Cody Parish and Kristen Ann Leer
Aside from its infamous “hobbling scene,” the most indelible moment of director Rob Reiner’s 1990 film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, Misery (1987), occurs when fictional writer Paul Sheldon “sees” his dead captor and obsessed fan Annie Wilkes again months after his escape from her remote mountain home.[i] While talking with his literary agent about his new novel in a fine-dining New York restaurant, Paul looks up to see Annie dressed as a waitress approaching his table.[ii] As the two make eye contact, she raises a butcher knife menacingly from her rolling cart, but Paul recognizes her to be a hallucination. This moment is terrifying for its suddenness, brevity, and utter destruction of the sense of safety viewers normally expect in a denouement. It also visually depicts Paul suffering a hallmark symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), producing a significant shift in attention to the horror of traumatic experience. Drawing from key ideas and concepts of trauma studies, a comparative analysis of King’s novel and Reiner’s adaptation of Misery reveals the story’s horror derives just as much from Paul’s post-traumatic psychological response to the brutal violence he endures as it does from the violence itself. While until recently much of horror cinema has refrained from exploring the traumatic impact of the violence its survivors experience, the haunting depiction of PTSD in Misery[iii] distinguishes itself from its contemporaries by doing just that, framing trauma as a potent source of horror.
Trauma studies scholar Cathy Caruth defines PTSD as “a response, sometimes delayed, to an overwhelming event or events, which takes the form of repeated, intrusive hallucinations, dreams, thoughts or behaviors stemming from the event, along with numbing that may have begun during or after the experience, and possibly also increased arousal to (and avoidance of) stimuli recalling the event.”[iv] According to Judith Herman in her seminal work on trauma, Trauma and Recovery (1992, 2015), the most common symptoms of this disorder can be categorized as hyperarousal, intrusion, and constriction. Hyperarousal occurs after the post-traumatic event, when the survivor continues to live on high alert, “as if the danger might return at any moment.” Intrusion entails the disruptive return of the traumatic event, in which the survivor spontaneously experiences the moment of trauma with the same force and vividness of the original violence. Finally, survivors may suddenly enter a numb, trance-like state of surrender in what is known as constriction, dissociating completely to avoid situations that may trigger post-traumatic episodes.[v] In Misery, Paul experiences two of these three hallmark symptoms of PTSD after escaping captivity: hyperarousal and intrusion. Interestingly, Caruth describes PTSD as a “historical phenomenon … in which the overwhelming events of the past repeatedly possess, in intrusive images and thoughts, the one who has lived through them.”[vi] The ability of a past trauma to “possess” a survivor in the present suggests the “haunting power” of traumatic memory,[vii] a power that recalls Sigmund Freud’s notion of “the uncanny.”Freud introduces the uncanny in his appropriately titled essay, “The Uncanny” [“Das Unheimliche”] (1919, 1957), a psychoanalytic concept that has become incredibly influential within horror studies. Freud begins his analysis of the word uncanny, or unheimlich in German, by defining it in relation to canny, or heimlich. Unheimlich means “unhomely” or unfamiliar, and heimlich refers to the opposite, namely that which is “homely” or familiar.[viii] After tracing the etymology of heimlich, Freud finds that at some point its definition paradoxically assumes the meaning of unheimlich. In other words, canny becomes uncanny and vice versa. It is the blurring of supposedly fixed boundaries between these two words that comes to define Freud’s concept of the uncanny. Within horror studies, then, the uncanny may refer to the blurring of markers distinguishing, for example, the present from the past, the living from the dead, or the human from the inhuman.
With regard to the function of traumatic memory in Misery (both the film adaptation and the novel), the uncanny refers specifically to the blurring of the real and imaginary for the post-traumatic survivor, i.e., Paul, who has difficulty distinguishing between the two planes of perception in the months following his rescue.[ix] This framing is important because trauma studies scholars have actively balked at attempts to examine trauma through a psychoanalytic lens. Bessel A. Van Der Kolk and Onno Van Der Hart take particular issue with scholars who claim survivors of trauma repress traumatic memories, implying survivors deliberately push these memories down into an inaccessible subconscious. Instead, the authors argue that the term dissociation is most appropriate because it refers to an involuntary coping response from the survivor to distance themselves from the traumatic experience.[x] Repression, or “the return of the repressed,” is a fundamental component of Freud’s conception of the uncanny, however. The return of the repressed refers to something from the past that was repressed from consciousness and subsequently produces an anxiety that leads to its return in a form at once familiar and unfamiliar to the subject.[xi] Much of horror scholarship has traded heavily on “the return of the repressed” as part of the uncanny; we argue, though, that only the inherently transgressive nature of the uncanny—its ability to blur seemingly fixed boundaries—applies to the analysis of Paul’s PTSD in Misery.
