THE CRAZY OBSESSION OF ANNIE WILKES IN THE MOVIE MISERY A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW

Resumo

This study aims to investigate the role of the character Annie Wilkes, played by Kathy Bates through a psychoanalytic perspective. On the movie, Wilkes is a number one fan of the writer Paul Sheldon, played by James Caan, character who faces a car accident and wakes up in Wilkes’ house. She, being a nurse, takes care of him at first, however, quite soon, uses torture when he tries to escape from the house. We notice a case of kidnapping, which shows to the audience a mental problem carried by Wilkes. A study of psychoanalysis disorder, mental illness within a Freudian’s perspective will be conducted in this research as well as personality theories by Karen Horney so that the reader understands the protagonist’s actions and reactions through her obsession in keeping a person she admires in home imprisonment. A research of gender studies and its’ theories along the movie will also compose this work, mainly connected to psychoanalysis, which, according to Freud, the “feminine” in woman is not something simply “given and natural”. In this way we intend to analyze the character’s way of being, her behavior as a woman thought by society.