Storm Imagery
Storm imagery recurs throughout the book. The metaphorical associations are intricately connected to the literal storm which puts the action in motion. The relationship between Annie Wilkes and Paul Sheldon mirrors an actual blizzard that forecasters had predicted would go one way but wounds going in a different direction. The original forecast is what causes Paul to take the route which was deemed to be safe but ultimately puts him in the middle of a violent storm with “a woman full of tornadoes waiting to happen,” who eventually becomes a dark shadow looming over Paul who thinks of her as “Thunder. Goddess-thunder.”
Suffering and Writing
Paul often engages Annie in conversation about the actual act of writing as well as interior dialogue with himself. “Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels, not amnesia. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is that ability to remember the story of every scar,” is an example of the latter. The use of imagery in this passage is his way of saying that potentially every bad thing that happens to a writer is fodder for a future story. In the moment he is thinking this, however, what he wants more than anything is to violate this primal gift to the writer by not remembering the most recent scar is that which results from Annie breaking his ankle to smithereens by hobbling him with an axe. As a writer, however, the implicit message is that Paul knows he will one day turn that most horrific memory into material for a story.
Sports
The ubiquitous presence of sports metaphors into the imagery of everyday life that has nothing to do with athletics is put on display even in the most unlikely of circumstances. “I just cannot believe the guts this Sheldon kid is displaying today!...I don't believe anyone in Annie Wilkes Stadium - or in the home viewing audience, for that matter - thought he had the sly-test chance of getting that wheelchair moving after the blow he took, but I believe… yes, it is! It's moving! Let's look at the replay!” So deeply ingrained into the American consciousness is the presence of sports broadcasting that Paul cannot even escape it at a moment of extreme inappropriateness when for no apparent reason he turns his situation into a mock sportscast. Making it all the more so is that Paul is at the time looking for painkillers to dull the sort of gruesome injuries athletes never face on the field of play.
Inhumanity
The depths of depravity and lack of humanity demonstrated by Annie is foreshadowed in the opening paragraphs. “Most of all she gave him a disturbing sense of solidity, as if she might not have any blood vessels or even internal organs…felt more and more convinced that her eyes, which appeared to move, were actually just painted on…she gave only one thing: a feeling of unease deepening steadily toward terror.” At this point in the story nothing is really known about the woman being described here. The decision to engage such extreme imagery as foreshadowing has the odd effect of sacrificing suspense to intensify tension. Without coming right out and saying just how depraved Annie is, the imagery sets the reader up for expectations that it will be likely be revealed in unexpectedly inhumane and ritualistic ways.
