This is Part 1 of my analysis of Kubrick’s The Shining. For Part 2, go here.
Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic The Shining contains some of the most memorable images in the genre, but it continues to baffle viewers with several strange and mysterious moments. How is Jack in the ending photograph? Are the ghosts real? What, really, is “shining”? How does Jack flash through time at the Overlook? Why are there so many inconsistencies? What happens in Room 237? Who’s that guy in the bear costume?
These questions strongly suggest hidden or symbolic meanings, so it’s no surprise that many critics and fans have admirably tried to piece together Kubrick’s intentions. But I still think the existing material falls short. So in this piece, I’ll explain the mysteries of The Shining, arriving at an in depth, comprehensive interpretation of the film. My method will be to tackle one by one each specific “contradiction” or oddity in the movie, so that no mysteries are left unsolved.
So without further ado, here are The Shining‘s contradictions explained:
Contradiction #1: At the Overlook, Jack appears to be neglecting his duties; however, he laments, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
During Jack’s interview for the winter caretaker position, Stuart Ullman lists the job’s responsibilities as “running the boiler” and “repairing damage as it occurs.” But Jack never makes any repairs despite a major storm, and we see Wendy, not Jack, running the boiler. In addition, several scenes emphasize Jack’s laziness. For example, he wakes up past 11AM and refuses to take Wendy for a walk because he has to “work,” and when Danny wants to retrieve his fire truck, Wendy cautions him against waking Jack, even though it’s the middle of the day.
If Jack isn’t doing any of his work, why does he complain, over and over, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”?
We’ll answer this, but first we need to build a foundational framework for our analysis.
Let’s start by observing that the Overlook Hotel appears to have a sort of hierarchy of ghosts. Lloyd the bartender alludes to this when he refuses Jack’s money in the Gold Room, implying that he is under orders from powerful people to treat Jack favorably: “Orders from the house.”
One member of the Overlook’s power circle appears to be Delbert Grady. He often talks with an air of authority and conveys an interest in what goes on in the hotel as if he were in charge. But Grady isn’t acting alone: he tells Jack in the store room, “I and others have come to believe that your heart is not in this.”
Although we don’t meet these “others,” we have good reason to suspect that they, like Grady and Lloyd, are white men. Grady uses racist language when referencing Dick Hallorann, and he boasts of having “corrected” his wife and daughters after they defied him. Lloyd, for his part, encourages obvious misogyny with Jack, sympathizing as Jack refers to Wendy as “the old sperm bank upstairs.” Both of these conversations indicate that at the Overlook, women and minorities are conferred lesser status.
With this in mind, we must view the Overlook (as many other critics have done) as a microcosm of the United States.
The story of the Overlook’s founding supports this connection. Consider that, according to Stuart Ullman, the Overlook, like the United States, was built on a Native American burial ground. Builders had to repel “Indian attacks” during the Overlook’s construction.
And various lines of dialogue throughout The Shining reference westward settlers of the eighteenth century. The Torrances, for instance, converse about the Donner party. Jack makes strange, non-sequitur mentions to Lloyd of “Portland, Oregon” and “White Man’s Burden.” Native American chants are audible during the movie’s climax. Hallorann is killed on a Native American floor design.
These allusions have no bearing on the plot, nor are they present in Stephen King’s original novel, so we can only conclude that they’re important to unlocking the hidden meanings of the film. It seems clear that Kubrick wants to link the Overlook with the United States. But to what thematic purpose?
Some have concluded based on the aforementioned evidence that The Shining allegorizes the genocide of Native Americans. But this interpretation falls short. After all, Jack only kills one person (Hallorann), and he only does so because that person interferes with his attempts to kill his wife and son. If Kubrick merely wanted to allegorize a genocide, the story of Jack suddenly murdering a supporting character was a strange way to do so.
What I’ll go on to show is that Kubrick doesn’t merely retell a historical event, but uses it as a point of reference to highlight the structural problems of our present day. Specifically, The Shining is a portrayal of how the United States’ elite has perpetuated its ability to abuse power, such that the modern American family retains the discriminatory violence that characterized the nation’s founding act: a brutal genocide.
One way elites have perpetuated their power, according to Kubrick: literature. Jack is a writer by trade, and after being welcomed into the Overlook’s “old boys’ club,” his work consists only of the argument that “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” In other words, the man of the house has better things to do than work, hence the need for women (Wendy) and minorities (Hallorann) to do it instead. The endless repetition of the sentence from Jack suggests that American writers use their platforms to justify the white man’s privileged lifestyle.
Note that minor alterations in letters and format appear throughout Jack’s stack of papers. This is Kubrick’s way of saying, “the differences in literature don’t really mean anything—it’s all saying essentially the same thing.”
