CompLit 100 International Horror
Haley Kaye
“Doc,” Jack Torrance said. “Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you.” “No,” Danny said. “Oh Danny, for God’s sake—” “No,” Danny said. He took one of his father’s bloody hands and kissed it. “It’s almost over.” – King 632
Such is one part of the climactic ending of Stephen King’s The Shining, as Jack Torrance regains control of himself over the malicious Overlook Hotel long enough to urge his son—who possesses psychic-like abilities referred to as “the shine”—to run from his possessed, mallet-wielding and murderous self. After this brief interaction, Jack Torrance is lost forever to the Hotel’s control, and later goes up in flames with it as the result of a boiler explosion. Stephen King’s well-known work The Shining has become a staple of horror fiction ever since its publication in 1977. Gritty, gothic, tense, and thrilling, The Shining is truly worthy of the recognition it receives as the novel that cemented King’s place in the world of literature. As such it was adapted almost immediately by director Stanley Kubrick with his 1980 film of the same name. Though Kubrick’s movie is considered to be one of the pillars of its genre, there are major discrepancies between book and film that ultimately divide them into two separate categories of horror.
But it wasn’t really empty. Because here in the Overlook things just went on and on. Here in the Overlook all times were one…In the Overlook all things had a sort of life. – King 447-448
Standing tall and proud amidst the high mountains of Colorado, the Overlook Hotel of King’s The Shining is an old but grandiose building with a complicated history; changing ownership many times, falling into disrepair at one point, its seclusion and grandeur attracted movie stars, presidents, and the wealthy for decades. On the less desirable side, it has also been the site of many deaths—whether they be self-inflicted or, in the case of the Colorado Lounge and the Presidential Suite, acts of mafia violence. Throughout its long history, the Overlook has absorbed these misfortunes one by one, until, unbeknownst to the Torrance family, it has become a breeding ground for evil.
The Shining falls into many subcategories of the horror genre, but perhaps the most applicable is gothic horror. Gothic horror is described as literature that combines fiction, horror, death, and pleasure. The most common form of pleasure found in gothic horror is referred to as the sublime—language that excites thoughts and emotion within audiences, creating an extraordinary experience. According to these definitions, it then seems only natural that the novel’s primary source of horror is utterly inhuman, an entity of its own kind—the Overlook itself.
Jack makes an easy target for the hotel as he is a recovering alcoholic with anger problems, the most mentally unstable of the family. As such, the Overlook deals with him directly on multiple occasions, moving the hedge animals outside to intimidate him, drawing him into the basement where there is an old scrapbook of the Overlook’s bloody history until he becomes obsessed with it. It even goes as far as imitating his father on the radio, telling him, “Have a drink, Jacky my boy…you have to kill him, Jacky, and her, too.” (King 335) As a result Jack shatters the radio in a fit of emotion, unwittingly playing directly into the Overlook’s hands and starting the family’s isolation from the outside world. It completes this objective when it forces Jack to sabotage the snowmobile that will allow Wendy and Danny to leave, even though he acknowledges that “[the snowmobile] was part of the Overlook and the Overlook really didn’t want them out of here. Not at all. The Overlook was having one hell of a good time.” (King 414) The hotel later shows a terrifying range of power as it blocks the snowed-in path up the mountain with the hedge animals, which prowl with the agility of their living counterparts and nearly kill the chef, Dick Hallorann, who is on his way to rescue the Torrances.
On top of the hotel exhibiting frightening control of its many powers—the hedges, dreams, hallucinations, obsession, and eventually possession—it is revealed much later in the novel that it commands some form of sentience, speaking directly to the main characters. On one occasion it yells at Danny as he reads his father’s increasingly distraught thoughts:
“(GET OUT OF HIS MIND, YOU LITTLE SHIT!) He recoiled in terror from that mental voice, his eyes widening, his hands tightening into claws on the counterpane. It hadn’t been the voice of his father but a clever mimic. A voice he knew. Hoarse, brutal, yet underpointed with a vacuous sort of humor.” (King 492)
On another, it sends out a brutal telepathic warning to Hallorann as he treks up the mountain after receiving a terrified call for help from Danny: “(GET OUT OF HERE YOU…THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS…TURN AROUND TURN AROUND OR WE’LL KILL YOU).” (King 577) It is clear that the Overlook Hotel is not simply a building. It is its own being, a source of subliminal horror in the novel as it drags Jack Torrance into madness and seeks to kill Wendy and Danny. However, such is not the case in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation.
In Kubrick’s film, the hotel is hardly ever featured as the source of evil that drives the plot. That role falls on Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson). Early on in the movie, Jack is already showing signs of mental instability when he cusses out Wendy (Shelley Duvall) for interrupting his work, ripping up parts of his manuscript as he says, “We’re gonna make a new rule. Whenever I’m in here, and you hear me typing, or whether you don’t hear me typing or whatever the fuck you hear me doing…that means don’t come in.” (00:45’04”) Jack’s mannerisms here and throughout the film are erratic, intimidating and filled with anger. He degrades Wendy constantly by speaking down to her and mocking her when she cries. When he meets “Lloyd”, the imagined bartender of the Overlook, Jack happily proclaims that his wife is a bitch. (1:04’15”) This power imbalance creates a prevalent theme of domestic abuse, of which Jack is the abuser, looming over Wendy at every turn.
