PENGUIN READERS Teacher’s notes LEVEL 6 Teacher Support Programme Misery Stephen King strange house, but also begins to realise that the woman who has found him and taken him home is dangerously insane and has no intention of letting him go. Paul has no choice: he must wait and hope that he doesn’t make her angry – because, as he discovers, when Annie Wilkes is angry, there’s no limit to what she will do. His only sources of relief are the novel that Annie asks him to write for her, and the idea that one day he might get revenge for the tortures she inflicts on him. Chapter 1: Paul Sheldon wakes up in pain. In a state of semi-consciousness, he hears a woman’s voice urging him to breathe, and realises she is giving him the kiss of life. As he slowly returns to consciousness, he remembers the About the author events that led to his accident on a mountain road. When Stephen King is a writer who knows all about fame. The he wakes up he is aware of a woman sitting next to his huge popularity of books such as Carrie, The Shining, bed. She tells him that he is her favourite author. Salem’s Lot and Misery, have made him one of the world’s Chapter 2: The woman, whose name is Annie Wilkes, highest-earning authors. Many of his stories have been feeds him and gives him pain-killing tablets, but her made into films or TV series, most of which have also behaviour is terrifyingly unpredictable and she makes him been very popular. A film based on Misery was released wait before giving him his pain-killers. Paul keeps listening in 1990 to critical and public acclaim. out for visitors to the house, but none come. Annie tells Born in Portland, Maine in the north-eastern United him how she rescued him from his overturned car and States in 1947, King’s first published story was I Was a brought him home with her. Paul’s legs were broken in the Teenage Grave Robber, which appeared in an amateur crash and Annie put splints on them. She seems to know magazine. From 1966 he attended the University of what she is doing and Paul assumes she must be a nurse. Maine, and alongside his full-time programme took Chapters 3–4: Before she gives him his pills, Annie tells creative writing classes. He was already selling stories Paul she has started reading the latest Misery Chastain before he left college, and continued writing while novel. She is very enthusiastic about it. She also tells him working as a teacher at a private school in the small she has found a typescript of a new novel in his bag. Paul town of Hampden, also in Maine. tells her it is not a Misery novel and tells her she can read It was during this time that he produced his first novel, it if she wants to. At first, Annie is very happy and tells Carrie, about a young girl who is unpopular at school Paul that she loves him, but the next day her mood has and takes revenge through the use of psychic powers. He changed dramatically. She has been reading Paul’s new sold it in 1973, and when he was offered an incredible book and she doesn’t like it at all. She flies into a terrible $400,000 for the paperback rights, he was able to leave rage and makes Paul take his pill with soapy water from a teaching and write full-time. bucket. King now lives with his family in Bangor, only a short Chapters 5–6: Two days later, Annie is looking extremely distance from the poor area where he grew up. unwell. Paul suddenly realises she must have been reading the latest Misery novel and has reached the part where Summary Misery dies. Annie is distraught and very angry with Paul. One of Stephen King’s most terrifying stories, Misery She tells him she has to go away for a while otherwise concerns Paul Sheldon, a famous writer of novels about she will do something stupid. She leaves Paul alone and a heroine called Misery Chastain. After celebrating the in pain for over two days without medicine. When she completion of a new book, Sheldon has a car crash on a returns, Paul is desperate for the pills, but Annie refuses to forest road in the Colorado mountains. As he gradually give him any until he agrees to start burning the typescript returns to consciousness he finds himself in bed in a of his new book. Paul has kept no copy, and for the first time he realises he wants to kill Annie. c Pearson Education Limited 2008 Misery - Teacher’s notes 1 of 5 PENGUIN READERS Teacher’s notes LEVEL 6 Teacher Support Programme Misery Chapter 7: While in a drug-induced sleep, Annie lifts Chapters 19–22: A young policeman comes to the house Paul into a wheelchair. When he wakes up, she tells him to ask questions about the missing writer. Paul screams she thinks he will get better if they don’t have any more for help, but Annie kills the policeman before he can do arguments. She has brought him a second-hand typewriter anything. She locks Paul in the cellar while she goes to with no ‘n’. She tells Paul she wants him to write a new dispose of the body, and Paul comes up with a plan. He Misery story and bring her back to life. Paul agrees, but hides a small bottle of fuel under his mattress says the paper she has bought is no good. This makes Chapters 23–27: Paul finishes the book and tricks Annie Annie very angry, and she punches Paul’s injured knee into letting him have a last cigarette to celebrate. Before and leaves him alone in the house once again. she has a chance to read it, he uses the fuel to set fire to Chapters 8–9: While Annie is away, Paul manages to pick the pages. She desperately tries to save the pages, and Paul the lock of his bedroom door with a hairpin and to find takes his chance to attack her. A terrible fight ensues, and a supply of painkillers in the bathroom. He checks to the finally Annie is dead. phone, but it is disconnected. He manages to get back to his room and hide the pills under his mattress just before Background and Themes Annie comes back. Writers: There are parallels between the character Paul Chapter 10: Paul begins work on bringing Misery back to Sheldon and his creator. Like Sheldon, Stephen King life. His first attempt is a failure, and Annie tells him it is writes other kinds of fiction besides the type he is best unconvincing. Paul has to agree, and soon he is working known for. Under the pen name of Richard Bachman he enthusiastically on the new novel. has written novels of science fiction, psychological horror and suspense, and Misery was originally intended as a Chapter 11: Annie has a visitor from the local town. She Richard Bachman novel. He has also written stories under ties Paul up and warns him not to make a sound or she his own name which are closer to literary fiction than will kill the visitor. The man gives her a tax bill for over his usual work. Many of the stories collected in Different five hundred dollars. Annie is shaken, and to try to keep Seasons (1982) fall into this category. For example, her calm, Paul says she can have the money in his wallet The Body is a semi-autobiographical novel about the to pay the taxes. Three weeks pass and Paul progresses well adventures of four boys in the New England forest, and with the Misery book. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is about Chapters 12–15: Annie’s mood changes again when the prisoners. rain comes. Her behaviour is very strange and she suggests The risks of being famous: Another aspect of Paul she and Paul commit suicide together. Paul manages to Sheldon’s life which reflects that of King himself is dissuade her and she decides instead to go away again. Sheldon’s worldwide fame, and King is also well aware of This time she leaves him some pills, but no food. So Paul the dangers which this brings. In 1986, the year before uses the hairpin again to leave his room in search of a way Misery was published, the iron fence surrounding the to escape. But all the doors and windows are locked. There writer’s house was attacked and some valuable ornaments is no way out. While he is in the sitting room, he looks removed. He also receives a great deal of ugly or abusive through Annie’s things. He reads an album in which she ‘fan mail’, like other famous people, which his publishers has collected newspaper cuttings about many mysterious and secretary do not let him see. deaths, dating back over thirty years. Paul realises that Annie is a serial murderer and now knows that he must King has come much closer to real danger than this, kill her to survive. He takes a butcher’s knife from the however. In a lecture which he gave in 1986, discussing kitchen goes back to his room, waiting for Annie’s return. the background to Misery, he told of one of his most disturbing encounters with a fan.