Annie’s Anger
It takes a while for Paul to finally get that Annie is unbalanced. Her refusal to curse and unwillingness to accept his contention that everybody does so in everyday circumstances becomes the unexpected catalyst. “She looked at him, her face now like a sky which might spawn tornadoes at any instant.” This reaction arrives as a result of Paul confronting Annie about the issue of her antagonism toward swearing and it is the first time he connects the potential of that suppression of outbursts of anger toward himself. This use of simile is also used as a powerful foreshadowing of the truly devastating storm of Annie’s anger which is to come.
Conditioned Response
Paul Sheldon, unable to move and wholly dependent on the kindness of Annie Wilkes, is the perfect subject of behavioral conditioning. “He was, in a way, like Pavlov's dogs.” The comparison in this simile is the canine subjects of experiments conducted by a Russian scientist named Pavlov. Through those experiments he was able to first make dogs salivate over the promise of food accompanies by the ringing of a bell. Eventually, the dogs would salivate over just hearing the bell with no food involved. Through similar conditioning conditions Paul has reached a state where just seeing Annie carrying a hypodermic needle and a knife is enough to stimulate him to scream in fear. In the beginning she had to actually harm him before he screamed but he is now so much under her control that just the mere implements she uses to bring him pain has the same response.
The Storyteller
Several instances throughout the novel appear in which Paul references the name Scheherazade. Ultimately, he chides himself by thinking “Some lousy Scheherazade I turned out to be.” Scheherazade is the name of a woman who appears in the collection of tales known as A Thousand-and-One Nights. She is to be executed by a psychotic king but begins telling him a story that continues the next night but never comes to a complete conclusion. Each night she successfully gets the story to a cliffhanger means another day her execution is delayed. Paul is admitting to himself that he is not up to her storytelling ability when it comes to staving off Annie’s likely decision to kill him once he concludes the story of her favorite character, Misery Chastain.
The Slaughterhouse
Paul ultimately arrives at the realization that his only way to freedom is through the death of Annie. He tries to imagine a number of potential means of carrying out her murder but without literally getting blood on his hands. Recognizing the impossibility of success in this way he berates himself by thinking he is “like a man who loves nothing better than a thick steak but wouldn't last an hour in a slaughterhouse.” In other words, he knows what must be done and wants very much to enjoy the pleasures that would bring but only if he can continue suppressing the unpleasant truth of the circumstances necessary to enjoy that pleasure.
Writing
The conflict at the heart of this story is simply that Annie Wilkes doesn’t like the way Paul Sheldon ended Misery Chastain’s story in his last book in the series. He tries to explain why endings often aren’t what readers expect. “Writing a book is a little like firing an ICBM… only it travels over time instead of space.” This use of simile compares the unlikelihood of a nuclear missile making a pinpoint landing at the exact location it was launched. The point is that it only needs to get close enough to that target to do the damage that was intended. Paul is saying that the writing process itself makes it incredibly difficult to end a book in the exact way that one plans when the writing begins so getting close is usually good enough. Understanding the point of this comparison is of extreme significance to Paul since his very life depends on getting as close to the target Annie desires for the book he is writing as possible.
