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Essay on The Shining by Stephen King

Decent Essays

Title: The Shining

Author: Stephen King

Genre: Horror

Theme: Man Vs. The Overlook Hotel

Setting: The Overlook Hotel, in a remote location on a mountain in Colorado.

Major characters:

Danny Torrance is a five year old boy who has the gift of shinning.

Wendy Torrance is Danny's mother who is the strongest character, mentally, in this book.

Jack Torrance is Danny's father who becomes insane toward the end of the story.

Minor characters:

Delbert Grady was the former caretaker that killed his family.

Dick Hallorann is gifted with the shinning. He also saved Wendy and Danny's life.

Lloyd is Jack's shinning friend who is the bartender.

Tony is Danny's shinning friend that shows him things about the …show more content…

A number of strange incidents occur throughout the story. Jack finds a wasps' nest while maintaining the roof, uses an appropriate wasp bomb on it, and puts it in Danny's room. That night, although Jack had checked there were no wasps still in the nest, Danny is stung several times, and when Jack manages to put a bowl over the nest, there are many wasps trapped inside. Then in an almost hypnotic fit after spending too much time going through the hotel's papers in the boiler room, Jack smashes the radio, effectively cutting them off from the rest of the world as snow has fallen heavily, and reaching the nearest town has become impossible except by snowmobile.

In one part of the book Danny comes downstairs with bruises on his neck after venturing into room 217. Wendy initially suspects Jack of doing it, especially when Jack reports nothing amiss in the room but eventually accepts that it wasn't him, and just wants to get Danny out of the hotel. Fortunately, the hotel has a snowmobile, which is in working order - until, that is, Jack removes the spark plug for reasons he doesn't even understand himself.

The action really starts when Jack starts seeing things himself. For example the ballroom/bar being filled with people and alcohol. The people he sees are ghosts of the hotel's previous victims, such as Delbert Grady, who has become the bartender, and is more than happy to give Jack a drink or two. He does, however, tell Jack that people are worried that

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