SPOILERS!
While Kubrick’s film was obviously based on Stephen King’s novel, King himself stated that he felt the film did not accurately portray his work. Still, there is a reason why Kubrick’s work became a cult classic due to King’s story being put to visuals.
Here, I’m going to examine many of the underlying themes and symbolism within The Shining, some of which may have been noted before but others which may have been overlooked. I’ve divided my thoughts into sections to try and demonstrate my ideas more clearly.
The Title:
I’ve read that King was inspired by John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” when he was considering the title for this novel. From this, we can surmise that Danny’s shining abilities are within us all, as we are all part of “the moon, the stars and the sun,” as one universal entity. This also correlates to tenets of Gnosis, which suggests that we all are our own God, and therefore we all have the ability to reach higher states of awareness, but there are few existing humans who ever do reach this peak, and it isn’t an easy task. Therefore, despite the fact that Danny is more evolved than his parents, their eventual recognition that his visions are very real and not a psychotic dilemma is a step forward in their individual conscious, and (if used in correlation to all of mankind,) a step forward in accepting these seemingly “unnatural” abilities as something sacred an innate in all of us.
Differences from the Novel:
Besides the evil room changing from “217” to “237,” (something done strictly because the hotel where the film was shot didn’t want to ward off future patrons from staying in the room,) the photograph at the end depicting the Fourth of July ball says “1921,” although in the novel the date is “1945.” This is one aspect I prefer the novel to, as 1945 marked the end of World War II, and a change in the mindset of post-war America. The ball in this sense was portraying a celebration at the hotel that represented the illusion of security redeemed in America. The film and novel both take place in 1975, which marked the end of the Vietnam War; another time when America’s people believed peace was finally restored. (If you take into account the thirty-year time lapse, 2005 would be about the next time of some “war” occurring, and many currently feel we’ve been in the third world war ever since we entered Iraq.)
Another huge difference is that in the novel the boiler explodes, killing Jack and burning down the hotel, while in the film Jack freezes to death in the maze and the hotel presumably lives on. This is one twist of Kubrick’s I enjoyed, as it brought into question the debate of fire vs. ice in regards to hell and the apocalypse.
Fire is considered a destructive force which brings about rebirth, while it’s also associated with passion, lust and desire. Therefore one might assume King intended to portray that the “curse” of the hotel was finally broken, and that Jack’s death by fire was necessary in order to keep alive Danny’s gift of shining. Moreover, Jack’s death and the events leading to it allowed Danny to truly recognize and embrace his gift, which might have been abused by the world and denied by Danny himself had he never went through the trials at the hotel. In regards to Jack, perhaps the fire was symbolic of how he allowed his passion for his novel to consume him, to the point where his novel and the story of the hotel intertwined.
In the film, we see Jack buried in snow/ice to his shoulders. This is a symbolic image of how one’s brain/mind is a prison, and moreover how the use of intelligence, while seemingly a good thing, can trap and destroy us if we revolve everything in life around this rational thought and ignore other impulses, including that of the body. Since our brain is connected to our bodies, often the rational or irrational thoughts that come to us can come to fruition through the actions of our bodies. Jack’s thoughts, whether induced by the hotel or his past memories, essentially drove him to commit violent acts, while in addition Jack’s character could be symbolic of all the great powers and “masterminds” of the world who use their knowledge to manipulate the actions and lifestyle of others. With only his head above ground, Jack’s heart is essentially frozen, non-existent.
In terms of the apocalypse or “end times,” many feel an Ice Age is more appropriate than a consuming fire, perhaps because the sun provides warmth and light, and therefore sustains life, so the absence of sun would essentially demolish the chain of life link by link. In terms of human morality, many feel the true evil isn’t those who commit acts of impulse, such as rape and murder, but those who condition society into the mindset of ignoring one’s “shadow psyche” by building boundary lines, which inevitably end up being crossed in the worst way. In this sense, the “fire and ice” debate can be looked upon as “body vs. mind,” and the idea that we need to be equally immersed in both. Still, I’m interested in why Kubrick preferred this ending. Perhaps by keeping the hotel “alive” he was reflecting how we still have many years of evil to withstand, both internally and in our external world.
