Kristen A. Leer and Cody Parish
Introduction
At the time of its release, Misery (1990) was one of only a few horror films that depicted female psychosis, with actress Kathy Bates receiving critical acclaim and an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her portrayal of former nurse and obsessed fan Annie Wilkes. Nearly thirty years later, Annie Wilkes has returned for a new generation of viewers in the Hulu Original series Castle Rock (2018 – present). This television series is a psychological horror anthology set in a Stephen King multiverse inspired by the author’s characters, settings, and themes. Annie’s character takes center stage in season two, offering viewers a non-canonical prequel to the events of Misery. The revival of Annie Wilkes’ character joins the recent and growing remake cycle of King’s most popular film adaptations; however, Annie’s revival in Castle Rock attempts to update and align her representation, especially regarding her mental illness and gendered performance of care, with current cultural attitudes. This essay demonstrates how Annie’s character has been problematically framed as a monster in Reiner’s Misery and subsequently redeemed in the Castle Rock series.
Misery
For decades, mental illness has been weaponized within the horror genre to reflect the broader societal fears of difference and the unknown.[1] In Misery, Annie Wilkes’ disturbed mind renders her unpredictable, situating her as its indisputable antagonist. Her depiction as a monster based on her mental illness evokes the controversial history within the horror genre of vilifying characters who exhibit neurotic abnormality, leaving little room for the viewer to feel any sympathy or advocacy for Annie.
Annie’s mental instability manifests foremost through her delusion of herself as the merciful savior of Paul Sheldon, the bestselling author with whom she is obsessed. Equipped with her background as a nurse, she becomes Paul’s sole caretaker after a car crash leaves him severely injured and helpless. Annie’s “care” for Paul includes various physical and psychological abuses: drugging him, isolating him, binding him to the bed, forcing him to burn his manuscript, and infamously hobbling his feet to keep him bedridden, unable to escape or recover. Through her failure to fulfill the nurturing role in which she has cast herself, Annie exemplifies what Barbara Creed calls the “monstrous feminine,” a terrifying woman whose monstrosity derives from her renunciation of traditional femininity. Creed argues that “when [a] woman is represented as monstrous it is almost always in relation to her mothering and reproductive functions,”[2] and this is true of Annie. The film’s gradual unveiling of Annie’s troubled background only cements her monstrosity further and moves her beyond the realm of deserving sympathy or redemption. It is revealed that Annie’s twisted idea of care previously manifested with her killing infants as a maternity nurse, and before that originated with the “accidental” deaths of her father and roommate. Through her violence, Annie violates the expectations placed upon her as a woman and caretaker, a transgression ultimately blamed on the instability of her mind.
Annie (right) and Paul (left) in Rob Reiner’s Misery
The vast variety of mental disturbances and perturbing thoughts that Annie exhibits ostracize her from the audience and further solidify her villainy. Annie’s mood toward Paul fluctuates spontaneously between excessive adoration and explosive rage. Although Annie is extremely observant and perceptive, she is incapable of making logical connections between herself and the reality of her surroundings. Annie exists within the comforts of her own delusion – a delusion in which Misery Chastain is alive and Paul Sheldon depends on her alone for his salvation from the perversion of the outside world. Beyond Annie’s mention of her periods of depression and suicidal thoughts, the film never diagnoses the particular mental disorder(s) from which Annie suffers. This prompted forensic psychologist, Reid Meloy, to supply a psychiatric evaluation of Annie, which is featured on the 2007 collector’s edition DVD of Misery.[3] Basing his conclusions on Annie’s portrayal in both the original Stephen King novel and the film adaptation, Meloy diagnoses Annie with bipolar disorder that includes possible schizotypal and obsessive-compulsive features. Meloy cites Annie’s long-term depressive states and her obsession with a fictional series and characters as his rationale.
