Hi, friends! I'm Penny and I am a big movie nerd. But not only am I a big movie nerd — I also have the power of film analysis and writing capability on my side!
This article will serve as a small (and by no means academic) analysis of one of my favorite movies, Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" (1980).
If you, for some reason, haven't watched this movie:
1. There will be spoilers, and 2. Do you live under a rock?
A favorite in my family, I have watched this movie easily over 100 times and I can quote most of the script verbatim (much to the annoyance of the others I watch it with). Every time I watched the film, I never really saw it as "scary". While this is totally because I've seen the movie so many times, I also think that it isn't meant to be scary in the same way that most conventional horror films are:
The Shining and all of its mysteries are about the cycle of abuse.
There's a lot of evidence pointing towards this, but I'm going to spare y'all and focus on three major elements from the film:
1. The characters,
2. The Overlook, and
3. The ending.
The easiest characters to look at are the Torrances, being that they are the central characters of the movie.
Jack is never given the illusion of being a "good guy". The movie lets you know that he's a recovering alcoholic who has hurt his family in the past and would probably do it again. Wendy, his wife, always looks on edge and she's always uncomfortable around Jack. She also has a really bad habit of excusing Jack's abusive behavior, such as yelling at her, ignoring his wife and child, and also dislocating their son's shoulder. Danny is a young boy who has suffered obvious trauma (his father dislocating his shoulder) and he has an imaginary friend, "Tony", who allows him to "shine".
These characters don't exist well together and there is always a heavy tension between them. This is best represented in the really weird scene where Danny, sitting on Jack's lap, asks him if he'd ever hurt him or Wendy. Jack — instead of wanting to know why Danny would ever think that — automatically gets angry at Wendy, assuming that she said something to Danny about abuse in the past. This is not a logical reaction and it only makes sense if Jack had hurt Wendy. He obviously didn't like her bringing it up.
That's super-duper abusive in a lot of different ways.
The more "supernatural" events of the movie are parts of its chilling charm. I believe, however, that all of it is symbolic.
The purpose of The Overlook is not only to serve as a setting, but also to contribute to this cycle of abuse, and it's actually super direct.
The Overlook abuses Jack into abusing his family.
It's actually quite easy.
The majority of the ghosts in the film appear only to Jack, and after being around them, he starts becoming more hostile to his family. He quickly turns to try to kill them. He is influenced heavily by Lloyd — the bartender — and Delbert Grady. I believe Lloyd is representative of Jack's alcoholism and how it makes him more violent towards his family. Grady is symbolic of the train of thought that excuses abuse, referring to it as "correcting" behavior and just being the way you deal with your family. These are Jack's ghosts, which result in him treating his family the way he does.
There are 2 (3?) other spirits, however, that don't appear exclusively to Jack, and they both (all?) appear to Danny. These would be the woman in room 237 and the Grady sisters.
I believe the woman in room 237 is symbolic of abuse as a whole. When Jack sees the woman, he is in a state of disarray, and seeing a naked woman in the bathtub is everything he needed. It's an easy solution to a problem that he doesn't want to face. Only after he's kissed her does he realize how disgusting and evil she really is. He then goes on to deny ever seeing her. Danny's experience with her is a bit more straightforward — she literally tries to kill him.
The Grady sisters appear only to Danny, as he is exploring the giant maze (lol, symbolism) that is the Overlook Hotel. They show him the abuse they suffered and ask him to stay forever with them. The sisters turn into abusers, themselves, after dying at the hands of their father. They torment Danny in not only this scene but other scenes throughout the movie. They invite Danny, another victim of abuse, to join them in this vicious cycle and he says no.
The most controversial (and confusing) element of the film is it's ending, but I think I've got that one figured out as well.
Danny is running from his father in a hedge maze (haha, more symbolism), and he escapes by outsmarting his father. This is representative of Danny leaving the cycle of abuse as he and Wendy leave the Overlook. Jack then freezes to death in the maze, showing that he died caught in the cycle of abuse, dying both as the abused and the abuser.
This isn't the end of the movie though.
The final scene of the movie is a slow pan onto a picture hanging on the wall dated July 4th, 1921, that features Jack in the middle. This scene has confused the hell out of most moviegoers since the film was released. I argue that this final scene is Jack being cemented into the history of abuse held at the Overlook Hotel.
So there you have it! I'm a big nerd and this was my analysis of a beloved horror film FROM the '80s. While there are other mysteries of "The Shining" (Danny's Apollo 11 sweater, the bear-man, and Native American symbolism) I won't touch on those right now.
Thank you for your attention analysis and remember to always watch movies closely.