Lastly, Kubrick decided to have Jack kill off Halloran in the film vs. King’s choice to keep him alive in the novel. Perhaps Kubrick wanted to portray that that Danny represents the new generation of the rare shining abilities. Halloran had to die to “pass the torch” in a sense, just as Halloran’s grandmother passed the torch to him, while perhaps Halloran’s life was sacrificed so Danny’s younger, stronger shining abilities could survive, and therefore be passed on, potentially creating a stronger force of shining down the line which could easily overcome any extreme force of evil. In addition, it seems that Halloran never gained the courage to enter room 237, but Danny did. In contrast, by letting Halloran live, perhaps King was portraying a message of hope in his otherwise bleak novel, that when good forces work together evil can always be overcome, and that when a person does the right thing, he or she is rewarded with life.
Symbolism:
By symbolism, I mainly mean a pattern, whether it was visible to the eye or hidden from sight. The key is trying to figure out why King/Kubrick included these patterns, but here I’m simply going to point them out.
The first object I took note of was the dresser/stand in Danny’s bedroom when the Dr. talks to him. There are three figures seen in linear order, and the middle one looks like a lion, or phoenix. While the figures at the top and bottom can’t be identified, the figure at the top is red and blue. When we see Wendy standing next to this object, we immediately see that the colors in her wardrobe correspond to this figure. Throughout the film, we also see Danny wear mixed shades of red/blue, which perhaps shows his connection to his mother; Jack mostly wears shades of green, crimson and grey. As I’ll mention later, I thought this object was a clever way to describe the three main characters, notably with Danny in the center as the phoenix, as a phoenix is typically associated with death and rebirth.
There are also repeating numbers in regards to events, dates, times, etc. For example, when the film starts we see that the Torrance’s moved to Boulder, CO three months previous; it took Jack 3.5 hours to drive to the initial interview; Jack was three hours late coming home on the night he dislocated Danny’s shoulder; the Gold Room can fit 300 guests; there are pyramids everywhere, from the entrance to the maze, to the red triangle hanging randomly in the maze when Wendy/Danny pass it, to the figures on the Indian mural above the mantelpiece. There are also prominent uses of the numbers 8 and 10.
In the beginning, when Danny and Wendy are eating in their kitchen at home, as soon as Danny uses Tony’s voice to say he doesn’t want to go to the hotel, we see his sandwich suddenly split in two, as if to foreshadow that the events to come will in some way split up the family or split up the perception of reality and unreality.
When we see Halloran in the bedroom of the “Wednesday” chapter, (although this was probably easy to pick up,) I enjoyed how Kubrick portrayed the man as sitting in the stomach of a powerful entity. For example, we see pictures on the walls of naked women, and then we see that the lamps beside Halloran produce shadows on the wall that look like breasts; therefore Halloran is seated in the stomach of this being (the hotel,) and immediately the music comes in sounding like a heartbeat. This goes along with one feeling their heart in their stomach, or having an uneasy feeling about something. Of course in the context, it was a sign to Halloran that the evil of the hotel was becoming alive again.
In the scene where Wendy brings Jack breakfast, there is a curious symbol on the bedpost beside him. While I’ll get into aspects of religion/myth later, the figure very much resembled that of Baphomet, a Pagan deity whose significance often varies in terms of good/evil. Jack also mentions déjà vu, which in some cultures is believed to be bad luck.
Then of course there’s “REDRUM” being a backwards spelling of “Murder.” And I felt the same thing applied to Delbert Grady, whose name change from “Charles” seemed to be unexplained in the film. Spelled backwards, Delbert spells “trebled,” which means “to make or become three times as large or numerous.” I translated this to mean that perhaps the murder/suicide of Jack’s family of three would add immense power to the spirits of the hotel, while as I’ll mention later, there is frequent use of the concepts of the trinity and pyramid throughout the film.
Media/Culture:
The Shining uses many cultural references and visuals to describe and satirize America and the world.
When the Torrance family is driving to the hotel, Danny says he saw the story of cannibalism on TV, and Jack smirks. The media is considered a tool of persuasion that is often used to manipulate the masses in society, and Jack’s smirking is a subtle sign that he knows this.
