2-)  PAUL SHELDON:

               Paul Sheldon is one of the main characters in Misery by Stephen King.  Paul is world-famous writer. He is the author of the best-selling series of romance novels, Misery ; surrounding the protogonist character Misery Chastain who is a beautiful woman from nineteenth-century England. Paul wrote eight volumes of Misery's love life and adventures which had sold many millions of copies. But he felt trapped by Misery Chastain and he wanted to begin a new novel, so he wrote Misery's Child, the final novel. In the final pages of this book Misery died while giving birth to a daughter. Then he typed a new novel called Fast Cars about the life of a young car-thief in New York.

              He had married twice, but both marriage ended in divorce. He hasn't got a child. He smokes too much. He has cigarettes to calm his nerves.

      He has got a short, fair hair and cold blue eyes. He is in his 50's. We can understand his  legs are shattered in page 5: " She had pulled back the blankets the day before to show him his legs. They were broken and twisted, covered in strange lumps and bruises. His left knee was swollen up to twice its normal size. She told him that both legs were broken in about seven or eight places...". He has got wrinkled  forehead because of his age and his stress. At the end of the story he lost his left foot and his thumb.

                           He is petulant and whiny, so Annie always calls her 'baby'. Because at the first parts of the story, Paul is literally helpless as a baby, his life preserved by Annie's nursing knowledge and great physical strength. But his strong will, patience, self-control makes him alive. He is also intelligent, he can control over his captor through the one thing he does well, writing. Also writing makes him more enduring, he spends his time in front of  typewriter. His wit and plans made him alive.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS

          
 1- ANNIE WILKES:    
      Annie Marie Wilkes Dugan is one of the main characters in Misery by Stephen King. She is a 48-49 year old woman who lives in Colorado alone, also owns farming land and animals. She is the biggest fan of her favourite author, Paul Sheldon. The novel tells about Annie's background in pages 42, 43, 44, 45. She was born in Bakersfield, California on 1 April 1943. She graduated as a nurse from California's nursing school. She had got a job at St Joseph's Hospital in Pennsylvania. Then she moved from hospital to hospital and murdered lots of ill and old people. Then she married to a man called Ralph Dugan who was a doctor, but they divorced. After the divorce, she began to murder lots of babies. She was arrested and called Dragon Lady.




 
          She is a large, strong, middle-aged woman and not feminine in manner at all. Her hair is like some battered helmet. She has got short, oily, un-styled dark hair. She is plump. Her skin is wrinkled and covered with wounds as it says in the book: "The flesh on her face seemed to hang as loosely as the clothes on her body. Her eyes were blank. There were red marks on her arms and, hands...(page 38)" She wears large cardigans that hide her shape and wool skirts in dull coloures. She never wears make-up.

         On her first appearance she appears as the 'mothering' type, because she talked with soft voice and smiled. But then she revealed her real character; a schizophrenic, obsessed woman. The narrator tells us about it in early pages " Annie Wilkes occasionaly lost her centre. For periods of time which could last only a few seconds or longer, there was nothing solid in her...At first Paul was only aware that something was wrong with her." She hides her malice behind a cherry facade.

       She is cunning. She expresses her anger with strange childish words like "dirty bird" or "mister clever man". She is brutal. For example in these sentences you can see how barbaric she is: "She closed one of her strong hands around the rat and began to squeeze. The rat struggled and whipped its tail from side to side... Paul heard the rat's bones break and blood ran out of its mouth... 'Now it's at peace.' she said and laughed." She loves torturing and killing everyone. She has long days with depression. In these days she goes her "Laughing Place".

     To sum up she is a middle-aged, mentally ill woman who is torturing and forcing Paul to write a new Misery novel. 
       
                    

        

                              

 

COLORADO MOUNTAINS- ENVIRONMENT

              In colorado there are lots of rocky mountains. Pine forests surround mountain roads(page 2).  In the winter the snow storms can be; but in April the weather begans to warm up and melt some snow( page 35). There aren't lots of population because of the conditions. And it is miley away from the cento of the population. Most of the fields are desolate; because Annie could go to her Laughing Place and put Pomeroy and nobody noticed. Also nobody noticed Paul's car because of the snow.

                                                                                                                   

 

Misery by Stephen King,
The setting;
The story's setting takes place in Sidewinder, Colorado, in Annie Wilkes' farmhouse.(page 2) It is far away from the town. The closest neighbors are miles away. (page 4)The farm is home to two cows, six chickens and a pig called Misery. (page 4)The whole house smelled stale and was filled with ugly furniture, boxes of medical supplies, a large photograph of her mother, an album and a disconnected phone(page 23).

                  For most of the story it is winter. It takes place in the middle of  snow storms(page 2). And also all the story began with one of the snow storms in Colorado. So the timing of the story is very important for us.

                                                                                                             

 

 Misery is a 1987 psychological horror novel by Stephen King.  The novel focuses on Paul Sheldon, a writer famous for Victorian-era romance novels involving the character of Misery Chastain. One day he is rescued from a car crash by crazed fan Annie Wilkes, who transports him to her home and, once finding out what he has done to Misery in his latest book, forces him to write a new book modifying the story - no matter what it takes.