ul and inventive book violated by a fifth-rate idea which made Woman, in alliance with modern technology, the destroyer of masculinity and sensuous enjoyment" (Moynihan, 1964, 14). Big Nurse is the melodramatic device in the novel that stands for an arbitrary and indefensible anti-feminine argument. She is the one who controls the men's psychiatric ward, and this control is itself a telling indictment as she is made to appear as one more interested in control than in offering the succor we expect of nurses.
In the film Misery, based on a novel by Stephen King, a novelist is noted for one particular character, Misery Chastain, a character he has killed off in his most recent but as yet unpublished book. He is traveling through the mountains in the dead of winter and has a traffic accident, driving his car off the road where it is not likely to be seen. He is found by a woman named Annie Wilkes, his number one fan, who recognizes him immediately. She is a former nurse and takes him to her remote home, where she undertakes to nurse him back to health while at the same time regaling him with praise for the books he has written. Her effusion is excessive and makes him uncomfortable, and he would like to make a call to tell others where he is
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