This idea of Jack and violence he inflicts as the film’s primary source of horror—as compared to the more metaphysical and gothic horror of the novel—is further perpetuated by the fact that he and the Overlook hardly interact with one another at all. Jack is never explicitly shown to find the scrapbook in the basement that draws him into an obsession with the hotel, and there is no mention of the dreams that plague him in the book. There are no hedge animals to move. There is no radio, booming with the voice of his father, telling him to kill his family. Stephen King himself described Kubrick’s Jack Torrance as “[in the beginning] he’s crazy as a shit house rat…all he does is get crazier.” (Jagernauth) Jack’s razor-thin grip on sanity seems to be the only thing to blame for the Overlook turning into a house of horrors. In the movie, it is even shown that he sabotaged the snowmobile before Wendy ever thought of bringing Danny down the mountain, stranding the three of them there after he also willingly breaks the radio. In the absence of the building’s supernatural capabilities it is Jack, not the hotel, who has complete control over what goes on inside.
“Once, during the drinking phase, Wendy had accused him of desiring his own destruction but not possessing the necessary moral fiber to support a full-blown deathwish. So he manufactured ways in which other people could do it, lopping a piece at a time off himself and their family.” – King 269
Though there are countless differences between novel and film, one of the most impactful is undoubtedly the portrayal of Wendy Torrance. Played by Shelley Duvall, the movie version of Wendy is radically different from the novel version; she is docile, domestic, and constantly terrified of Jack. There is no semblance of a bond between them. King referred to her portrayal as “one of the most misogynistic” ever put on film. (Jagernauth) As Jack berates and terrorizes her, she does nothing about it, only continues to remain as his quiet, subdued wife. Her character’s main, if not only, purpose is to be scared of the male lead and solidify the theme of domestic abuse. Rarely ever does she defend herself from her husband’s attacks, and when she does, as in the notorious “bat scene”, she is shown to be crying hysterically and making slow, pathetic movements. (1:48’30”) This also happens in the scene where Jack Nicholson famously cries “Here’s Johnny!” while breaking in the door with an axe—Wendy, backed into a corner with a kitchen knife, does not immediately attack or try her hand at escaping, only cries as her enraged husband grows closer. It appears that Wendy would rather cry and scream than attempt to save herself, making her film portrayal incredibly flat and lending further credence to the central idea of Jack as the vehicle of horror in the film.
However, such is not the case in the novel’s version of Wendy. Early in the book, Wendy spends many pages describing her life during Jack’s “drinking days”. Incredibly lonely but determined to keep pushing for Danny’s sake, Wendy admits she was heavily considering divorce for a long time, saying “She told herself that she had stuck with the messy job of her marriage for as long as she could. Now she would have to leave it.” (King 74) Throughout the rest of the book she is shown to be strained emotionally with Jack’s changing attitude towards the Overlook, but also incredibly aware of him and his mood at all times. She is also fiercely protective of Danny, even going so far as to ignore Jack’s temper and its consequences to grab the boy from him after they discover him with bruises on his neck. Even Jack realizes her selflessness towards their son, saying “Wendy would pour a can of gasoline over herself and strike a match before harming Danny.” (King 358)
Wendy’s strong will creates obvious division in the family as Jack finally succumbs to the Overlook and begins to view her as the villain; after she knocks him out when he tries to assault her, she immediately thinks to drag Jack into the pantry, saying it has both food to keep him alive and a thick door to keep him in until she and Danny can get help. Unlike in the movie, she does not doubt her decision. She tells Danny that Jack is no longer himself and has been taken by the hotel. Even the Overlook is forced to reconcile with her determination and resourcefulness, admitting to Jack: “She seems to be…somewhat stronger than we had imagined. Somewhat more resourceful…Perhaps, Mr. Torrance, we should have been dealing with her all along.” (King 565)
“But see that you get on. That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on.” – King 658
Standing tall and proud amidst the high mountains of Colorado, the Overlook Hotel of Stephen King’s The Shining is an old but grandiose building with a complicated history; a history that comes crashing down one cold, snowy night in December. In King’s thrilling gothic novel the hellish hotel is destroyed completely, along with its deranged winter caretaker, in a boiler explosion. In Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation, said caretaker freezes to death, lost in the neverending twists and turns of a hedge maze. These endings differ greatly from one another, and such differences are prime examples to reinforce the idea that the novel and film cannot be grouped together in the same subgenres of horror. The end of each story brings about resolution, a final conclusion to the terror that took place within the Overlook’s walls. But that terror changes for everyone, and it is impossible to know such terror without knowing the denizens that dwell within.
Works Cited
Jagernauth, Kevin. “Stephen King Says Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ Is ‘Like A Big, Beautiful Cadillac With No Engine Inside It.’” IndieWire, IndieWire, 3 Feb. 2016,
www.indiewire.com/2016/02/stephen-king-says-stanley-kubricks-the-shining-is-like-a-big-beauti ful-cadillac-with-no-engine-inside-it-83995/.
King, Stephen. The Shining. Anchor Books, 2012. Kubrick, Stanley. The Shining. Warner Bros., 1980.
