Misery Study Guide

Stephen King is an American author known widely as the “King of Horror,” though he has explored other genres, such as crime, science fiction, and fantasy. When King was two years old, his father abandoned the family, leaving King’s mother to raise Stephen and his older brother, David, alone. While King’s childhood often involved financial hardship, he took comfort in stories, and he began writing his own around age seven. King graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970 with a degree in English. There, he acquired writing mentors and met his wife, author Tabitha King. Tabitha famously rescued King’s debut novel, Carrie (1974), from the trash, insisting he keep working on it. From there, King began a prolific writing career, publishing approximately 200 short stories and contemporary horror classics such as The Shining (1977), Misery (1987), ‘Salem’s Lot (1975), and It (1986). Many of King’s novels have been adapted for film. He has written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman and has co-written fiction with his sons, Joe Hill and Owen King. King’s writing has won numerous awards, including the inaugural Bram Stoker Award in 1988 for Misery (1987). Additionally, he has been awarded the 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and the 2014 National Medal of Arts. King resides in Bangor, Maine for most of the year, where he and Tabitha contribute to many local charities.

Misery (1987) is a deeply personal novel for Stephen King, whose private struggles manifest in its multifaceted plot. In interviews, King has stated that Annie Wilkes represents his cocaine addiction, which simultaneously caused and alleviated his suffering for several years. In his memoir, On Writing (2000), King credits Wilkes’s character for helping him get sober, as he became fed up with his addiction, despite the fear that giving up drugs also meant forfeiting his creativity. King, like his author-character Paul Sheldon, also experienced the creative frustration of being typecast as a genre writer. Just before publishing Misery in 1987, King released an epic fantasy novel, The Eyes of the Dragon, which drew criticism from fans who had come to view him as a horror author only, just as Paul is pigeonholed into writing romance novels. On a wider scale, King’s fascination with the obsessive nature of celebrity worship—a phenomenon in full swing by the 1980s, which King himself had experienced as the so-called “King of Horror”—helped shape Annie’s character, notably the thin line she walks between love for and hatred of her favorite author. It is worth noting that King may have drawn inspiration for Annie Wilkes from Genene Jones, a murderous nurse who was convicted of killing at least two children in her care in Texas in 1984.

For readers who enjoy the isolated setting and psychological suspense of Misery (1987), King’s novel Gerald’s Game (1992) explores similar themes of physical and mental entrapment, chronicling the ordeal of a woman whose husband handcuffs her to a bed before dying of a heart attack. John Fowles’ The Collector (1963)—which King briefly references in Misery—acts as a precursor to Annie’s abduction of Paul, following a man who abducts a beautiful art student in the hope that she will eventually fall in love with him. Readers interested in power dynamics and human depravity will find much to think about in Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door (1989), based on a true story in which a young girl was held captive and tortured by her caregiver. For a more positive perspective on surviving confinement, Emma Donoghue’s Room (2010) tells the story of an imprisoned mother and child, whose resilience and love sustain them throughout their ordeal. Caitlin Marceau’s novella, This Is Where We Talk Things Out (2022), revisits Misery’s remote setting and interpersonal tension in the context of family trauma. In The Hole (2016) by Hye-Young Pyun and translated from the original Korean by Sora Kim-Russell, a bed-ridden man relies on his grieving and neglectful mother-in-law to care for him, examining ideas of dependence and seclusion. Finally, for readers looking for more psychological fiction about the lives of writers, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot (2021) follows a down-on-his-luck writing professor who steals a deceased student’s work, only to discover that literary fame comes at a high cost.