Jungian Analysis of Annie in "Misery"

Certain concepts enumerated and examined by C.G. Jung can be found to apply to well-developed fictional characters as to real persons, helping to explain the behavior of the characters and at the same time to illustrate the use of the concepts. The film Misery (1990), based on a Stephen King novel, will serve as the source for the character of Annie Wilkes. The concepts to be considered are the collective unconscious, archetypes (and specifically the archetype of persona), and repression.

Jung's conception of the mind quite naturally colored his conceptions of mental processes and of mental disease. For most people, the concepts of Freud are more familiar than those of Jung, and there are some similarities as well as differences between the two. Basically, though, they had a different conception of the human mind. Jung's conception of the mind is based on a recognition of a link, the relation of mental contents with the ego, and without such an awareness there could be no consciousness of the object. Without consciousness, says Jung, there would be no world, for the world exists only in so far as it is consciously reflected and consciously expressed by a psyche, and for Jung the psyche is the personality as a whole (Hall and Nordby, 1973, 32). Consciousness is related to the outer world through the psychological functions of thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition, and at the same time there is the simultaneous contact with the inner world, the world of the unco

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the individual to portray a character not necessarily his or her own, and the persona is thus a mask exhibited publicly that presents a favorable impression so society will accept the individual. This has also been called the conformity archetype. The persona is necessary for the survival of the individual and makes it possible to get along with people. A person may have more than one mask, presenting one face at home and another at work, for instance. A person can become too obsessed with his or her persona and become alienated from his or her nature in a process called inflation (Hall and Nordby, 1973, 45). Consider the dynamics of the main character in the film Misery. Annie Wilkes is presented as an obsessive personality in the way she keeps her home, in the way she becomes dedicated so thoroughly to the writer she holds hostage and his works (and especially to the one character of Misery Chastain, with whom she identifies so closely), and in the expectations she has placed in the past on her patients and now on this particular patient. For Annie Wilkes, everything has to be just so, from the books she reads to the way her house is kept. She has a variety of knick-knacks everywhere, and each must be in its proper pla

Category: Film - J