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Part 3, Chapters 1-10
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
After Annie cuts his thumb off, Paul becomes obsessive about tracking the days. Astonishingly, he continues his work on the novel, though he struggles with inspiration and plot consistency. The “hole in the paper” through which he sees the story grows smaller. Nevertheless, he is almost finished. Paul almost welcomes the knowledge that his life will end with the book. He reflects that it is the best constructed Misery novel and would have sold well if it ever received a proper printing. Despite the typewriter’s failure to hold together, he is determined to finish. The one thing he will not do, he thinks, is scream.
Like the typewriter that symbolizes his need to create, Paul’s inspiration is fading, along with his ability to use writing as a coping mechanism. That he welcomes death reflects how badly he has suffered during his imprisonment. It surprises Paul that the book Annie forced him to write turned out to be good. While this draws attention to the way harmful addictions (which Annie herself represents, as stated by King) can occasionally produce good results, this does not negate their negative effects. The suppressed scream that ends this section transitions the narrative back to the present moment, and it suggests that Paul does not want to show fear, which makes him vulnerable.
Themes
The thought of screaming returns Paul to the present moment. He is torn between the desire to scream for the police officer’s help and the need to be good so Annie will not punish him. The immobility is almost as torturous as losing his foot. For the first time, Paul realizes how fully Annie has destroyed his will and sense of self preservation. A young officer (Duane Kushner) exits the cruiser. Paul is panicking, but finally screams: “Africa!” He throws a ceramic ashtray through the window, getting the officer’s full attention. The man takes a photo from his pocket and says to Paul, “It’s you!” By the time Paul sees Annie, it is too late.
Paul’s internal struggle shows how thoroughly Annie has managed to mentally trap him. The fear of her punishment is enough to delay his cry for help, demonstrating how abusers manipulate their victims using violence. When Paul finally does scream, he says “Africa!”—calling out to his nearly-forgotten homeland (reality) outside of Annie’s walls. The officer seems to have been investigating Paul’s disappearance, based on his possession of the photograph.
Themes
Seeing Annie fills Paul with “superstitious horror,” as if she truly is a goddess. She is holding a wooden cross from her dead cow’s grave, and she drives its stake into the young officer’s back like a spear. The man (Duane Kushner) gropes for his gun, but Annie stabs him again and again. She doesn’t stop until the cross splits in two. In his room, Paul considers getting a knife from the kitchen, to kill himself before Annie can enact her revenge on him. Then Paul notices the officer is not dead. He crawls toward his car. Paul hears the riding lawnmower and screams a warning. Annie runs over the trooper’s gun and arm with the lawnmower before turning around and driving over his head. Paul vomits.
Annie’s arrival, in Paul’s perspective, feels inevitable. Comparing her to a goddess emphasizes the power she holds over his reality, and he thinks of that power as inescapable. Proving this point, Annie murders the young officer with no hesitation and great violence, showcasing her depravity.
Themes
Annie locks Paul’s door, saying she’ll deal with him later. Paul watches through his shattered window as Annie moves the riding lawnmower off the young officer’s body. He envies the man (Duane Kushner), who has escaped her. She moves the officer and his car into the barn before cleaning the blood and debris from the yard. Paul notes that she looks extremely serene. Handing him the ashtray he threw, Annie says Paul is the one who killed the officer, not her. If he had not broken the window, she would have let him leave. Paul contradicts this: the officer had his picture, which means his car has been found. He and Annie have been fooling themselves into thinking their situation could continue indefinitely.
Paul’s jealousy of the dead police officer shows how his will to live has deteriorated. Annie’s composure while cleaning up the crime scene suggests she is accustomed to hiding the evidence of her impulsive behavior. This efficient self-control is jarringly different from her recent uncontrolled violence, highlighting the changeability of her moods. Once again, she imposes her warped and abusive sense of blame on Paul, blaming him for her murderous actions. Too worn down to care about angering her, Paul contradicts this statement and tells Annie the truth: the real-world consequences of her actions have caught up to them, and they can no longer pretend the end isn’t coming, one way or another.
Themes
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As Annie hoses down the lawn, Paul realizes she has forgotten about the lawnmower’s bloody blade. He listens to her moving around the house. When she comes into his room, Paul asks her to kill him quickly. Annie confesses she knows she should kill Paul, but—since crazy people don’t always act in their own best interests—she will not just yet. Instead, she carries Paul into the dank, rat-infested cellar. Paul has never been this close to Annie, and he will “only be as close once again.” She drops him on a mattress before approaching him with yet another hypodermic needle.