Annie’s erratic inclinations toward violence, with no discernible redemptive qualities to counterbalance, makes it hard for audiences to sympathize with her. The conflict between the two characters is framed as an absolute battle between good (Paul) and evil (Annie) with no space to consider otherwise. In his novel, King never provides any subtexts to allude to a past that might make the reader consider Annie in a sympathetic light. However, this is exactly what Hulu’s original series Castle Rock does. In Misery, the sympathy lies solely with Paul as Annie’s victim. With Annie as the focal character of Castle Rock’s season two, her canonical representation is revised to elicit sympathy – a direct subversion of her portrayal in Misery.
Castle Rock
With Castle Rock, the character of Annie Wilkes finds an opportunity for redemption and understanding, even as the self-contained narrative of the second season concludes with Annie’s descent into the madness that viewers recognize from Misery. Castle Rock reintroduces the viewers to Annie, a young woman traveling from small town to small-town working brief stints for hospitals and clinics long enough to steal psychiatric medication for her mental illness before skipping out of town. The biggest surprise for the viewers is that Annie has a teenage daughter named Joy, a character that does not appear in King’s novel or Reiner’s film adaptation. Joy is quiet and observant, having been homeschooled by Annie and taught that their nomadic lifestyle keeps Joy safe from a bad world–which, in Castle Rock, is exasperated with a level of supernatural influence that bends Annie’s perception of reality. After a midnight accident just outside of town, Annie and Joy find themselves stuck in Castle Rock, where they encounter a supernatural cult and other external chaos that further distorts Annie’s perception of reality.
Castle Rock attempts to redeem Annie by restructuring her image to garner sympathy despite the violent actions she still exhibits within the series. In doing so, Castle Rock gives Annie a voice and a space where her story can be told. Her revised portrayal is an example of lending an iconic female villain a voice to dismantle harmful tropes within horror regarding mental illness and the monstrous-feminine.
The Annie Wilkes viewers know and fear from Misery terrifies largely as a result of her excess of mental instability. Annie is not only delusional, but paranoid, punitive, and sadistic. Her behavior is primarily enabled by her self-isolation and her decision not to seek psychiatric treatment or medication. The same cannot be said of Annie in Castle Rock. In the first episode, the series filmmakers make clear that Annie not only wants to control her mental illness but that she will go to extreme lengths to obtain psychiatric medication for her disorder(s). Whereas this motive is absent in Misery because Joy is nonexistent, Annie manages her mental illness so that she can be a functioning mother to Joy.
Annie’s management of her mental illness includes self-diagnosis (keeping online records of therapy and treatment options for bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety) and stealing a combination of medications from her employers to keep her hallucinations at bay. When Dr. Nadia Howlwadaag catches Annie lifting medications from the Castle Rock hospital where Annie has been hired as a nurse, Dr. Howlwadaag gives Annie a chance to explain herself rather than immediately calling for her arrest. Annie confesses that she steals medication because she would be barred from working as a nurse if her history of mental illness was formally documented. And not being able to work and obtain her medication would jeopardize her ability to be a good mother to Joy. This confession directly highlights the social stigmatization of mental illness that is so problematically reinforced in Misery. Here Castle Rock comments on how people with mental illness are excluded from the potential to live a normal life. Dr. Howlwadaag sympathizes with Annie’s struggles as a mother with mental illness, leading her to prescribe Annie medication and keep her on staff as a nurse. Dr. Howlwadaag’s reaction is a pointed example of how to accommodate rather than vilify individuals who are mentally ill, like Annie.
That Annie seeks medication to control her mental disorder(s) in Castle Rock vastly contrasts with the unbridled mental instability her character displays in Misery. Viewers can sympathize with Annie’s struggle as someone trying to overcome personal afflictions, even by illicit means, to make a life for herself and her daughter. If it is not immediately apparent, sympathy for Annie only grows when viewers realize her motivations to procure medication are largely borne from her commitment to caring for Joy. Annie knows that if she cannot continue medication, she will become actively psychotic, unable to keep her job, and thus incapable of caring for her daughter. Reframed as a nurturing mother figure—a role made possible by managing rather than unleashing her mental illness—Annie can begin to shed her monstrous-feminine reputation.
