Annie+Wilkes

Kelci Holman
 * Annie Wilkes**

At first, Annie Wilkes seems to have a happy-go-lucky attitude, but it is later very clear that she is psychotic. She killed almost seventy people, including her childhood neighbors, her father, her college roommate, and a hitchhiker she once slept with. As it turns out, Wilkes was formerly married to a physical therapist named Frank Dugan, but he later divorced her, citing "mental cruelty." This hospital nurse-turned murderer comes to the aid of her favorite novelist after he is in a car accident. Paul Sheldon, the novelist and protagonist, has the unfortunate pleasure of crossing paths with Annie Wilkes. Oddly enough, she doesn’t seem to be all that concerned with his condition, instead she insists on taking him into her own home to help him out. Annie is so seriously disturbed that her next move cannot even relatively be predicted and her inner psychosis manages to shine through in almost every spot possible; her personality will do a complete 180 in less than twenty seconds. She has become so obsessed with this writer, Paul Sheldon, that she practically holds him hostage, locking him in her house and “hobbling” him so he cannot leave. Wilkes’s cheery façade breaks completely when she finds out that the main character in Sheldon’s next book dies. She then submits him to cruel forms of torture, including breaking his ankles with a sledgehammer to prevent him from leaving and chopping off one of Sheldon’s feet before cauterizing the stump with a blowtorch. Towards the end of the novel, she suggests a “murder-suicide” to celebrate him burning the single written copy of the novel she abhors. Annie Wilkes is so completely insane that in her trouble from distinguishing fiction from reality, many innocent people are drawn into her violent cycle of love and hate. Nothing explains her personality as well as this quote from Wilkes herself, "[right after smashing Paul's ankles with a sledgehammer] God I love you." In some twisted way, she expresses her obsessive level of love by literally crippling the man she is trying to hold close. -In this image Annie Wilkes has a distinct grin on her face that, along with her sharp, piercing eyes, gives off a psychotic vibe. -Although she is mentally unstable, she appears dressed like a normal person and is well kempt, unlike the usual perception that her outward appearance would match her inner state of mind. -The earth-tone colors of her outfit make her appear to be an ordinary and conservative person, in contrast to the bright and dizzy colors that could symbolize the personality of someone that is insane. -The smirk on her face, along with the position of the sledgehammer, suggest that Annie is perfectly okay with implementing this instrument of destruction on another human being, which only a heartless villain could be content with. -Her facial expression strongly contradicts her horrendous intentions; she is smiling even though she is about to "hobble" a man's ankles. -Her seemingly bipolar personality is drawn out through her posture and appearance; her body looks tense while the look on her face seems to be relaxed (in that psycho-killer type of way).

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