Paul Sheldon hard at work

Paul Sheldon is a fictional character in the book Misery written by Stephen King. He was portrayed by James Caan in the 1990 film adaptation. Image File history File links Paulsheldon. ... Image File history File links Paulsheldon. ... For other uses, see Misery (disambiguation). ... For other persons named Stephen King, see Stephen King (disambiguation). ... James Langston Edmund Caan[citation needed] (born March 26, 1940 in The Bronx, New York) is an Academy Award, Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated American film, stage and television actor. ...

Sheldon is the author of the immensely popular historic romance book series about his own fictional character Misery Chastain. Deeply unhappy with the course his career is taking, Sheldon kills the character off and writes a new novel he thinks is his best in years. He gets drunk in celebration and decides to drive to the West Coast from Colorado for an extended holiday, but on the way he gets into a car crash in which both his legs are broken. He is "rescued" by Annie Wilkes — a deeply disturbed woman who is obsessed with him and who, Sheldon soon figures out, has no intention of letting him leave her isolated cabin. Paul, a childless two-time divorcé who has no living immediate relatives, realizes it could be a while before anyone misses him. A romance novel is a novel from the genre currently known as romance. ... A fictional fictional character is a kind of metafiction. ... Misery Chastain is the lead character in a series of historical romances written by Paul Sheldon in Stephen Kings 1987 novel Misery. ... Official language(s) English Capital Denver Largest city Denver Area  Ranked 8th  - Total 104,185 sq mi (269,837 km²)  - Width 280 miles (451 km)  - Length 380 miles (612 km)  - % water 0. ... A car accident in Yate, near Bristol, England, in July 2004. ... Annie Wilkes is the antagonist of the 1987 novel Misery, by Stephen King. ...

Wilkes dotes on him at first, but flies into a terrifying rage when she finishes his final "Misery" novel, punishes him by forcing him to burn the only copy of his new book, and demands that he write another "Misery" novel resurrecting the character. At about this time, Sheldon discovers that he has become addicted to the painkillers she has been feeding him. She periodically leaves him chained to his bed, without food, water or medicine, for days on end as punishment for misdeeds as trivial as using profanity. Addiction is chronic disorder proposed to be precipitated by a combination of genetic, biological/pharmacological and social factors. ... Look up Profanity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

He complies with Wilkes and starts work on another "Misery" novel, at first to buy time until he could escape. Over time, however, he rediscovers his love for writing, and even begins to feel some sympathy for his deranged captor — even as he knows that she could kill him at any given moment for real or any imagined reason.

As the months pass and he grows stronger, he plots to escape from Wilkes. During one such attempt, he happens upon and reads Wilkes' scrapbook, learning with a visceral horror that she is a serial killer who has murdered more than 30 people. Wilkes finds out and, to both punish him and make sure he won't escape, hobbles him by cutting off his left foot, as well as his left thumb. Soon after, she tells him that she intends to kill him after the book is finished. Serial killers are individuals who have a history of multiple slayings of victims who were usually unknown to them beforehand. ...

Sheldon finally escapes by throwing the typewriter she had given him into her back and choking her with the pages of the book. Delirious with pain and rage, she slips and falls, fracturing her skull on a mantle. Sheldon is rescued moments later. He moves back to New York and is fitted with a prosthetic leg, but is so haunted by the ordeal that he is unable to write for months afterward. At the end of the novel, he finally overcomes his writer's block and, it is implied, begins to recover from the emotional trauma Wilkes had inflicted upon him. A hippopotamus skull A skull, or cranium, is a bony structure of Craniates which serves as the general framework for a head. ... A United States soldier demonstrates Foosball with two prosthetic limbs In medicine, a prosthesis is an artificial extension that replaces a missing part of the body. ... Writers block is a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity. ... Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event. ...

Trivia

• Paul Sheldon is also mentioned in the novella The Library Policeman and the novel Rose Madder