Sunday, April 24, 2011
Essay 5
I think I am going to choose Annie Wilkes from the novel Misery to use for my Essay 5. She was seriously crazy and there will be a lot to analyze. She had so many different mood swings that were triggered by things Paul said or simply the rain. The only problem I am having is determining a "reason" for her insanity. King did not give any insight as to why this lady is a fruit loop. Her child hood is not discussed much nor anyother time period in her life that may give the reader a clue. We don't know if she was abused as a child, made fun of in school, had a crazy parent she learned the behavior from, or diagnosed with a mental condition. I can't say that there would be a valid reason to be as crazy as she is but I wish that King had given an answer to this. No motivation for her behavior. I don't know who to compare her to from any of the other stories I have read. I could compare her beliefs to Paul's but I wouldnt have anything to say other than, "she went nuts and Paul thought she was crazy." She felt chopping off Paul's foot with an axe was okay and he didnt. Just seems like a given. All the other stories are so short it seems too complicated to try and analyze a character that I knew for 20 pages. I read the whole novel Misery and had more time to get to know these characters.
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2 comments:
I wish King would have at least hinted to a reason for Annie's insanity as well. It baffles me to think that someone would go to such limits. I also agree that it makes much more since to analyze a character that you have read more about. Some of the short stories didn't even hit twenty pages.
I think you could still use a character from a short story to compare/contrast with Annie. King has an amazing ability to let you get to know his characters, even in 20 pages. Take "Night Surf", for instance. Didn't you kind of hate Bernie in that story? It was a short story, but you still feel like you know him well enough to decide you don't like him, and that he's a jerk. And I think he leaves some of his characters' motivations to the reader to judge, simply because we can speculate like we would if the story happened in real life. In the real world, nobody would understand Annie, and why she would hold a writer captive and chop off his foot and thumb simply to make him write a story for her. I think that leaving Annie open to interpretation is the best way to make us struggle to understand her, and to try to find some relatable characteristics in this crazy character.
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