What happened at the end of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining? Until the last minute, the plot seems to be wrapping up in a conventional way.
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
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[Here’s Johnny!]
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Until the last minute of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining the plot
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seems to be wrapping up in a conventional way. Crazed Overlook Hotel
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caretaker Jack has met his end and his wife Wendy and son Danny have managed to
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escape. But then comes the twist. The camera zeroes in on a photograph dated
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1921 in which a man who looks just like Jack appears inside the hotel ballroom.
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The film is set around 1980, so what could Jack’s presence in this
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photo really mean. Even though this final shot may seem to come out of nowhere
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Kubrick hints at its significance throughout the film, and connects it to
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the story’s broader themes of history and cycles of occurring violence. So
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let’s take a look at how to make sense of this ending.
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[You do feel at the end
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though that he’s not annihilated; he’s frozen. Somehow he could be thought out
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and he’ll be back just like he was back already he’s in the photographs from the
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20s. Whatever it is that makes the spirit of that character it will return, it will
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always come back, and it will always need a blood sacrifice in order to do the
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bidding of the ghosts of this hotel.]
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Kubrick has said that the photograph
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indicates that Jack is a reincarnated character and clues throughout the film
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suggest that Jack has been at the Overlook before.
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[I came up here for my
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interview. It was as though I’d been here before I
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mean we all have moments of deja vu but this was ridiculous.]
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He’s totally at ease
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with the ghostly bartender Lloyd.
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[I like you Lloyd. I always liked you.]
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And seems
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comfortable stepping between the hotel’s different eras of existence. And Jack is
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not the only reincarnated character we meet. The film suggests that Charles
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Grady who killed his family at the hotel in 1970 was a reincarnation of Delbert
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Grady, the Jeeves liked character that Jack meets.
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[I have a wife and two
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daughters sir.]
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Grady all but confirms Jack’s reincarnation when he
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acknowledges his own.
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[You’ve always been the caretaker.
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I should know, sir. I’ve always been here.]
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Brady even helps Jack to reenact his own
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violence by unbolting the door of the pantry where Wendy has locked him.
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[You give your word on that do you Mr. Torrance?]
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[I give you my word.]
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Scenes that meld past and present show us that the hotel’s history can’t be
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shaken off Kubrick creates anachronistic visuals
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that situate people from the past in modern settings. The aesthetic
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disjointedness of these scenes emphasizes that the Overlook is not free
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of its violent past, but is stuck in a cycle of reincarnated spirits and
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eternally recurring violence. Visually the photo represents that Jack is
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trapped. His image will stay in the Overlook just as he is psychologically
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stuck there. He’s now part of the hotel’s history. While many believe that Jack or
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his look-alike was in the photo from the beginning, and he’s a spirit come back in
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the past, the opposite could also be true. Roger Ebert has said that the photo
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might signify that Jack has been absorbed from the present into the
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hotel’s past. So this would mean that Jack’s not reincarnated, but instead that
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he is a normal person who’s been sucked into the hotel’s darkly violent spirit.
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The message in that scenario might be that we can’t escape such powerful
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histories and forces of evil. References to legacies of violence appear
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throughout the film reminding us that the trends of human aggression repeat
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themselves throughout history. During the drive up to the Overlook Wendy mentions
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the Donner Party.
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[Hey, wasn’t it around here that the Donner Party got snowbound?]
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Mentioning this story of pioneer cannibalism situates the characters in a
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long history of environmental isolation leading to brutality. Once they arrive
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Ullman explains the Overlook’s place in another history of violence.
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[The site is
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supposed to be located on an Indian burial ground and I believe they
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actually had to repeal a few Indian attacks as they were building it.]
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Built on stolen native land, The Overlook is founded on cruelty. The Native American
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motifs decorating the hotel remind us of the fundamentally evil act at the
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hotel’s origin.
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[Are all these Indian designs authentic?]
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[Yeah I believe based mainly on Navajo
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and Apache motifs.]
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This is most clear when Jack throws a ball at a wall showing
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a Native American image emphasizing continued cultural disrespect. There’s
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also the logo of a Native American man in a headdress on the Calumet cans in
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the pantry. And Danny’s vision of the blood pouring out of the elevator could
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represent the massacre of Native Americans or the misuse of their burial
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ground. Uses of red white and blue like in Wendy’s clothes and Ullman’s clothes as he
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sits next to a flag, subtly implicate the USA in the story, and make us think about
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the role of violence in American history.
