The Shining

While Wendy watches Jack in the cellar, Danny is at the top of the stairs, sucking his thumb, with bruises on his neck. Wendy goes upstairs and finds him. He cries and tells her that he was dreaming about his father and the voice on the CB before slipping into a catatonic state. Wendy screams at Jack not to touch him and takes Danny to her room.

Wendy thinks Jack might have hurt Danny in his sleep or in a trance, in the same way that he smashed the CB radio. But she quickly realizes that Jack’s shock and horror at the bruises were real. She thinks about anything she could use as a weapon in case Jack becomes violent. In the hall downstairs, she hears Jack singing, “Roll me over, in the clover” (235).

Jack is angry. He knows that Wendy will never forgive him for Danny’s arm. As he fumes and paces, he eventually makes his way to the dining room, where he imagines the masquerade ball in 1945. For a moment, he sees that the Colorado Lounge is now stocked with liquor, but when he turns on the lights, there are no bottles; nevertheless, he can smell beer. Soon he finds himself talking with Lloyd, the bartender, and asks him to make martinis for him. Jack drinks imaginary drinks and imagines that the place is full. He tells Lloyd about the challenges of getting sober and compares the “Wagon” of sobriety to a church and a prison.

Suddenly, Lloyd is gone—or he was never there. Jack is unsure. Wendy carries Danny into the Colorado Lounge, where Jack repeats that he did not hurt Danny. Wendy does not want to argue. She only wants to get Danny off the mountain. Danny begins screaming. He sees Jack and screams, “It was her!” (243). Jack looks at Wendy and asks her what she did to him.

Jack gives Danny a glass of milk and cooking sherry to calm him. Wendy feels guilty; she never gave Jack the benefit of the doubt when she saw the bruises on Danny’s throat. Wendy tells Jack that she and Danny talked about him, and about how the Overlook was turning bad for him. She says he talks in his sleep, often yelling “Unmask!” (246) in the middle of the night.

Danny says the dead woman in Room 217 hurt him. He tells them that Tony showed him bad things about the Overlook, and that Halloran has the shining as well. He describes the blood he in the presidential suite, which is where the mafia shooting happened. Then he mentions the moving hedge animals, which startles Jack. Danny says that the intentions of the woman in the bathtub felt like the wasps; like them, she only wanted to hurt him. Jack tells Wendy he is going to Room 217.

Jack chews Excedrin on the way to the Room 217, which, according to Watson, was where the lawyer’s wife overdosed. When he pulls back the shower curtain, the bathtub is empty. Jack sees a bathmat, which makes no sense; it should be with the linens. He hears a noise as he is leaving. The shower curtain is drawn again.

Now he can see the outline of something in the tub. Rather than looking, he hurries to the hallway, where he sees the fire extinguisher. He believes it was pointed the other way when he arrived to investigate.

In a brief chapter, Jack goes downstairs and tells Wendy and Danny that Room 217 is empty.

Jack puts a cot in their bedroom for Danny and then reads over his play, which now seems horrible to him. For reasons that are unclear to him, he now hates his protagonist, a character named Gary Benson.

Wendy wants to know how they will get Danny off the mountain, but Jack yells at her for wanting to plan their escape. She thinks something in the hotel wants Danny and suggests using the snowmobile. Their argument turns to passion, and they have sex. Afterwards, they discuss their beliefs about ghosts. Regardless of whether ghosts exist, the marks on Danny’s neck are real. Jack proposes that the bruises could be stigmata, or that Danny hurt himself while in a trance.

After she is asleep, Jack torments himself with thoughts of shame as he imagines going to Sidewinder and abandoning the job. Then his mood changes, and he suddenly has the urge to kill Wendy. Danny twitches and moans in the midst of a nightmare.

Jack wakes in the bathroom of Room 217, where George Hatfield lies in the bathtub with a knife protruding from his chest. Although he is dead, he argues with Jack about the debate team and his dismissal. When George tries to strangle him, Jack runs to the basement. He finds a timer with a cord leading to several sticks of dynamite. George puts his hands around Jack’s neck again. The dynamite transforms into a wasps’ nest, and then into his father’s cane. As he beats George, the cane becomes a roque mallet. George’s face becomes Danny’s face just as Jack hits him between the eyes. When Jack wakes, he is standing over Danny’s cot. He goes downstairs to check the boiler.