The Torrance Roller Coaster: The Shining by Stephen King

Horror isn’t my go-to bedtime reading even though I enjoy most genres. As a result, I’ve probably missed many fabulous books, like most of Stephen King’s bookshelf.

Yep, despite forty years, a book, and a movie, The Shining is new to me.

Sure, I knew the premise because the story has existed so long, but the story is one that I never longed to delve into. Thus, not reading the genre-redefining cult classic became a badge of pride.

However, after reading The Shining, I realize I missed out on greatness but not because of the plot—I could have done without the creepy bushes and angry ghosts. And while the enormous empty hotel in the middle of nowhere was unique, its one hundred ten rooms, kitchen, boiler room, etcetera were too much for me to track.

I know. I know. Jack's personality and emotional spiral are enhanced by the creepy setting and the murderous plot. I cannot picture The Torrance achieving the depth of character in a meandering drama or a flirty rom-com. However, these unique elements of murder and snowy isolation perfectly reflect the average man's crazy.

Therefore, Jack Torrance’s characterization makes The Shining a blockbuster story.  

King writes authentic characters who have real struggles and are just as annoying as they are likable, and not because of murderous intentions. Throughout the story, I understood Jack’s desire to provide for his family and redeem himself. Who wouldn’t sympathize? Who wouldn’t root for the “down on his luck” main character trying to climb out of his pit of mistakes? Especially, when the character seems so familiar. King wrote people whom his audience has met before—the drunk, the arrogant, the overconfident, the repressed, the teacher, the wife. So, it is easy to empathize and hope for a happy ending.

However, King complicates his main character by making Jack frustrating, angry, deceitful, and, by the end, violent.

I want to hope for the best, but I also want to flick Jack’s forehead when he makes dumb choices. He desperately needs this job to write, yet he taunts his boss about the hotel’s history. Flick. Jack knows the ballroom is empty and full of ghosts. He knows his alcoholism has hurt him in many ways, yet he bellies up to the bar for the invisible drink. Flick. His son is injured and needs a doctor, but he tosses away the vehicle’s battery because his wife and son’s needs are selfish. Flick. 

As a smart man, Jack knows these decisions are foolish, but something in him—his alcoholism, his repressed emotions, his awful childhood, perhaps—makes the wrong decision hard to resist. In fact, Jack’s resistance is weak compared to Danny’s repeated denials of the ghost’s influence.  Each time, Danny encounters an odd event—the fire hose, 214, the shrubbery—and runs away. Jack steps a little closer, stays a little longer, and soaks in the wrongness of it.

So are Jack’s bad decisions and worst behavior his fault or the hotel specter’s influence?

Before they reached the hotel, Jack already displayed his dishonesty and temper. He hid his life-altering

accident from his wife Wendy, and he minimizes his drinking. Jack broke his son’s arm in a rage haze and snaps at most of Wendy’s affectionate gestures. At the hotel, Jack lies about his encounter with an angry spirit in room 217 and doesn’t mention the dangerous shrubbery that stalks people across the lawn. These lies of omission could lead to a “what, you’re crazy moment,” but since his son Danny experiences similar strange encounters, a thoughtful dad might ease his son’s fears. Flick. Jack doesn’t need much to push him to the dark side. 

Does he secretly long to kill his wife and child? Does Ullman give Jack the idea when he mentions the previous caretaker’s end? Were these emotions waiting beneath the surface for an opportunity to lash out?

In the novel, the audience doesn’t know the hotel’s intention and power over Jack until the novel’s end. Therefore, Jack’s descent into madness remains a psychological rather than supernatural issue. For most of the novel, the strange events are unexplained and pushed aside as impossible. So, as the events and Jack’s questionable behavior worsens, Jack is clearly the bad guy acting out. I can hate him for being a cold and violent man. I can blame him for his failings until the hotel speaks to Danny. When the hotel finally communicates its wants outside Jack’s unreliable perspective, I feel guilt and sorrow because Jack was manipulated and misguided.  

Their issues and motivations are believable.

In the movie, Jack just seems crazy, and the hotel seems the confusing reason for his madness. The reader has little opportunity to question the character because Jack remains flat on film.