Danny’s clothing is particularly telling, as he wears a sweater with the “Apollo USA” rocket on it and a Walt Disney shirt. In regards to the latter, we creepily see Jack put Danny on his lap, perhaps showing that this seemingly innocent children’s company is actually the opposite. Disney movies also contain a large amount of references to the occult, although most of them go virtually unnoticed by viewers.
In the film, Jack calls Danny “Doc,” and Wendy says, “You know, like Bugs Bunny.” In most of the depictions of this cartoon character, you’ll see him laying down with a carrot near its nether regions, with the phrase “what’s up doc?” This makes sense as rabbits are known universally to be animals of fertility and life. In some North American Indian tribes, the Great Hare, or Michabo, was considered the “preserver of heaven and earth,” and he was said to have resided in the sky “with his brother the Snow.” Whether intentional or not, I found it interesting that King would therefore use the nickname “Doc” in correlation with the novel’s hero figure.
There are also references to the “Three Little Pigs,” Johnny Carson, the Roadrunner cartoon (which ironically says “if he catches you you’re through” while Jack is hunting his family,) and various other idioms and catch-phrases are used by Jack as he slips under the hotel’s spell (especially when he sits at the bar.)
Indian Theme:
The hotel is decorated with lots of Indian-inspired art, ironic since the hotel was built on an Indian burial ground, which Mr. Ullman subtly mentions led to more bloodshed of that race due to initial opposition from remaining Indians in the area. While this is only one layer of the film, one could surmise that the hotel was cursed simply because of desecration of these graves. Mr. Ullman also says that since its inception, the hotel has hosted four presidents and various movie stars, which further exemplifies that corrupt, elite people have “taken over” something sacred to the land’s native people.
When Jack bounces a ball against the wall, he’s throwing it at a mural on the mantelpiece which depicts people growing like how a corn stalk or plant would grow, almost as if he’s awakening these spirits. Eerily, there’s four people depicted in the mural (four presidents stayed there and four people were murdered in the Grady family,) later we see that the “heads” of these people are actually pyramids (the all-seeing eye,) and a grotesque statue is placed beneath the mural so it appears the sickle-like portion of the statue is cutting down the corn-stalk object in the mural. As mentioned previously, Danny is called “Doc” in a reference to Bugs Bunny, and rabbits, or hares, are known to hide in cornfields during the reaping of the crops; in this sense, the film could be telling us the possible destruction of Danny is soon to come. In the “Saturday” chapter we also see that the fire is now lit under the mantelpiece whereas it wasn’t before, suggesting the hotel and Jack’s mind are now fusing together as one.
In addition, when Jack takes a drink from Lloyd he mentions the “white man’s burden.” While in context this could be referring to alcohol, the expression was also used in the past to describe the “burden” of white men having to incorporate indigenous people into their world, despite that the white men who colonized America essentially destroyed the world of the Native Americans.
Landscape/Seasons:
When the film opens, we see that the hotel is located at the bottom of a mountain slope, while it’s surrounded by nearby woods.
Perhaps as a result of watching too much Twin Peaks, I often associate wooded areas as being a place where spirits reside, both good and evil, although usually there’s a more sinister force at work. Besides being built on an Indian burial ground, I found it appropriate that the Overlook Hotel lies at the bottom of a mountain, as mountains are often thought to be places of wonder, where the answers of the universe might be found if one reaches the top. Since the hotel is at the bottom, it could be symbolic of the evil we must face before ascending, or elevating our consciousness.
Mr. Grady and Jack go “insane” in the winter months, while the spirits of the hotel also choose to show themselves during this time. I found it interesting that evil would stay dormant in the spring yet show itself in the winter, perhaps an obvious reference to everything alive (plants, etc.) being dead during this season. In addition, Mr. Ullman tells Jack that without a caretaker in the winter, the hotel would essentially shut down, as the “elements” of winter would take hold. Perhaps this is why the spirits try to kill the caretaker and his family, because if these people are dead, no one else would be there to run the boiler and heat the hotel, and the place might be forced to close down even in the spring; in this sense, if the hotel was closed for good, all the spirits of those murdered in the hotel or because the hotel was built, would finally be able to rest in peace.