Annie (right) with her daughter Joy (left) in season two of Castle Rock
Annie’s new identity as a caring mother is reinforced in the series by her protective behavior. In one instance, after Joy sees their new landlord preparing Molotov cocktails, he threatens Joy’s life in front of Annie in order to keep them quiet. At this provocation, Annie jams an ice cream scooper down his throat and repeatedly strikes it until it severs his spinal cord. Despite the brutality of the scene, viewers are unlikely to lose sympathy for Annie because, in this moment, she is positioned as a victim who killed out of self-defense rather than as a sadistic assailant. Annie’s violent reaction to this threat against Joy not only establishes the lengths to which she will go to protect her but also reveals a deeper inclination toward violence linked to her mental illness. This suggests once again that Annie’s performance of maternal care and protection is inextricably intertwined with her mental illness.
Unlike in Misery, Annie is given a full backstory in Castle Rock that explores the depths of her history with mental illness, broaching the theme of nature versus nurture. Was Annie born a monster (as implied in Misery), or was she shaped into one by her environment (which is what Castle Rock suggests)? This exploration allows audiences to sympathize with Annie even if her actions fall outside the realm of socially-acceptable behavior. As an extended flashback reveals, Annie was bullied in elementary school and already exhibited signs of neurological deficits like dyslexia and a lack of emotional awareness. Yet, it was not until she was provoked that Annie displayed violent inclinations. For example, after a day of being ruthlessly teased at elementary school for her lagging reading skills, Annie slams her lunchbox against a young girl who continues to tease Annie on the school bus, all while displaying no emotional awareness of her actions. Following this incident, both of Annie’s parents are called by her teacher to talk about her behavior, and school authorities strongly recommend that Annie receive psychiatric help. Her parents disagree, at which point Annie’s father decides to take her wellbeing into his own hands.
The relationship between Annie and her father, fraught with tension, sets up narrative continuities with the events of Misery. Her father, a writer, called Annie his “number one fan” as she diligently helped him transcribe his book from pen and paper to digital, which was supposed to help Annie’s ability to read. Being unsuccessful in caring for Annie’s education and mental stability into her teenage years, her mother hired a tutor, Rita Green. Although Rita first experienced difficulties with Annie, she ultimately provided the care that Annie had lacked, and Annie’s behavior improved. Despite gaining Annie’s trust, Rita betrayed her by having an affair with Annie’s father. During this extended flashback, as young Annie becomes more aware of her father’s infidelity, evidence mounts that her mental illness is partially hereditary. During an off-hand conversation with Rita, Annie’s father says he does not want Annie on drugs because they never worked for him. Following her parents’ divorce due to the affair, Annie’s mom falls into a severe depressive state and attempts to drown both herself and Annie by driving them into a lake. Annie’s mental instability worsens, turning violent when her father replaces Annie—his number one fan—with Rita and their newborn daughter, who was born out of the affair. All these events pile on top of Annie, the stress threatening her sanity. Thus, the series depicts Annie as a product of an intolerant society and abusive family. Had she received proper mental healthcare along with support from her guardians and peers, the series suggests she may not have transformed into the infamous monster of pop culture lore. Castle Rock demonstrates that, contrary to what horror has too often indicated, to be mentally ill does not make one innately monstrous.
Yet, even when Annie reaches her mental breaking point, she can still recognize the value of humanity in the innocent, and it is in this recognition that she finds her redemption. During arguably the most significant scene of the season, Annie descends into a psychotic episode after seeing her father dedicate his book to Rita and not to her. Annie’s father attempts to comfort her, but she pushes him away, and he falls down the basement stairs, impaling himself on one of the wooden posts. Rita believes Annie intentionally killed her father and runs to defend their infant daughter. Enraged, Annie attempts to murder Rita and then takes the newborn baby to a river nearby to drown them both just as Annie’s mother attempted to do. As Annie begins to submerge the newborn, the baby laughs, stunning Annie with her display of innocence—of humanity. Annie decides to adopt the baby, who viewers discover is Joy, and, in so doing, Joy becomes Annie’s salvation.
