Gerald's Game

Jessie passes out and does not want to wake up, but the sound of a dog barking outside brings her back to reality. She hears the new voice and realizes that it belongs to Ruth Neary, her college roommate who was known for her radical and rebellious behavior. Jessie realizes that she cannot move her arms and panics, remembering that she is alone on this side of the lake. She compares herself to a woman in a pillory, ridiculed by the whole town. A cramp develops in her shoulders but passes with some readjusting. The change in position allows her to move her arms and hands, and she thinks about how long it has been since she saw Ruth.

Jessie hears the door slamming, as she and Gerald forgot to latch it, and she also hears the dog in the forest nearby. Jessie realizes that the dog might be a stray, meaning that there is no person nearby to help her. Jessie reminds herself that the voices in her head are her own thoughts and recalls the “dark day” when she first heard different voices as a child. She debates whether Gerald is dead or unconscious and yells at him to wake up before concluding that he is dead. The voice of Goodwife Burlingame, or “Goody,” tells her that she deserves to be chained to the bed for killing her husband, but Ruth’s voice disagrees. Jessie thinks about how Gerald has ignored her for 10 or 12 years of their marriage, and notes that it was foolish of her to think that he would unchain her.

Jessie recalls going to a therapist named Nora Callighan. Now, she uses one of Nora’s emotional reset techniques: counting to 10 using rhymes about the body. As Jessie says each rhyme, she also makes disparaging remarks about her body. Ruth’s voice criticizes her self-loathing, and Jessie blames Goody’s voice. Ruth tells her that Jessie is the one responsible for treating herself this way, and Jessie restarts the rhymes without the disparaging additions. Opening her eyes again, Jessie sees a painting of a butterfly on the wall, which was a gift from Ruth years prior, as well as a fraternity beer stein that belonged to Gerald. The contrast in the decorations makes Jessie question why she married Gerald.

The sunlight in the room tells Jessie that it is about four o’clock in the afternoon, and she worries about nightfall. She realizes that she needs to go to the bathroom and get a drink of water. Noting the irony of dying of thirst next to a lake, Jessie remembers going to a different lake with her parents and siblings “before the voices” (52). Jessie stops this line of thought abruptly, remembering that Gerald left a glass of water on a shelf above the bed. She cannot quite reach the glass, and she starts to think about how she might die in this bed. She tries to shake off these thoughts and silences Goody’s voice, which tells her that she deserves to suffer for killing Gerald.

Still trapped, Jessie remembers that the handcuffs are adjustable, and that Gerald set them at the greatest length of chain, though the cuffs are still too tight for her to slip out of. She tries to remove them, but it hurts. She remembers when her father accidentally slammed a car door on her sister’s hand and notes the parts of her hand that are now preventing her from slipping out of the handcuffs. She realizes that she would have to break her hands to free herself, and she is not willing to do that. She takes note of the size of the bed, which is larger than a twin but smaller than a queen, making it too small for her and Gerald to sleep comfortably.

Reminiscing, Jessie comments that she and Gerald have slept in separate rooms for five years because of Gerald’s snoring and drinking. She remembers that she enjoyed watching Gerald fall asleep after sex and morbidly thinks that he is sleeping next to her now. Thinking of another way to escape, a nameless, young voice in Jessie’s head suggests removing the cuffs from the bedposts. She finds that she cannot remove the boards that are blocking the cuffs from coming off. This realization sends Jessie into despair. The dog starts barking again, sounding like it is just outside her window.

Jessie spots the shadow of the dog on their back porch and realizes that the leftovers from her and Gerald’s lunch in the trash bin outside probably drew the dog to the cabin. She breaks into frantic screaming for help but quickly realizes that no one is there. She believes that the dog will likely leave once it realizes that it cannot reach the leftovers. The voices in her head go silent, and Jessie thinks that she might sleep for a while.

As she tries to fall asleep, she is startled to realize that the door, which has been banging in the wind, did not complete its full double-bang. She hears the clacking of the stray dog’s toenails on the floor in the entrance and screams to scare the dog away. The clacking stops, but Jessie does not see the dog’s shadow in the driveway. She tries to convince herself that she scared the dog away, but Ruth’s voice is not convinced.

The perspective changes to that of the dog, which was formerly named Prince, as he enters the house. The smell of the sandwiches that Jessie and Gerald threw out is tempting, but Prince knows that he cannot get into the trash bins. In the kitchen, Prince smells various goods in cupboards but is most intrigued by the smell of blood coming from the bedroom. Prince knows that the blood is human. The dog is afraid of humans, but it moves forward anyway, knowing that Jessie’s screams are from fear, not anger.

Jessie starts screaming as she realizes that Prince is coming toward the bedroom, even though she knows that she should be trying to mask her fear. The narrator reveals that Prince was purchased by Charles Sutlin, a lawyer from Braintree, Massachusetts, who obtained Prince to satisfy his daughter but left the dog in the woods in Maine because he did not want to pay the pet taxes in Braintree. The daughter, Catherine, played with Prince until she received a Cabbage Patch Doll for her birthday, but Prince is now desperate for food. He has scars and matting in his fur from days of wandering in search of food, and he is now approaching Gerald’s corpse.

The dog enters the bedroom and starts licking up Gerald’s blood. Jessie manages to kick the dog in the back, but Prince tries to bite her foot, leading her to curl her legs under herself protectively. Prince realizes that Jessie cannot stop him from eating Gerald, and Jessie sees Gerald’s body start to shake and slide as Prince bites into him. Jessie remembers that there is no rug on the floor because she told Bill Dunn, the caretaker, to wax the floors. Jessie tries to convince herself that this is a dream, noting that only hours ago she and Gerald were listening to music in the car. She continues to tell Prince to stop eating Gerald, but she is no longer screaming.

Jessie has a flash of anger, and she gropes around the portion of the shelf above the bed that she can reach, grabbing Gerald’s fraternity ashtray. She throws the ashtray at Prince, hitting him in the shoulders. For a moment, he backs away from Gerald, startled, and starts barking. Jessie shouts enthusiastically at her triumph, but she begins to feel the strain on her muscles from moving so much in the handcuffs. Prince takes a moment to see if more blows are coming then rips a piece of Gerald off to take elsewhere. Jessie nearly vomits from the sounds, but she avoids vomiting to keep the dog from coming onto the bed. With a chunk of the corpse in his mouth, Prince relocates to the entrance of the house.