Religion/Gnosis:
While I feel the messages present in the film are more of a spiritual nature, I felt the film could also be paralleled in terms of the figures we see (or don’t see) in the Bible- namely God, God’s wife (commonly called Sophia but the name varies,) Satan and Jesus Christ. I’ll add that these are purely speculations, but nonetheless I felt they shouldn’t be ignored in the context.
In “The Interview,” we are introduced to Mr. Ullman and another man who doesn’t say a word. As soon as Jack accepts the job, even after hearing the horrific event that happened there, it’s almost as if Jack makes an invisible pact with these two men, and his fate of repeating Mr. Grady’s actions is inevitable. In this sense, I viewed this meeting of Jack and the two other men to be similar to two “higher beings” in the universe having a conversation with a newly hired God of our world, whose job it is to keep the world running despite being in isolation from it.
Notice after this interview that Jack already begins displaying aggressive behavior towards his family, such as in the car ride up when he casually talks of cannibalism, as if it’s perfectly acceptable to kill off others in order to survive, while before he takes a tour of the hotel, he tells Mr. Ullman he needs to “collect” his family, as if they were merely excess baggage. Before Mr. Halloran leads Wendy and Danny to the kitchen (a sexist view that Ullman assumes Wendy enjoys cooking,) we see Jack and the two other men in the Gold Room standing in a visible triangle, with Wendy and Mr. Halloran on the outskirts and Danny inching towards the center. Even when they first see the snow-cat, Jack follows Mr. Ullman to the left side while the man in grey follows Wendy to the right, as if Jack is instinctively obeying Mr. Ullman and Wendy needs to be followed, or watched, due to her curiosity (stemming from Eve according to the Bible.) Even the hand gestures Mr. Ullman makes in the interview scene change quite ominously, as if he’s hinting to the other man (the one who doesn’t speak a word) that Jack is the man for the job.
Many believe that Satan actually created our human world (which is why our values our often rooted in evil,) while God created the universe, making God non-existent in our material lives yet forcing us to expand our “inner knowledge” (as they call it in Gnosis) in order to tap into this universal source of God. Mr. Grady represents the God from another time that couldn’t handle the pressure of being forgotten by people who essentially sprung from him (as Satan sprung from God,) and therefore this isolation forced him to kill the other three members of the “Godhead,” (his wife and two daughters) and finally himself.
In the bathroom scene, Grady speaks to Jack as if it is his duty to kill his family to protect the hotel, and eventually Jack says to Wendy that he has “responsibilities to his employers” and “he signed a contract,” while the “all work and no play” sentence could be referencing how whoever is in the position of God needs to have “fun” once in awhile or they’ll go crazy; ironically by “playing” Jack means murdering, an indeed someone in God’s position might call it fun to kill off some humans who were pissing him off, as they’re merely disposable to him, just as early on we see Wendy and Danny are disposable to Jack. In the scene where he looks down at the maze, it’s as if he’s the puppet master, and Wendy and Danny are simply machines he controls. In a sense, Jack could represent the God of the Old Testament.
To delve deeper, one could also hypothesize (especially due to the name “Jack”) that this new “God” being hired is in fact Satan, or the representation of evil in disguise (Satan is often called “prince” of our world, like the Jack in a deck of cards.) Mr. Grady (beginning with the letter “G”) would then be the former “good” God who couldn’t handle the fact of humans not believing in him or disobeying him, so he killed his family (similar to God wiping out life in the Great Flood.) Instead of there being a Godhead of four, there’s now a Godhead of three (representing our modern-day trinity, although what deities are in this trinity is questionable.) In this way, the Overlook Hotel could be symbolic of our immediate world (Earth,) and the world outside Overlook symbolic of the rest of the universe. Therefore, Satan was put in charge of our world, although he tries to kill off his wife (Sophia/Nature) and son (Jesus/savoir/spiritual nature,) as Jack tries to kill off Wendy and Danny.