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[White man’s burden, Lloyd, my man. White man’s burden.
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Jack, too, is wearing more
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muted versions of red white and blue when he’s being violent. Meanwhile Danny
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is frequently wearing the USA colors and even famously the Apollo 11 sweater
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connecting the young boy with the next stage of the country’s history and it’s
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hope for the future. The film reminds us that consequences of trauma reverberate
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long after the event is over.
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[Maybe things that happened leave other kinds of traces behind. Not things that anyone can notice.
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But things that people who shine can see. Just like they can see things that haven’t happened yet.
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Well, sometimes they can see things that happened a long time ago.]
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The mirroring of characters and events
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throughout the film — of Jack in the ballroom photo, of Danny and his
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imaginary friend Tony, and of Grady’s and Jack’s
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parallel violence against their families — emphasizes the themes of repetition and
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reincarnation. The film asks us to consider whether it’s possible to escape
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our violent legacies, or if evil will just come back in another form. Jack dies
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before completing his mission but the final moment on the photo encourages us
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to wonder if his spirit will just be reincarnated once again. Still, there is
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some cause for optimism. Unlike Grady, Jack does not succeed in
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killing his family. So The Overlook’s destructive cycle may
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be broken. And it’s not merely that the family survives, but that Jack’s son does
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not become violent himself. For much of the film we’re unsure whether Danny will
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be overwhelmed by evil forces. But while Danny can foresee the havoc that the
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hotel will unleash he does not perpetuate it.
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The Overlook isn’t your
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average hotel, and as the film progresses it becomes less of an inanimate building
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and more of a malicious force. Its labyrinthine layout makes it feel
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inescapable and endless. And the hedge maze outside brings to mind the Greek
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myth of the Minotaur. The Minotaur was a terrifying creature — half bull and half
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man that King Minos trapped in a labyrinth and offered human sacrifices to. When
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Danny escapes from the maze at the end of the film this parallels Greek hero
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Theseus slaying the Minotaur and escaping the labyrinth, thus breaking the
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cycle of sacrificial deaths. On the visual level, mirrors, symmetry and
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complex patterns add to our feeling that the characters are trapped in a
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labyrinth. The Overlook is cavernous and silent, and it’s hulking size
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represents its dominance. Jack even writes the same sentence over
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and over, and the repetition gives us a vision of Hell in the form of solitude.
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[Even what he writes — all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy — that’s sort of who
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he is; that’s his life. And so he just lives up to that that thing. He’s just
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all aggression; he’s just all stress and angst; and that’s all he offers that
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family. There’s no other dimension to that character.]
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The final shot of the
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ballroom photo lets us in on something that the characters in the film still
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don’t fully understand — that the mystical hotel possesses great supernatural power.
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The hotel at large and the mysterious room 237 bring out the worst in people,
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at least in Jack. When Mr. Ullman tells Jack about Grady killing his wife and
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daughters with an axe, he implies that the solitude of the job can trigger
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people’s most destructive impulses.
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[For some people solitude and isolation can
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of itself become a problem.]
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[Not for me.]
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The Overlook only reveals its dark magic
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when people are alone there. By isolating its inhabitants, the hotel illustrates
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how people behave very differently when they know there’s no
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else around. A stunted writer who lacks a strong emotional bond with his wife and
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son, Jack is primed to give in to The Overlook’s sinister influence. Kubrick
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has said “Jack comes to the hotel psychologically prepared to do its
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murderous bidding.” He doesn’t have very much further to go for his anger and
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frustration to become completely uncontrollable. The Overlook’s
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supernatural powers trigger him, but the latent evil in Jack has been there all
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along.
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[So Jack Nicholson — there’s no time wasted, he’s just a jerk
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from the moment he’s introduced in the film. There’s not even a buildup. You know,
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you’re just waiting, when he’s gonna snap? He’s all the negative impulses in one
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human being.]
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In the act of turning on the family he’s supposed to be protecting
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and providing for, Jack embodies the most purely evil corruption of a husband
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and father, who uses his masculine strength and power to harm what is
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vulnerable and depends on him.
