Hello everyone! On my continuous trek to find new movies to enjoy and analyze (I’m the least fun person to watch a movie with) I’ve been finding myself back in the horror movie section. I think it has something to do with the many open endings and morally gray characters that they house, especially characters like Wilfred “Wilf” James, the main character of Stephen King’s novella turned movie adaption 1922. Directed by Zak Hilditch and released as a Netflix Original in 2017, Wilfred James takes matters into his own hands after his wife plans to sell his farmland and move to the big city of Omaha Nebraska, which causes him to doubt his surroundings. This character analysis will contain spoilers for Stephen King’s adapted 1922.
1922’s inciting incident comes about when Wilfred’s wife Arlette plans to sell the farm they all live on. In the negotiations between the two, she also suggests that they split the money, get a divorce, and their son would go with her. Just before this interaction, Wilfred in the form of narration, says “In 1922, a man’s pride was a man’s land, and so was his son.” Wilfred places a great deal of pride in both the land that he and Arlette own together (100 acres was handed down to her through her father passing away.) The fact that Arlette wants to leave and take everything away from Wilfred gives him motive for something more extreme, which manifests in Wilfred by convincing his son Hank to kill Arlette with him.
The narration mentioned before is Wilfred in the future confessing his crimes in a letter (It’s never explained who the letter is to or why he decided to write it, but it could be that he feels guilty for his actions). During this narration, he attributes his initial plans to kill Arlette through the lens of an alter ego of sorts. He writes/narrates “I believe there is another man inside every man. A stranger. A conniving man” which he almost seems to push the blame on while reflecting on how his actions bring the downfall of those around him. Wilfred’s act of murdering Arlette causes a domino effect that results in the death of both his son and the son’s girlfriend, as well as the divorce between the neighbors next door. All of these actions occur because of Wilfred’s impulsive nature.
We know that Wilfred is impulsive not only because he is quick to kill his wife, but because many of his decisions rarely have much thought behind them in the first place. After Wilfred and his son kill Arlette and throw her to the bottom of a well, Wilfred soon becomes paranoid that filling it with dirt would be too suspicious after her immediate disappearance. Ultimately, he decides that he needs an excuse to fill up the well with dirt that isn’t explicitly tied to his wife, so the best course of action that he can think of is to lure one of his cows over the well so its weight makes the lid buckle and the cow falls into the well. After they put down the cow, they then fill the well with dirt. While it seems like a good idea at the time, the sheriff who eventually visits to search the house doesn’t even bother with the well because he believes Wilfred’s lie about the cow accidentally falling in. While Wilfred is rightful to be paranoid after murdering his wife, there is a rashness that causes him to continue to make irrational decisions (as if murdering his wife wasn’t already a rash enough decision.)
Wilfred’s impulse is also mirrored by the sheer inability to resolve any of the issues he faces throughout the movie. While I could probably fill up another thousand words describing how he fails at this, the most notable of them to me is his inability to keep his son alive. After killing his mother, Hank is seen differently by his girlfriend due to the trauma he experienced while committing murder. Wilfred tries to smooth this over by reassuring her, but he doesn’t do anything to help his son come to terms with the sins they committed together. Wilfred also holds what they did over Hank’s head when he wants to run away with his girlfriend after he gets her pregnant (they are both 15, by the way) by reminding Hank that they conspired and killed his mom for the sole purpose of passing down the farm and staying with Hank. Overcome with guilt, Hank steals Wilfred’s truck and goes on a crime spree that ends in suicide. One of the more interesting aspects of Wilfred’s character has to do with his earlier quote about having “a conniving man” inside of him. While it can be seen as Wilfred finding justification for what he did, it actually comes off as a method of deferment so that Wilfred doesn’t have to take responsibility for his actions. By the end of the movie, he admits that there could have been another way to resolve things, but he instead blames whatever sinister and hidden man he holds inside of him. Wilfred doesn’t think his actions are the root of his current problems as a coping mechanism for killing his wife and indirectly causing the death of his son. What’s strange about this is the fact that he admits to killing his wife in his narration. It’s possible that he changed his tune once he started being haunted by the ghost of his dead wife, but there isn’t a way to know for sure. Wilfred’s downfall is that he is a coward who thought he was doing what was right for his family, and by trying to pull his son closer, all of it escaped him in the end.
This deferment might also play into the film’s more supernatural aspects with the age-old debate of whether or not ghost stories are actually a figment of the characters mind. Wilfred often sees his dead wife around his home, but she is always surrounded by rats. He also only sees her in places she shouldn’t be after a rat bites him and causes him to lose his hand due to infection. There’s a possible link between the possible hallucinations and his attitude towards having ‘another man’ inside of him who committed the murder. While I can’t imagine that mental disorders were easily or accurately diagnosed when this movie takes place, it would explain both the deferment and hallucinations (if this isn’t a ghost story, which throws all this information out the window.) There’s also a moment in the movie where Wilfred is reading a book, which actually turns out to be Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The House of Seven Gables.” This is interesting because this novel also has supernatural suggestions built into the story and utilizes magical realism. To have Wilfred be reading this after murdering his wife and losing his son, it really is fitting.
While there are many other things that I could have covered like the paranormal aspect of the movie with Wilfred encountering all 3 murdered characters by the end of the movie or the manifestation of the rats controlled by the dead wife, it seemed more fitting to try and pin some characteristics to a character that rarely shows his feelings. It’s always difficult to tell too because since the source material for this movie is a novella, it’s bound to be light on the details, especially in the characterization of Wilford because most of the story is focused on the supernatural and the other aspects of horror within the narrative. I’m sure I’ll keep up the horror film streak for the next blog, but I haven’t really decided yet. Thanks for reading and I’ll catch you in the next post!
– Harper Saglier, Blog Editor.
Harper Saglier – Blog Editor, Prose Editor & Layout Editor : Harper is a junior at Lewis University majoring in English with a concentration in Writing. They are currently employed at the Howard and Lois Adelmann Regional History Collection. When they aren’t reading academic material, they enjoy watching movies and reading books from their endless growing backlog of recommendations. They hope to use the analysis and writing skills gained from Lewis to further drive their interest in literature beyond graduation. Some of their favorite authors include Neil Gaiman and Oscar Wilde.