Male Masculinity in Misery

[Anthony Fattore]

Steven King’s Misery has begat a new set of rules to follow for masculinity in a horror genre novel. No longer is there a heroine put in danger, but rather the protagonist that is in peril, Paul Sheldon, a man is captured and tortured, both physically and mentally, by a woman, Annie Wilkes. The genre usually places a woman in peril under the tortured mind of a male serial killer, however Paul, an arguably average man, finds himself in a reverse scenario. The problem that ensues is how Paul must struggle not only to get free from the grasp of a mentally disturbed super fan, but he must also try to keep some semblance of masculinity throughout the book. King is a master of the horror genre and knows the different ins and outs of what his reader’s expectations are, especially in America where masculinity is so important. Therefore King sets up different, for lack of a better word, excuses as to how Paul can succumb to the horrors wrought by a female antagonist. In her essay, Nightmere’s Milk, Anne Williams speaks of the male and female formulas, describing them as a set of rules the author plays by when writing a female or male gothic piece. Williams describes that the differences of the two “…arise from the male’s and female’s different cultural positions…” (107). These notions of what the male and female gothic can and cannot do have become outdated, Especially to a modern writer like King who often writes a female protagonist, he can play on these expectations and he uses Paul to make a more captivating storyline.

[Skillian]

Very interesting! Thanks for the post. I'm going to check that book out. It is nice to see novels that break 'rules.'