Margaret White (Stephen King)

Margaret White
Betty Buckley as Margaret White, with Linzi Hateley as Carrie in the 1988 musical
First appearance	Carrie (novel, 1974)
Last appearance	Carrie (film, 2013)
Created by	Stephen King
Portrayed by	Piper Laurie Barbara Cook Betty Buckley Patricia Clarkson Marin Mazzie Julianne Moore Kim Criswell
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Laundromat worker
Family	Ralph White (husband) Carrie White (daughter) John Brigham (father) Judith Brigham (mother) Harold Allison (stepfather) Sadie Cochran (maternal grandmother)
Religion	Fundamentalist Christianity

Margaret White (née Brigham) is a fictional character created by Stephen King in his first published novel, Carrie, where she is the main antagonist. She is the domineering, abusive, insane and fanatically religious mother of Carrie White, who has the power of telekinesis, and thinks almost everything, especially related to the female body and sex, is sinful.

In the novel, Margaret is an overweight and very ugly woman who always dresses in shapeless black clothing. She works full-time at a laundromat and has held her job for many years. She often maims herself during times of great stress. Once, Carrie dreamed that Margaret had given herself a hysterectomy after battling the devil. Born Margaret Brigham, her father was killed in a gun battle and she began attending a fundamentalist church group. Her mother remarried a man named Harold Allison, but Margaret denounced them, believing that they were living in sin.

In 1960, she met her soon-to-be husband, Ralph White. Margaret later tells Carrie she had sex with Ralph before marriage. She wanted to kill herself afterwards and fell down the stairs to induce a miscarriage. After they married, Ralph vowed that their indiscretions would never recur, but one night Ralph tried to seduce Margaret before being thrown out of the house. He returned drunk and had sex with her in a bizarre form of marital rape that Margaret both hated and enjoyed. This resulted in the conception of Carrie. In January 1963, seven months before Carrie's birth, Ralph was killed while working on a construction site.

Margaret gave birth to Carrie while in her house, without medical assistance. Her relationship with her daughter was extremely abusive from the time Carrie was a baby. This deeply affected Carrie throughout the years, putting great strain on her. Whenever Margaret believed that Carrie had sinned, she threw her in a specially decorated closet to pray for forgiveness, usually leaving her there for several hours or even days as a punishment.

Margaret believes that nearly everything is a sin and harbors very restrictive views on sexuality. She feels that only "loose women" develop breasts, or "dirtypillows" as she calls them; she feels that she herself developed breasts due to the way Carrie was conceived. When Carrie has her first menstrual cycle at the age of 17, Margaret refers to it as the 'Curse of Blood' and claims that it was brought on by some sort of sexual sin on Carrie's part. After berating Carrie, Margaret locks her in the "prayer closet" until it is time for bed.