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| “ | In 1922, a man's pride was a man's land. And so was his son | „ |
| ~ Wilfred James's most famous quote. |
Wilfred James is the main villainous protagonist of the Stephen King’s horror novella 1922, as well as the 2017 film adaptation of the same name.
He is a greedy farmer who kills his wife for her land, but ultimately loses everything.
He was portrayed in the film by Thomas Jane, who also played Punisher in 2004.
History[]
Wilfred James, or Wilf, owned a farm of 100 acres in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, that’s been in his family for generations. His wife, Arlette, has recently inherited 80 acres of adjoining land from her father. Wilf is content with their farm life, as is their son, Henry. But Arlette is unhappy, and plans to sell her land to the Farrington Livestock Company, which would make Wilf's land non-farmable, in order to move to Omaha and open a dress shop.
After an argument with Arlette on what to do regarding their land, she suggests they sell both parcels, split the money, and divorce, with her taking Henry. Wilf, who believes that "a man's pride was his land, and his son", is pushed into plotting to murder her, with the assistance of Henry. He uses Henry's blossoming relationship with neighboring girl Shannon Cotterie as a reason to convince him to assist in the murder, as if Henry were forced to move to Omaha, he would be taken away from her. Henry, already uneasy with the thought of becoming a city boy, agrees.
Wilf pretends to agree to the sale, appeasing Arlette enough to get her drunk in celebration. After she insults Shannon, Henry is angered into committing to the plot (still making sure that they would "send her to Heaven"). Henry holds down Arlette with a pillow, and Wilf messily slits her throat. They hide her body in a well on the farm, and clean up the house to erase any traces of blood.
The next day, Wilf packs Arlette's suitcase with some clothes, pants, and jewelry. Opening the well, he finds rats chewing on Arlette's body. Disgusted, he throws the suitcase into the well to scare them off. He is visited by one of Farrington's lawyers, Andrew Lester. Lester is suspicious of Wilf, as he is looking for Arlette, and has Hemingford Home's sheriff Jones search the house. Wilf fills in the well with a euthanized cow, and begins filling it when Jones arrives.
During summer, Henry becomes distant and brooding, regretting the crime he and his father committed together. Shannon is discovered to be pregnant, and is sent to a Catholic orphanage until she has the baby and gives it up for adoption. Despite Wilf's warnings, Henry steals his truck and helps Shannon escape the orphanage. They become robbers, wanted in several states, but, after their car breaks down, Shannon (who was shot during a robbery) dies from blood loss. Despondent, Henry kills himself, as is chewed upon by rats.
In Henry's absence, Wilf becomes emotionally destitute and alcoholic. During the winter, he takes out a mortgage to rebuild his slowly crumbling house, but never does any of the work. One night, while searching Arlette's closet, his hand is bitten by a rat, becoming severely infected. Unable to go to a hospital due to the harsh weather, Wilf is forced to stay at his house. He is visited by Arlette's living corpse, who gives him a premonition of Henry and Shannon's deaths. Although Wilf begs for death, the corpse denies it, letting him live with the consequences of his actions.
Soon afterwards, he is found delirious by Sheriff Jones, who brings him to the hospital. After his hand is amputated, Jones reveals that, based on what Wilf told him, Arlette was found dead on the side of the road, raped, robbed, and murdered. Wilf receives Henry's chewed corpse, and attends his small funeral, with Arlette's corpse and a group of surrounding rats watching. Wilf tries to sell his land to Harlan Cotterie, Shannon's father and Wilf's former friend, who laughs, lamenting their loses (both their children dead, their wives gone, but Harlan still has both hands). He bluntly tells Wilf to get off his property, and to never come back.
Disgraced, Wilf is forced to sell the land to the Farrington company for a pittance. He moves to Omaha, the city he always despised, and finds work hauling pallets in a factory and as a librarian (novel only). However, Wilf notices the rats continuing to follow him. In 1930, eight years after his ordeal, he purchases a pistol and goes to a hotel to write his confession. However, he misplaces his gun, and the rats eat him alive. He is found dead the next morning, with his papers chewed to pieces and seemingly self-inflicted rat bites, implying that his account for the events in 1922 were fictional.
In the film, Wilf meets his comeuppance differently. After finishing his confession, his hotel room is swarmed by rats, and he is confronted by the apparitions of Shannon, Arlette, and Henry. Henry's apparition pulls out a knife, and tells him that his death will be quick. Wilf only looks on in sadness and regret as the film ends, with him saying "In the end, we all get caught", leaving the viewer to assume whether Wilf was crazy and that he actually killed himself, or if the apparitions were real all along, and that they killed him.
Personality[]
Wilf is greedy, sneaky, impulsive, but intelligent to a degree, managing to fool the sheriff into believing his story about Arlette's disappearance. He is manipulative, as he persuades his son to help him in the murder. However, despite all that, Wilf does have a somewhat friendly personality to all of his other associates, including Lars Olsen, the Hemingford Trust banker, and the Cotterie family. Wilf does have a sense of humility and regret regarding what he did, and expresses disgust at himself, stating that he deserved what he got. Wilf did love Henry, becoming depressed and alcoholic after Henry abandoned him, and kissing him on the forehead one last time before he is put in a coffin, and in the film's final scenes, it’s implied that Wilf wished his son could forgive him, showing a sad sense of love and remorse for ruining Henry's life.
Trivia[]
- Wilfred telling the story of his side of Henry is likely not accurate, as he isn’t fully aware of the crime mischiefs Henry has been accused of.