Young Annie holding baby Joy in preparation to drown her
From a nurse who committed infanticide to a young woman who saved an infant, from a mentally unhinged killer to a woman desperately struggling to keep her illness contained, or, more simply, from a monster to a hero: Annie’s character develops into its own antithesis. By managing her mental health, Annie can be a good mother to Joy, and in acting as a good mother, Annie finds motivation to take the management of her mental illness seriously. Only when the connection between the two is broken does Annie’s monstrosity consume her.
Throughout Castle Rock, Annie tries to fulfill her maternal obligations through self-sacrifice and commitment, deriving motivation from Joy despite her mental illness complicating matters. However, Castle Rock’s Annie is trapped by the imminent monstrosity of Misery’s Annie. She thus becomes the latter, the monster audiences are more familiar with, when, in the end, she kills Joy, believing her to be possessed by the supernatural cult that attempts to take over Castle Rock. Yet again, the culpability for Annie’s actions doesn’t fall on her shoulders: Castle Rock puts Joy’s death on the supernatural cult, even though it is Annie’s hands which are covered in her daughter’s blood. Nonetheless, the culpability of the cult preserves Annie’s status as a victim rather than a monster in this series.
Conclusion
Castle Rock demonstrates that Annie’s descent into homicidal psychosis is driven by a deeply traumatic childhood experience rather than natural tendencies. The series restructures Annie as a victim rather than a perpetrator, leading viewers to sympathize with her struggles. Annie’s depiction in Castle Rock illustrates what Jessie M. Quintero Johnson and Bonnie Miller note is a broader reluctance in contemporary film and television to frame female perpetrators’ acts of violence as “a function of extreme psychopathology.”[4] Moreover, Castle Rock upholds another trend that these scholars identify as sympathetic psychopathology, where a woman’s violence is provoked by “burdensome social and personal circumstances beyond [her] control.”[5] In other words, Johnson and Miller argue that violence perpetrated by women in media today exists almost exclusively as a reaction to abuse and violation, eliciting sympathy from audiences rather than condemnation. With iconic female villains like Annie Wilkes and, most recently, Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Forman, 1975) receiving revivals in 21st-century television,[6] it is more important now than ever before to continue examining how the characters are being revisited and reframed sympathetically for new audiences with more nuanced expectations for media representation. Although these origin stories are valid in furthering the understanding of these monstrous women of the past, there should be consideration of the different challenges that come with revision. Castle Rock lends Annie’s violence credence and a sympathy that dismantles her monstrosity. However, this creative license also negates the possibility that female characters might actually purposefully commit monstrous acts and diminishes sympathy for their victims. If filmmakers want to present positive portrayals of empowered women within horror, they must acknowledge the capacity for women to be monstrous as well.
Notes:
[1] We would like to thank Kalli Root for assisting us with organizing our ideas for this section of our essay. Her advice was much appreciated.
[2] Creed, 7.
[3] Misery: Diagnosing Annie Wilkes.
[4] Johnson and Miller, 223.
[5] Ibid, 212.
[6] Netflix Original television series Ratched is an origin story for the nurse Mildred Ratched and prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Works Cited:
Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. 1993. Routledge, 2007.
Castle Rock, Season Two, Hulu television series, October – December 2019.
Johnson, Jessie M. Quintero, and Bonnie Miller. “When Women ‘Snap’: The Use of Mental Illness to Contextualize Women’s Acts of Violence in Contemporary Popular Media.” Women’s Studies in Communication, vol. 39, no. 2, 2016, pp. 211–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2016.1172530.
Misery: Diagnosing Annie Wilkes. Writer Sarah Elbert, performances by Kathy Bates and Reid Meloy, Blue Collar Production, 2007. Misery, collectors ed. DVD, 2007.
Misery. Directed by Rob Reiner, Columbia Pictures, 1990.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Directed by Milos Forman, United Artists, 1975. Special ed., widescreen version, Warner Home Video, 2002.