Wendy’s role is the sketchiest, as the role of “God’s wife” is the least touched upon in mainstream society; many don’t even believe God had a wife. Still, Wendy at best represents the matriarchal figure, which survives in the end; perhaps signifying that the lost aspect of the sacred feminine, although forgotten, is still fighting to survive in our world. Sophia is often the name used to describe this feminine aspect, and Sophia literally translates to wisdom. Although Wendy seems submissive to Jack, in the end she proves stronger than she looks and does anything to save Danny, and in the beginning we see subtle hints of her intuition coming through, such as when Mr. Ullman says the hotel will soon be empty of staff, and Wendy replies, “like a ghost ship.” She also mentions having to leave a “trail of bread crumbs” in order not to get lost in the hotel; the “path of crumbs” is a term often used in regards to Sophia to describe the discarded and forgotten remains of the female portion of the Godhead.
Danny, whose powers essentially save his mother’s life, could then be viewed as Jesus Christ; a human with mystical abilities. As mentioned previously, the dresser-object in Danny’s bedroom reflects the symbol of a phoenix; a phoenix is something that supposedly dies but is reborn, like Christ, although many interpret this as a spiritual death/rebirth vs. physical. While in the meat storage locker, Mr. Halloran also specifically asks Danny if he likes lamb, while Danny claims Tony hides in his stomach, perhaps a sign of gut intuition passed down from his mother (or Sophia.)
In the conclusion, Danny retraces his steps in the tunnel to find his way out, symbolic of how one should look in the past in order to determine their future. When he and Wendy drive away from the hotel, they pass a crucifix sticking out of the snow, while when Jack looks down at the mini-maze in the hotel, we see from an aerial view that the center of the maze has an inverted cross at the top and a regular cross at the bottom.
The fact that Kubrick used ice instead of fire to kill Jack as mentioned previously could signify in Kubrick’s eyes that Jack was a representation of the Satan or Lucifer figure (buried waist down in ice like the devil in Dante’s Inferno,) while King’s novel depicts Jack as more of a God figure, who died in fire but was “reborn” and therefore saved by his son. Jack in the film wasn’t saved, and forever he’ll be stuck in the maze of hell/purgatory, depending on how you view the maze concept.
It’s never clear what exactly would happen in the grand scheme if the hotel overcame Danny, but it’s clear they wanted to possess him immensely, even more so than Jack, due to his “shining” abilities. This reflects the idea that even while evil will take and possess anyone it can, no matter how innocent or young, the force of evil always takes more interest in those who are more “aware” that this evil exists. Evil becomes stronger when it overpowers a strong force of Good; it considers it an extreme victory compared to the succumbing of the menial “Ignavi,” or those who live purely in reality and are easily swayed by common facets of evil like greed and power. Therefore, extreme evil can be considered a narcissistic force that prefers to take on a battle with a force of extreme good rather than the typical, ignorant souls which it often encounters. This also reminds us of how those considered “heretics,” those who practiced witchcraft and may have had psychic abilities, were persecuted in history as being Satanists, despite the idea that these people may have been the most aware of evil, and therefore the most prepared to fight it. In the beginning Wendy makes Danny see a Dr., and often dismisses his claims of seeing things in the hotel, but later we see that his abilities helped saved them both.
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One obvious yet important aspect of the film is that Jack, an adult, was able to become “possessed” by the hotel, while Danny wasn’t. Some believe the hotel really wanted Danny, but Danny resisted, which is why they moved to Jack. This brings into question whether the spirits of the hotel simply enjoy possessing people and having them commit murder, or whether they simply want people to recognize and remember the events that happened there, which may have all resulted from the hotel being built on an ancient Indian burial ground. For instance, even though Jack says in the interview that his wife will enjoy the story of Mr. Grady cause she likes ghost stories, it seems that he never tells her about it, while later we see that he denies seeing the woman in the bathtub. I found this interesting, because what if he did tell these things to Wendy? That would mean he was admitting to himself that everything he saw in the hotel was indeed real, whether it was from another time or not, and this would also make Danny right. So perhaps when Jack didn’t acknowledge these “insane” things happening, that resulted in him actually becoming insane. Danny did acknowledge these things from the second he opened room 237; he knew what he saw was real, and therefore inadvertently survived in the end.
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The only remaining question I had was whether the hotel haunted the caretaker every winter season, or whether this “event” only happened every thirty years.
I urge you to share your thoughts!
Films/Plays/TV Shows for Weirdos with Wild Hearts and Soaring Souls 