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Part 1, Chapters 14-28
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Misery, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Addiction, Compulsion, and Obsession
Fiction, Reality, and Coping
Suffering, Justice, and the Human Condition
Control and Entrapment
Summary
Analysis
When Annie brings the typewriter to him, Paul asks if she could get him some different paper. First Annie is confused, then angry at Paul’s implication that she is a poor judge of quality. Paul thinks of her as an unpredictable climate, full of storms. Ignoring his instincts, Paul chides her for getting angry, in the hopes that this will discourage her bouts of rage. Annie accuses him of making excuses to avoid writing the book. Paul insists he will start, and he shows her how the Corrasable Bond paper smears ink. She rebukes him for calling his writing a “business,” saying it makes him sound like a “whore.” Paul is furious, feeling that killing Misery of was his attempt to escape “a state of whoredom.”
In this scene, Paul attempts to reclaim some of his power in the situation by demonstrating his writerly expertise. Rather than appeasing Annie, he tries treating her like a child prone to tantrums in the hopes that it will shame her into better behavior. To use his own metaphor, Paul is trying to control a stormy natural disaster. He walks a fine line between enraging Annie and embarrassing her here, and for a moment it seems things might go his way. In calling him a “whore,” Annie implies Paul compromises his artistic talent by selling it—ironically, this is how he has always felt writing Misery instead of the work he truly cares about. In his mind, Annie is forcing him back into “whoredom.”
Themes
Paul tells Annie he is on her side (which she does not believe). Knowing she will not risk taking the book to a professional printer, he claims concern for the bound manuscript’s quality. Annie intends to get new paper at once, leaving Paul unmedicated. She ignores his protests, and she remarks that he will not be able to start the book for a few days because of the pain. Before leaving, Annie rushes at Paul like an angry child. Bobby pins fly from her hair, and she slams a fist into his already shattered knee. According to Annie, no one will hear Paul scream because people avoid her house. They know she got away with whatever crime she was accused of.
Paul takes a risk in trying to manipulate Annie, and it does not pay off. Accustomed to being accused of wrongdoing (or, in her mind, victimized), Annie does not trust Paul and sees through his attempts to manipulate her. The severe punishment she inflicts is a show of force, demonstrating that Annie is willing to hurt Paul to keep him in line, even if that delays his writing. It is worth noting that she looks to Paul like an angry child, which characterizes her as immature and vindictive. That she seems unafraid of admitting her crimes to Paul implies she does not intend to give him the chance to tattle on her: she believes she has all the power.
Themes
After Annie leaves, Paul resolves to find Annie’s drug supply to alleviate his extreme pain. He imagines his actions narrated by an enthusiastic sportscaster, praising his bravery. With great effort, Paul maneuvers the wheelchair toward the locked bedroom door. He focuses on his goal of locating Annie’s Novril. One of Annie’s lost bobby pins is on the floor, and Paul strains, screaming, to reach it. While researching Fast Cars, which is about a car thief named Tony Bonasaro, an ex-police officer named Tom Twyford taught Paul how to pick a lock using a bobby pin. Laboriously, Paul positions his wheelchair near the door and investigates the lock.
Paul’s need for relief compels him to risk capture and more bodily harm to get the Novril, demonstrating the extreme actions of someone looking to satisfy their addiction. It is significant that Paul’s imagination goes into overdrive in this time of extreme stress, the fictional sportscaster’s narration providing a comforting alternative to Paul’s reality. Fiction helps Paul again, as he remembers how to pick a lock from his research for Fast Cars.
Themes
Peering through the keyhole, Paul sees a hallway with a door he believes leads to the downstairs bathroom. Hoping this is where she keeps his pills, Paul nearly drops the bobby pin in his eagerness. He briefly falls unconscious before coming to. Remembering Twyford’s instructions, Paul struggles to move the lock’s tumbler. After several tries, he shoves the pin upward and breaks it, a piece falling into the lock. Miraculously, the door opens. Paul realizes the unfolded wheelchair is too large for the door, but he manages to forcibly squeeze himself through the frame before passing out again. He hallucinates Annie pointing a shotgun at him, offering him permanent freedom.
Again, Paul’s intense struggle to pick the lock while in extreme pain underscores his need for the pills, and highlights how pain and addiction are very effective motivators. His hallucination of Annie shows that she has already traumatized him to the point that he is trapped in a state of extreme fear and anxiety, even when she is not around.