While the film adaptation of Misery offers only its final scene as a glimpse into the traumatized mind of Paul, readers will find two harrowing post-traumatic moments at the end of the novel that exemplify the uncanniness of PTSD through its symptoms of hyperarousal and intrusion. Following his rescue from Annie’s home, Paul continues to “see” Annie in his daily life. Paul has one particularly lucid PTSD episode when he thinks he encounters Annie alive in his apartment: “Annie rose up from behind the sofa like a white ghost, dressed in a nurse’s uniform and cap. The axe was in her hand and she was screaming.”[xii] Paul admits to falling down and having to stifle a scream before realizing his hallucination of Annie was just his Siamese cat. Annie reappears without warning a final time while Paul tries to write: “He heard a noise behind him and turned from the blank screen to see Annie coming out of the kitchen dressed in jeans and a red flannel logger’s shirt, the chainsaw in her hands.”[xiii] This time he blinks, and she disappears. The horror of these two episodes rests on their uncanniness. Annie’s sudden, impossible returns pose very real existential threats to Paul’s life, or so the reader is led to believe. Paul cannot distinguish reality from imagination, and it is clear that he remains hyperaroused, constantly anticipating Annie’s ambush and revealing how traumatic memories of Annie intrude violently into his life without warning.
Annie maintains a constant, almost supernatural grip over Paul’s consciousness even after death, proof of the omnipotence that captors often assume in the eyes of their victims. Herman dedicates an entire chapter of Trauma and Recovery to captivity trauma, writing, “In situations of captivity, the perpetrator becomes the most powerful person in the life of the victim, and the psychology of the victim is shaped by the actions and beliefs of the perpetrator.” Herman claims that captors instill fear in their victims through “inconsistent and unpredictable outbursts of violence and by capricious enforcement of petty rules.”[xiv] This behavior transforms the perpetrator into an almost omniscient being in relation to their victims.
Annie follows this blueprint in order to gradually condition Paul to see her as a god-like fixture in his life. In the film, she chastises him for the profanity in his new manuscript, saying, “It has no nobility.” This arbitrary aversion to cursing leads Annie to give Paul an ultimatum: burn his manuscript—what she calls “filth”—or she will burn him alive in his bed. The threat of violence as an enforcement tactic always harbors the potential for real harm, for any time Paul upsets Annie, whether through his words or actions or even his writing, she reacts with increasingly erratic cruelty. In one particularly telling episode, after Annie finishes reading the latest of the Misery series, Misery’s Child, she bursts into Paul’s bedroom despite its being the middle of the night, screaming with psychotic rage at him: “You murdered my Misery!” During this encounter, she vigorously shakes his bedframe, triggering intense pain in Paul’s shattered legs, breaks a potted plant, and bashes a wooden stand to pieces above his head. Her spontaneous burst of anger and violence cows Paul with fear, and he goes to extreme lengths to avoid inciting Annie’s wrath as he plots his eventual escape. Yet, during the hobbling scene in the film, Annie 
displays an all-seeing knowledge of Paul’s covert movements, which she recounts with horrifying accuracy before she bludgeons his ankles with a sledgehammer. She explains how Paul used a bobby pin to unlock his bedroom door, reveals other clues like the misplaced penguin figurine that tipped her off to his behavior, and brandishes the butcher knife he had hidden beneath his mattress and with which he hoped to kill her. The brutal act that follows this revelation establishes Annie as the vengeful god of Paul’s life once and for all, a psychotic captor who holds his sovereignty firmly within her unstable hands.