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[Who’s the one person who’s supposed to protect you the
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most in life? It would be your father right? He should give his life to protect
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his children. But no, The Shining is about how the father turns on his wife and son,
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and he’s going to slaughter them. And he’s gonna do the bidding of the ghosts in
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the hotel.]
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Yet the solitude doesn’t bring out only evil. Rather, it seems to bring
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out what is truly within each person. On the other end of the spectrum, under this
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duress, we see the moral goodness of Wendy and Danny shine through.
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Wendy demonstrates resourcefulness and courage as she prioritizes Danny’s
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safety. And Danny’s better angels went out as he runs away from the evil his
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father represents. So The Shining shows us that the supernatural is not innately
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bad. People use it and connect with it in ways that reflect their own morality or
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immorality. The title comes from Hotel cook Dick Halloran’s description of the
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telepathic powers he and Danny share.
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[I remember when I was a little boy, my grandmother and I could hold conversations entirely without
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ever opening our mouths.
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She called it shining.]
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Halloran says that The Overlook is
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capable of shining as well, further likening it to a living thing.
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[You know some places are like people. Some shine, and some don’t.
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I guess you could say The Overlook Hotel here has something about it that’s like shining.]
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While The Overlook’s powers are destructive, Halloran, a positive father figure to
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Danny, uses his abilities for good.
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[You set him up and I’ll knock him back Lloyd. One by one.]
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Jack’s dark side shows up long before he
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comes to the hotel. He’s a recovering alcoholic, and in a drunken rage he once
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dislocated Danny’s shoulder.
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[On this particular occasion, my husband just used too much
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strength, and he injured Danny’s arm.]
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In unleashing an evil that’s already present in Jack, The
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Overlook resembles alcohol which might reveal a person’s truest self by
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destroying their inhibitions and allowing them to follow their natural
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instincts.
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[God, I’d give anything for a drink. I’d give my goddamned soul for just a glass of beer.]
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But while there may be Veritas and vino that releases aspects of our
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authentic selves, for an alcoholic like Jack, drink brings out the person’s worst
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self. So this whole story can be interpreted as a man’s struggle with
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alcoholism and what this does to his family. If we view it this way the almost
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supernatural forest that preys on his weakness and takes control of him is
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Jack’s addiction.
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[Here’s to five miserable months on the wagon.
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And all
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the irreparable harm that it’s caused me.]
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In the Stephen King novel that the film
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is based on Jack’s character is more sympathetic. And The Overlook’s powers are
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greater. The hedge animals and other inanimate objects on the hotel grounds
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seem to be possessed and even intimidate the characters. King was famously
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disappointed by Kubrick’s adaptation, and he rejected the film’s portrayal of
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Jack as innately bad.
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[So I saw these all as warm characters. Characters that were
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being threatened by forces from without. From ghosts, from real supernatural creatures.]
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While in the film the hotel let’s Jack express his true evil self, in
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the novel Jack resists the spirits that have possessed him, and doesn’t want to
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hurt Danny. The alcoholism interpretation makes even more sense in the novel. Some
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argue that King’s book is a temperance narrative, or a warning about the dangers
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of alcohol. There’s a crucial difference in the story ending from book to film. In
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Kubrick’s adaptation Jack dies in a snow-covered maze, but in the novel the
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hotel boiler explodes burning down the hotel.
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[The film is extremely cold. Stanley
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Kubrick saw the haunting as coming from Jack Torrance, from the Jack Nicholson
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character. Where as I always saw it from outside. So we had a fundamental
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difference of opinion about it. I always thought that the real difference between
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my take on it and Stanley Kubrick’s take on was this: In my novel the hotel
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burns; in Kubrick’s movie the hotel freezes. It’s a difference between warmth and cold.]
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The biggest takeaway of the final moments of the film is that Jack is now
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part of The Overlook. And it’s possible that he always was. The Shining is so
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powerful and endlessly debatable because the ending works on all of these many
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levels — as a commentary on the legacies of violence in our history, an analogy
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for alcoholism and domestic strife, a probe into the presence of the
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supernatural in our lives, a look at the mystical power of places,
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and a story about what lies hidden deep within the human soul.
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[Wendy! Darling. Light of my life I’m not gonna hurt you. You didn’t let me finish
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my sentence. I said I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m just gonna bash your brains in.]
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
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