The Shining

Danny is Jack Torrance’s five-year-old son. He enjoys reading, drawing, learning, and most other typical childhood pursuits. He is also a serious boy, the result of his having what Dick Hallorann calls “The Shining.” Wendy reveals that Danny was born with a caul covering his face. There are superstitions positing that a caul is a sign that the child will have extrasensory abilities like precognition. It is true that Danny can sometimes hear other people’s thoughts. He is tormented by unpleasant, often violent visions that may be harbingers of future events. Danny experiences all of the uncertainties of childhood, but they are amplified by the fact that he can tell what people are thinking, even if he cannot make sense of it. For instance, Danny can hear his father thinking about drinking—which, in Danny’s mind, is the Bad Thing. He has occasionally found the words “suicide” and “divorce” in Jack’s mind.

Danny calls the force that shows him things Tony, personified as a little boy who usually beckons and calls him from a distance. Late in the novel, Danny learns that Tony is actually a version of himself from the future who visits him to relay warnings about the Overlook. At the end of the novel, Danny is a heartbroken boy who misses his father. He wishes that he did not have the shining but understands that he has no control over being born with it.

Wendy is Jack’s long-suffering wife. She is protective of Danny and mistrustful of her husband, although she always tries to be supportive. Wendy comes from a family with a domineering mother. Her mother kicked her out of the house, which led to her living with Jack. Her mother also blames her subsequent divorce on Wendy and refuses to attend she and Jack’s wedding. Just as her mother experiences jealousy about Wendy’s relationship with her father, sometimes Wendy is jealous of Jack’s relationship with Danny. She knows that she should not be petty, but Danny needs Jack in a way that he does not need her.

Late in the novel, Jack tells Wendy, “You’ve always been jealous, haven’t you? Just like your mother” (371). Wendy admits it: “She suddenly realized she was feeling jealous of the closeness between her husband and her son, and felt ashamed. That was too close to the way her own mother might have felt” (88). She wishes that Danny would turn to her when he needs comfort, or when he wants to be put to bed.

Jack’s volatility and drinking make it hard for Wendy to be calm, and it is hard for her to give her husband the benefit of the doubt. When Danny’s neck is bruised after his encounter in 217, Wendy wonders whether she wants it to be Jack’s fault: “Had she wanted to think Jack was to blame? Was she that jealous? It was the way her mother would have thought” (244). Then she is ashamed that “she had never even given Jack the benefit of the doubt. Not the smallest…She carried part of her mother with her always, for good or bad” (244).

Wendy is not a complete doormat. Even before the incident with Danny’s arm, she made up her mind to divorce Jack but relented when he asked for one more week. Once the Overlook possesses Jack, she is fiercely protective of Danny and fights Jack however she can. By the time they reach the Overlook, she has convinced herself that the worst is over and that they can be happy together.