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Bound to the Barriers of Fatal Fascination - Misery by Stephen King

Decent Essays

Humans are desirous of numerous things. Money, power, pleasure, satisfaction, and surprisingly, celebrities are all things that lead to obsession. As people focus into these things, the result is utter and blatant madness, and eventually becomes the destruction of themselves and others. In the novel Misery by Stephen King, the mental instability of Annie Wilkes and the imprisonment of Paul Sheldon shows how obsession can lead to the destruction of others.
Paul Sheldon was an author famous for his many books about an 18th century woman named Misery Chastain. The last book of the Misery novels concluded in Paul’s celebratory drinking because he was finally free from writing about the same character. He wanted His drinking caused him to …show more content…

She commanded him to write another novel called Misery’s Return; the book was just for her. Her obsession with Misery deceived her into believing that she had to love the man who wrote the “divine” novels. Her “love” for him and his books became suffocating. She played on his severe leg injuries and trapped him in her house, hoping that he would love her for saving him and that they could live together happily. Her deranged infatuation deluded her into assuming that Paul wanted to live with her forever.
In the end, Paul finished the novel that Annie was dying to read; when she would finish reading the book, she would then kill Paul and then herself. The reason that they could not live together anymore is because Annie had to kill a police officer because he saw and recognized Paul while paying Annie a visit. Annie wanted to keep Paul forever, but she knew that their time was cut short because the cops will find out that she killed the first officer.
The amputations of his leg and thumb, caused by Annie Wilkes’s psychotic (and usually purposeless) temper tantrums, persuaded Paul that he needed to leave before she killed him; in order to leave, he had to kill her, both emotionally and physically. He never allowed her to read the book; he burned the entire work before she could read the ending. He knew that would kill her soul and that it would be a distraction to her while he attacks her. He eventually killed her and was discovered by cops that wanted to check

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