Gerald's Game

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses sexual assault and child sexual abuse.

Although Jessie associates the voices that she hears in her head with trauma, it is only the disembodied existence of the voices that stands as a contrast to what is considered to be a healthy version of psychological equilibrium. While developed independently, King’s approach to portraying individual personality holds many threads in common with the modern therapeutic tool known as Internal Family Systems, for King’s novels operate on the assumption that each person is an amalgamation of different personalities and elements of conditioning and experiences that meld together to form a concrete identity. The voices that Jessie hears are therefore more akin to different sides of a single identity, many of which tend to war with each other in moments of stress. This dynamic is most aptly portrayed in Gerald’s Game when Jessie is first handcuffed to the bed or during the immediate aftermath of Tom’s assault. Similarly, voices like Goody and Punkin are designed to express Jessie’s deeply ingrained conceptions of childhood and femininity, while voices like Ruth and Nora express newer ideas of defiance and independence. Ultimately, however, all of these voices stand as products of Jessie’s experiences and feelings rather than as discrete entities.