Themes
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Paul views his hallucination as a warning that Annie could return at any moment. He rolls into the bathroom, exhausted from exertion. The bathroom contains a tub, a linen closet, and a medicine cabinet out of Paul’s reach. Distraught, he considers using a mop to reach it, but he despairs over his inability to clean the inevitable mess. Looking desperately into the closet, he discovers cartons of pharmaceutical samples. At last, he finds the Novril and swallows four pills. Having gotten his fix, Paul feels relief, even though the drugs cannot have taken effect yet. He takes 30 pills to stash in his room before replacing the carton in the closet.
The possibility that Annie might return at any moment sustains the suspense and underscores how, already, Paul is trapped in a terrified state because of Annie’s abuse. Paul’s physical limitations echo his mental entrapment, emphasizing his powerlessness. It is significant that Paul refers to the Novril as his “fix,” as this language reinforces his addiction and dependence upon the drug. Also worth noting is the fact that Paul begins to feel relief immediately, before the pills have taken effect, implying that some of his agony was psychological.
Themes
Paul panics at the sound of an approaching car, but it passes by. He worries that Annie will notice something out of place in the bathroom, but knows he needed the medication. In the hallway, he finds himself facing the living room, where most people keep their telephones. Paul argues with himself about whether or not Annie even has a phone, as he has never heard one ring. The part of him that knows he is pushing his luck is overruled, and Paul wheels into the parlor. The room is decorated with a portrait of Annie’s mother. Paul knocks a ceramic penguin off a table but catches it. He ignores his growing panic and looks for the phone.
Paul makes peace with his decision to leave his room, feeling he had no other choice because Annie left him in such pain. His decision to try the telephone, on the other hand, causes extreme inner conflict, because part of him believes it is more important to stay safe and trapped than to risk more pain or death trying to escape. The prominence of Annie’s mother’s portrait indicates Annie’s strong, childlike devotion.
Themes
Paul locates the phone near the TV, but the line is dead, despite being plugged in. He imagines the phone is purely decorative, designed to keep up Annie’s appearance of normalcy. Knowing Annie is paranoid and was acquitted of some major crime, he assumes having an unlisted number was not enough for her to feel secure from all the people who must want her downfall. Panicking now, Paul begins to turn his chair to return to his room and hide the stolen pills. He hears another car approaching and knows intuitively that it is Annie returning home. Terrified, he flashes back to a time his mother caught him smoking, and he knows that Annie will give him more than a spanking.
Annie’s dead phone amplifies the sense that she is playacting normalcy. This speaks to her deep-seated paranoia that everyone is out to get her. That Paul compares the prospect of being caught by Annie to being caught smoking by his mother highlights the way Annie has become almost godlike in his mind, as a parent appears to their child.
Themes
Paul speeds toward his bedroom and bounces off the doorframe, leaving a small dent. He realigns himself, and he heaves the wheelchair back through the doorway as Annie pulls into the driveway. He tries to close the door, but the lock is stuck, held in place by the broken piece of bobby pin inside. Hearing Annie approach the door, Paul struggles with the lock, and it starts to give. Annie calls out cheerfully just as he manages to shut the door. Wheeling himself back to the window, he hopes desperately that she won’t notice any tracks. As Annie opens the door, Paul realizes the boxes of Novril are still in his lap.
Again, Paul’s extreme fear that Annie will catch him outside his room shows how successfully she has imprisoned him, mentally as well as physically. Though Annie was enraged when she went to town, she returns in a cheerful mood, highlighting her deep emotional instability—and making her an even more unsettling antagonist.
Themes
Bringing his paper into the room, Annie notices Paul is covered in sweat. She asks whether he needs anything else (which he understands is a veiled threat to leave again), and she warns him not to make her mad anymore. Crying from shameful guilt, Paul claims to need the urinal to explain the way his hands are cupped over the Novril in his lap. When Annie leaves, he stuffs the boxes into his underwear. She returns with the urinal and two Novril. Paul asks Annie to wait for the pills to kick in before moving him, and he hides the stolen Novril beneath his mattress while she is out of the room. He falls unconscious and wakes 14 hours later to snowfall.
This interaction shows how Annie sees herself as a parent teaching her child (Paul) a difficult lesson (the lesson is to avoid making her angry, lest she punish him again). Perhaps because of this, Annie believes Paul’s tears when he breaks down as a child might after being shamed by their parent. Astonishingly, the guilt Paul feels is sincere, and he resents how much real control Annie has over him. Just as Paul barely escaped detection in this scene, the snowfall seems to indicate a reprieve from suffering, as it presumably covers his car once more, thereby prolonging his life.
Themes
