Throughout Paul’s imprisonment in Annie Wilke’s house, he is subjected to Annie’s many impulses and fits of rage. Annie’s unique disposition is largely the cause of Paul’s terror. There are a two specific traits of Annie’s that have the greatest impact on Paul’s fear and experience, however. Annie is a very observant person. Because of this trait, Paul cannot make any mistakes when venturing out of his room or when trying to trick Annie. For example, when Paul first left his room, his wheelchair left scuffmarks on the door frame. Annie quickly noticed these and, using this evidence, along with many things Paul accidentally moved in his journey out of the room, deduced that Paul had left the room and quickly punished him. Whenever Paul made…show more content… “‘I knew even before I saw the marks on the door over there … that was when you went out the first time, wasn’t it?’” (King, Pg. 214) In this quote, Annie communicates to Paul that she has figured out when Paul left his room based on the evidence he left. The other trait that I feel has a large impact on Paul’s terror is Annie’s punishing nature. This trait coupled with Annie’s strong (almost maternal) love for Paul creates many bad situations for Paul. For example, near the beginning of the novel, Annie reads Paul’s manuscript “Fast Cars”. Paul had been working on this manuscript for many years and was immensely proud of it. Annie was disgusted at the use of profanity (and was disappointed to find that is was not a “Misery” novel) and decided to punish Paul for writing it. However, because she loves Paul, she chose to teach him a valuable lesson in her punishment, much like a mother would do for a child. However, Annie’s methods for teaching Paul are much different from those of a mother, as Annie decides to have Paul burn the manuscript himself. This punishment, and the many punishments that followed, left Paul emotionally and physically