Although it is omitted from the film adaptation, Annie earns the moniker “the goddess” from Paul in the novel as a result of her punitive behavior. That Paul even attempts to kill her is an amazing act of courage, but it only provides Annie another opportunity to defy the laws of reality. After suffering an ostensible deathblow to the head, Annie inexplicably regains consciousness in a moment of omnipotent invincibility, invoking a long history within the horror genre of the villain suddenly leaping back to life for one final scare. “You can’t kill the goddess,” Paul thinks to himself upon seeing Annie’s eyes open. “The goddess is immortal.”[xv] It is as if everything Paul suspects about his captor has come true: Annie can never be killed. Of course, this proves not to be the case, as she does eventually die—in the novel from head trauma and blood loss, and in the movie from blunt head trauma. However, “Annie the goddess,” the omnipotent persona Annie has developed, does, indeed, live on through Paul’s traumatic memories.
As Herman claims, “Long after their liberation, people who have been subjected to coercive control bear the psychological scars of captivity.”[xvi] Paul’s devout, conditioned belief in Annie’s immortality primes him for sustained trauma after his escape, transforming the conclusion of the narrative into arguably the most frightening part of all. Each time the memory of Annie intrudes to attack Paul from the afterlife, audiences become increasingly hyperaroused themselves, adopting Paul’s post-traumatic symptoms. In this way, Annie’s omnipotent influence over Paul and the audience grows. It makes sense, then, that the epilogue of the novel in which Paul (and readers) must grapple with his post-traumatic stress is titled “GODDESS.”[xvii] When Paul sees Annie emerge with an axe from behind the couch in his apartment, he imagines her beheading him, thinking to himself, “Goddess,” before he dies in his hallucination.[xviii] Safety is never in his reach. Annie could always be around the corner, waiting in the shadows to spring her attack. Paul knows that she is dead, but trauma and its symptoms transcend both certain knowledge and death: “Annie Wilkes was in her grave. But, like Misery Chastain, she rested there uneasily. In his dreams and waking fantasies, he dug her up again and again. You couldn’t kill the goddess.”[xix] Like a ghost, trauma remains a haunting threat to the survivor. In a twist of fate most unfair, Annie maintains a firm influence over Paul’s life even after her death.
When Paul “sees” Annie once more as his waitress in the film adaptation, it is significant that his expression betrays no fear. Indeed, Paul reacts with stoic assurance to this uncanny hallucination of Annie brandishing a knife. He knows it to be imaginary even as the audience recoils in fright. Here Paul displays what Lawrence G. Calhoun and Richard G. Tedeschi call “posttraumatic growth.” Calhoun and Tedeschi define posttraumatic growth as an experience of positive change following a traumatic life event.[xx] The authors offer five domains of change most commonly noted by survivors: new possibilities, relating to others, personal strength, spiritual change, and appreciation of life.[xxi] Of these domains, Paul testifies to a greater appreciation of life and new possibilities as a result of his traumatic experience. In the eighteen months since his escape, Paul has published an acclaimed new novel, and he confesses to his agent that “in some way, Annie Wilkes and that whole experience helped me.”
In this final scene of the film, Paul appears to have outgrown his trauma, relegating Annie to his past. It is a moment that does not feel as earned as it does in the novel. What it suggests, however, is a sense of closure. In the movie, Paul sees Annie die before his eyes after striking her with a flat iron; Paul is granted no such grace in the novel. Instead, he waits in delirious, paranoid hysteria to be rescued by police, who tell him Annie is nowhere to be found in the home. Only afterward is he informed that she died in the barn from her wounds, her hand resting on a chainsaw. With this knowledge, but without his own visual confirmation of her death, Paul suffers repeated, vivid post-traumatic intrusions of Annie dismembering him. Conventional wisdom says seeing is believing, but sight proves to be no less reliable in discerning hallucination from reality—in offering closure for Paul and for audiences. Only with time and the re-establishment of safety and a support system is Paul able to lay the traumatic memories of Annie to rest. In doing so, Paul regains his identity as a writer, finding his voice in a new manuscript and imagining a future for himself beyond the gaze of “the goddess.”
