the author to sustain tension and create an effect of progressive revelation, in which horror takes hold in the reader’s mind even before it is openly manifested in the final scene.
What are the main themes developed by the author in the story?
One of the central themes of the story is the relationship between science and consciousness. The story poses a disturbing question: what happens to the mind during a physical process that defies the laws of perception and temporality? The technology in The Jaunt, while solving a material problem—transportation—raises an existential problem: the experience of absolute emptiness for a lucid consciousness. In this way, King reflects not only on progress, but also on its limits and its dark areas, those that science can touch but not fully explain.
Another fundamental theme is that of knowledge and its dangers. The character of Ricky embodies the figure of the curious person who wants to see what is forbidden. His fate recalls ancient mythical warnings, such as the punishment of Prometheus or Pandora’s box, where the impulse to know comes at an unbearable price. The story warns against the temptation to break boundaries, not out of malice, but out of a thirst for understanding, and shows that there are areas of the universe—both external and mental—that cannot be traversed without a price to pay.
Time and perception also play an essential role. The Jaunt, as an experience, poses the paradox of a journey that is instantaneous in physical terms but eternal in subjective terms. This leads to a reflection on what it means to exist without references, without a body, without stimuli. Ultimately, it is a reflection on absolute isolation and on the destructive effect on a mind confronted with eternity.
Finally, the story addresses fear not as a passing shock, but as a philosophical experience. Fear does not come from the machine, nor from the government, nor even from failed experiments: it comes from within, from what the mind can experience when it finds itself alone, conscious, and in an endless space.
What writing style and techniques does the author use?
In this story, Stephen King uses clear, controlled prose, far removed from the sensationalism of conventional horror. His style combines fluid narration with natural dialogue, especially in the interactions between the members of the Oates family, allowing the reader to identify with their emotions and doubts. The gradual build-up of suspense is one of the story’s most notable technical achievements: the horror is not presented abruptly, but is hinted at little by little through anecdotes, details, and digressions that, far from dispersing the tension, intensify it.
The frame story technique allows the past to be introduced as a story within a story, providing greater structural richness while maintaining a narrative rhythm that oscillates between scientific exposition and intimate confession. King also uses the technique of anticipation: from the beginning, he alludes to gas and the need to sleep during The Jaunt, thus sowing a sense of unease whose potential is only fully revealed at the end.
The handling of the point of view is also effective: by keeping the reader in the same position as the children, the recipients of the story, while offering a broader view through the external narrator, King achieves a double level of reading: that of the technological fable and that of intimate terror. Finally, the climax of the story, when Ricky emerges transformed after consciously experiencing the transport, is narrated with rawness and economy, but with a devastating symbolic and emotional charge that consumes the latent horror of the story.
Reading guide: For whom would Stephen King’s story The Jaunt be recommended?
Stephen King’s The Jaunt is a science fiction story with elements of psychological horror that may be intense, disturbing, or even disturbing for some readers. Therefore, it is recommended mainly for older teenagers and adults, i.e., ages 16 and up. Although the narrative begins in an accessible manner, with a family conversing in an everyday futuristic setting, the story gradually delves into profound philosophical themes and emotionally charged scenes, especially toward the end, where an experience of madness induced by the absolute isolation of consciousness is starkly described.
The story requires a reader capable of processing not only the technical aspects of teleportation, which are explained in detail, but also the ethical and metaphysical dilemmas it raises. The idea of a mind faced with eternity, alone and defenseless, demands a level of maturity and sensitivity that is not suitable for children or very young adults. Furthermore, although it contains no prolonged explicit violence or excessive vulgar language, the emotional impact of the ending may be disturbing to impressionable readers.
In terms of audience, The Jaunt is particularly appealing to readers interested in the intersection between science fiction and horror, as well as those who enjoy speculative stories that, beyond technology, question the limits of knowledge, perception, and human experience. It may also be of great interest to readers looking for short stories with a solid structure, good narrative pace, and a shocking ending. Finally, its narrative and thematic value makes it a recommended read for literature students and fans of text analysis who wish to explore how Stephen King combines existential horror with the logic of classic science fiction.
This post is also available in:
Español (Spanish)