Paul’s hope that someone will discover the lawnmower’s blade is fleeting. Believing Annie is finally going to kill him, he welcomes the release from his suffering. That Annie knows killing Paul is the best way to protect herself, but does not do it, illustrates the depth of her obsession with Misery. She must keep Paul alive so he can finish the book. The line about Paul being close to Annie only once more foreshadows a coming altercation.
Themes
Annie sets the needle—filled with morphine—on nearby tray, for Paul’s legs if they hurt before she returns. She implies that Paul is ungrateful for all she has done for him, and she slaps him when he reminds her she cut off his leg. Annie has the officer’s gun. If anyone comes looking for the man (Duane Kushner) before nightfall, she will kill them, Paul, and herself. When it is dark, Annie’s plan is to drive the officer’s remains and car up to her Laughing Place and ride her ex-husband’s bike back. Paul knows he will die and be eaten by rats if something happens to her.
Leaving Paul morphine is unexpectedly thoughtful of Annie, and it supports her perception of herself as a selfless caregiver. In calling Paul ungrateful, she willfully denies the truth of the torture she has inflicted on him. Again, her efficient planning for every contingency suggests she is used to covering her tracks.
Themes
Annie plans an alibi for the officers who will inevitably come looking for their young coworker (Duane Kushner). Her cleverness unnerves Paul. It is as if she is playing Can You? in real life. Annie estimates she will be back before anyone comes, but she will put up a driveway chain just in case. She does not care if Paul sees the officers, but if they see him, she will shoot them, then Paul, then herself. Annie will tell the officers she spoke with the young officer and sent him on his way. She would have remembered seeing Paul Sheldon, her favorite author. Annie estimates they have maybe a week before the officers arrive with a warrant. Paul will need to write faster.
By viewing Annie’s contingency plans as a real-life game of Can You?, Paul once again characterizes the act of creation as a compulsive need. The difference between him and Annie is that she creates outlandish plots in real life, and he must settle for pretending. The inevitability of more officers arriving with a search warrant gives Paul a firm deadline by which to finish Misery’s Return. Annie’s willingness to kill everyone—including herself—rather than set Paul free indicates a profound dissatisfaction with her life.
Themes
Annie re-glazes Paul’s window so that nothing looks amiss. Paul tries to imagine a scenario in which the police look under the lawnmower, and he cannot. About to leave, Annie tells Paul she wants him to know she’d kill him right now if it weren’t for the book. She is startled to learn Paul also wants to know how it ends—she assumed he already knew. Paul has a decent idea where things are headed, but he can see two possible endings. Novels rarely end up exactly where the writer was aiming. Furious, Annie asks if he is going to kill Misery again. Paul laughs—Annie will kill him regardless, and she cannot stop him from killing Misery if he so chooses. Still, he thinks she will like his ending.
To Paul’s mind, even by fictional standards, it is unlikely the officers will check the lawnmower blades. Annie and Paul both confirm that the novel is their only reason for going on, emphasizing the powerful addictive nature of art. That Paul does not know the ending yet again implies that the creative process depends less on control than on the obsessive desire to keep creating. In this way, the novel suggests that creativity is primarily a compulsive behavior. The knowledge that Annie will kill him no matter what frees Paul to do whatever he wants to Misery’s character, leaving Annie—absurdly—powerless in the situation.
Themes
Paul asks Annie to bring him a legal pad so he can write to pass the time she is away. Annie refuses, worried someone will see the light. Frightened, Paul begs her not to leave him in the dark with the rats, but Annie only laughs and locks him in. Alone, Paul’s vivid imagination conjures an image of the dead officer (Duane Kushner) coming to punish him for causing his death. He screams at the touch of a spider. As his eyes adjust to the dark, he sees the small grill where Annie made him burn Fast Cars. After urinating into the bedpan, Paul realizes he is getting a urinary tract infection. He injects himself with the morphine, hoping it will kill him.
Even locked in the basement, Paul’s need to write is insatiable, but it’s curtailed by Annie’s practicality. That Paul can still be afraid of the dark and the rats after all he has gone through suggests the human capacity to endure, even in the face of immense trauma. His vision of Duane Kushner shows how the effects of trauma can haunt a person after the trauma has concluded. The grill reminds Paul of all Annie has taken from him.
Themes
