Miss Desjardin

**Rita L. Desjardin**, best known as **Miss Desjardin** is a major character in Stephen King's first horror novel, Carrie. She is the young, attractive and lively PE teacher at Ewen High School in the town of Chamberlain, Maine.

## Novel

### Biography

In the story Miss Desjardin is in her first year as a gym teacher and therefore receives a little guidance from the assistant principal, Mr. Morton. As the story begins Miss Desjardin at first feels the same disgust that everyone feels for Carrie White.

But when she witnesses Carrie being humiliated and harassed by the other girls in the locker room for her hysterical reaction to her first period and realizes that Carrie didn't even know what a period was she takes her side and wants to punish the girls that bullied her by having them suspended for 3 days and banned from the prom but the principal, Mr. Grayle settles on a lesser punishment. a week of boot-camp style detention in the gym refusing to attend it will result in 3 days suspension from school and banishment from the prom. But in Miss Desjardin's view the only reason why the administrators didn't go along with her proposed punishment was because they are all ruled by men and thus didn't really understand just how nasty the girl's behavior had been. The lead bully, Chris Hargensen skips the detention and thus is banned from the prom. Mr. Grayle reprimands Miss Desjardin for cursing at Chris but stands by her when Chris's lawyer who is also her father threatens to sue the school unless Chris is allowed to attend the prom and Miss Desjardin fired from her job. At the prom she talks to Carrie about her own prom night and how she was several inches taller than her date and felt awkward but she still remembered it as a beautiful event and later congratulates her for winning prom queen. Chris rigs a cord connected to 2 buckets above Carrie and Tommy Ross and pulls it when they are on the stage drenching them in pig’s blood. Everyone laughs and Miss Desjardin gets influenced by the laughter that she tries to hide it from Carrie but to no avail as Carrie uses her telepathic powers to read her true thoughts. Miss Desjardin later partially ceases to laugh and goes over to Carrie who pushes her aside with her incredibly strong telekinetic power because Carrie knew that deep down inside she was also laughing at her by telepathically reading her mind. Once outside Carrie uses her telekinetic powers to wreak the school then leaves for home destroying everything she passes. Miss Desjardin is one of the few survivors of the "The Black Prom” who managed to escape in the nick of time.

2 weeks after the catastrophe Miss Desjardin retires from teaching implicitly saying that she is secretly consumed with guilt over Carrie because of the behavior she showed at The Black Prom and to which she is sure that it contributed to Carrie's murderous rampage and also states that she would rather kill herself than to teach again. It is also implied she constantly has nightmares since then because of what happened.

### Personality

Miss Desjardin in the story is far darker. She has like the other girls a similar behavior towards Carrie White. Only after the shower incident she begins to warm up to Carrie's loneliness but even then she punishes the girls only to clean her conscience regarding the slapping so that she could still continue to hate her.

That's why when Carrie becomes the victim of that evil prank she also laughs instead of helping her and Tommy Ross for which she had a duty under these circumstances and that's why she resigns as a teacher after the disaster because she knows she is guilty and feels regret and remorse about what had happened and it is this guilt that later consumes her because she should have known better and because of the horrible consequences of her own mean behavior which also nearly did cost her own life.

Finally she also knows she should have investigated the place of the disaster more thoroughly which also contributed to the tragedy.
In her letter of resignation she doesn't mention all this but it is implied in the words "if only, if only…".

## 1976 Film

    Miss Desjardin is renamed **Miss Collins** in the 1976 film and is portrayed by Betty Buckley. Miss Collins is one of the first characters to show kindness towards Carrie White by prompting the other girls to pass the ball to her.

During the shower incident where Carrie is mistreated the lightbulb explodes while she tends to her. Later she goes with Carrie to the principal, Mr. Morton and explains what happened. Mr. Morton gives the girls a week's detention at her convenience or refusal of their prom tickets and 3 days suspension. Miss Collins tells the girls how upset, furious, mad and angry she is with them. She makes them all do a merciless, week-long, boot camp-style detention to serve as a punishment. When Chris Hargensen refuses Miss Collins slaps, argues and fights with her and kicks her out of prom. Later on Miss Collins sees an upset Carrie and asks her what's wrong and tells her how pretty she is and raises her hopes of finding someone. She finds Sue Snell and Tommy Ross distrustful about wanting Carrie at the prom and tells them off warning them not to hurt her. At prom Miss Collins shares her personal prom story with Carrie and the 2 of them hug. She is later seen at the coronation for the prom king and queen. When Miss Collins spots Sue who tries to warn her about the bucket and kicks her out of the prom. When the blood is poured onto her however she starts to cry. When Carrie sees everybody laughing at her she sees Miss Collins laughing and saying "Trust me Carrie, you can trust me". As the massacre starts Miss Collins can be seen trying to revive Tommy with Cora Wilson and a few others.

She can also be seen grabbing Cora's ears trying to see if she had anything to do with the cruel prank that Chris pulled. Miss Collins and others try to carry Tommy’s body and find help but Carrie's telekinesis intercepts the crowd and pins Miss Collins to the side as Carrie kills her by crushing her with a falling basketball goal post like a helpless female poodle.