Misery therefore champions themes of resilience, survival, and posttraumatic growth. It concludes with its protagonist triumphing over his PTSD, reasserting agency over his life by correctly discerning the real from the uncanny imaginary. Yet, as we have learned, seeing is not believing. As the credits roll, “I’ll Be Seeing You in All the Familiar Places” plays, a song that, in this context, offers a sobering reminder of the reality of trauma. As Paul says, “You couldn’t kill the goddess.” He can never actually escape Annie, for she will return to torment him again and again through his traumatic memory. This, more than the violence he suffers, is Misery’s enduring horror.
Notes:
[i] When we use the term “see” in this analysis, we are referring to Paul’s experience of a post-traumatic hallucination. The hallucination appears real to Paul and to us as viewers for two reasons. First, Misery is filmed from Paul’s perspective, and viewers identify with him through POV shots and other cinematography choices. As a result, Paul’s experience becomes our own, meaning that we endure alongside Paul these post-traumatic intrusions where the lines between the real and the imaginary are blurred. In these moments, Paul’s sight becomes unreliable, thus warranting scare quotes around what he “sees.”
[ii] This scene does not occur in the novel. Rather, it is only after Paul returns home to his apartment that the memory of Annie intrudes on him from behind the couch, ambushing him with her axe.
[iii] We will clarify when our analysis refers to the film adaptation of Misery or the novel as necessary. In moments when we do not do so, we are using Misery to refer to the story itself regardless of the medium through which it is told.
[iv] Caruth, 4.
[v] Herman, 35, 37, 42-3.
[vi] Caruth, 151.
[vii] Ibid., 4.
[viii] Freud, 219.
[ix] We recognize that trauma derives its uncanniness also from transgressing boundaries between the past and the present. However, cinema is a visual mode of storytelling, foregrounding the image in the process of producing suspense and fear. Discerning the real from the imaginary arguably becomes most important for audiences watching a horror film. Given the aim of our analysis—to explore how traumatic memory generates horror within Misery—we have deliberately limited the scope of this essay to examining how the portrayal of PTSD in Misery blurs the real and the imaginary.
[x] Van Der Kolk and Van Der Hart, 168.
[xi] Freud, 241.
[xii] Annie wields an axe in the novel as opposed to a sledgehammer or butcher knife. She admits to having killed a younger boyfriend with the axe and uses it to amputate one of Paul’s feet instead of breaking his ankles. The axe, then, is Annie’s signature weapon in the novel. King, 414; pt. 4, ch. 3.
[xiii] King, 418; pt. 4, ch. 9.
[xiv] Herman, 75, 77.
[xv] King, 398, emphasis original; pt. 3, ch. 44.
[xvi] Herman, 95.
[xvii] King, 409; pt. 4.
[xviii] King, 415, emphasis original; pt. 4, ch. 3.
[xix] King, 417; pt. 4, ch. 7.
[xx] Calhoun and Tedeschi, 96.
[xxi] Tedeschi and Calhoun, 459.
Works Cited:
Caruth, Cathy. Introduction to I. Trauma and Experience. Trauma: Explorations in Memory, edited by Cathy Caruth, John Hopkins UP, 1995, pp. 3-12.
—. Introduction to II. Recapturing the Past. Trauma: Explorations in Memory, edited by Cathy Caruth, John Hopkins UP, 1995, pp. 151-57.
Calhoun, Lawrence G., and Richard G. Tedeschi. “The Foundations of Posttraumatic Growth: New Considerations.” Psychological Inquiry, vol. 15, no. 1, 2004, pp. 93-102.
Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVII (1917-1919): An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works. Reprint. Translated by James Strachey, Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1957, pp. 217-56.
Herman, Judith. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. 1992. Basic Books, 2015.
King, Stephen. Misery. 1987. Pocket Books, 2017.
Misery. Directed by Rob Reiner, Columbia Pictures, 1990.
Tedeschi, Richard G., and Lawrence G. Calhoun. “The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory: Measuring the Positive Legacy of Trauma.” Journal of Traumatic Stress, vol. 9, no. 3, 1996, pp. 455-71.
Van Der Kolk, Bessel A., and Onno Van Der Hart. “The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma.” Trauma: Explorations in Memory, edited by Cathy Caruth, John Hopkins UP, 1995, pp. 158-82.