Contradiction #2: Ullman tells Jack that the former caretaker who killed his family was “Charles” Grady, but the man Jack meets at the Overlook identifies himself as “Delbert” Grady. Additionally, Ullman notes that the two daughters killed were “about 8 and 10” years old, but the girls Danny encounters are identical twins.
Many have written these off as insignificant script errors, in disharmony with Kubrick’s legendary attention to detail. But even ignoring Kubrick’s reputation, there’s indisputable evidence that there are in fact two separate Gradys.
In the Gold Room, Jack meets Delbert Grady, a butler at the Overlook in the 1930s (the song in the background, a 30s tune, confirms this), while Charles Grady, according to Ullman, was a new hire who killed his family in 1970. They cannot be the same person. We can assume, then, that the twins are Delbert’s daughters and that Charles’ daughters, whom we don’t see, were indeed “eight and ten.” The dresses worn by the creepy twins, after all, look dated enough for the 30s.
But it appears that the twins were murdered as well, as Danny “shines” this when he encounters them in the hallway. This may prompt confusion. Why would Kubrick indicate that there were two similar murders committed by two men with the same last name, decades apart?
Recall our thesis that The Shining demonstrates the perpetuation of violence in the United States. To Kubrick, then, this repetition of similar events reflects the nature of history. Delbert Grady, the butler, killed his family some time in the 1930s after the Gold Ball scene that Jack briefly inhabits, and Charles Grady, the caretaker, continued the tradition of violence in 1970, killing his own wife and two daughters. These Gradys, then, may be separate people, but they are essentially the same based on their deeds; in fact, they could be said to be two incarnations of the same person.
Recall the bathroom scene with Delbert Grady and Jack. It’s one of the strangest and most confusing scenes in the movie, but now we can understand what’s going on. Delbert Grady, the butler in the 1930’s who has not yet murdered his family, is jolly, subservient, and unaware of any murderous business. But when Jack questions him, he suddenly becomes sinister and composed, chillingly recounting how he murdered his family when they “didn’t care for the Overlook at first.”
It appears that he has somehow instantaneously switched in time from the 1930s “Delbert” Grady to the 1970s “Charles” Grady, who indeed brought his family to the hotel for the winter and whose family may not have “cared for the Overlook” upon being brought there. Grady has transitioned between two different incarnations of himself.
And if men can transition between different incarnations of themselves, we can infer that Charles Grady’s murder of his family in 1970 was no coincidence. It had already occurred in virtually the same manner in the 1930s, and once Charles came to the Overlook, he fell under the influence of his murderous predecessor, Delbert. (“He must have suffered a complete mental breakdown…”)
Contradiction #3: Wendy tells the psychologist that Jack hurt Danny’s arm five months ago, but Jack tells Lloyd that it was “three goddam years ago!” Also, Jack personally knows Lloyd, even though Lloyd bartended back in the 1930s.
These two versions of the arm injury story are obviously incompatible. We know that Wendy’s version is the accurate one, since she provides context for the event and links it with Danny taking a recent absence from school. Jack’s version, on the other hand, is so off that it can’t even be attributed to an honest mistake: Danny is only five years old.
We just covered the existence of two separate Gradys. Now we can see that, in addition, there are clearly two separate Mr. Torrances, both of whom injured their sons after drinking too much. Wendy and Jack are referencing two different events—just as the Charles Grady and Delbert Grady murders were two different events.
Consider that not only do Jack and Wendy’s timelines of the injury clash, but their respective descriptions of the event fail to match. Wendy says that Danny had scattered his own drawings on the floor before the incident, but Jack tells Lloyd that Danny had messed up Jack’s work papers. Again, two incompatible reports.
Remember Grady’s instantaneous shift through time in the bathroom scene—from 30s butler to 70s murderer. Applying the same concept, we can understand how Jack is able to inhabit a Gold Room party in the 1930s, meet Delbert Grady, and talk to Lloyd. Clearly, the Overlook causes Jack to incidentally shift between his present self and a previous incarnation. The two incarnations of Jack are explicitly proven in the ending scene of the movie: a man identical to Jack in an Overlook photograph taken in 1921.
So when Grady tells Jack, “You’ve always been the caretaker here,” he’s telling the truth. “Past Jack” was indeed the caretaker at the Overlook’s inception, as shown in the ending photograph.
And just like Grady, Jack sometimes transitions between incarnations. This explains how he personally knows Lloyd even before meeting him for the first time in the movie. It also explains his behavior in the Gold Room scene with Delbert Grady, during which he appears to know the dinner courses that will soon be served. It explains why Jack pines for a “glass of beer” but when Lloyd appears unexpectedly orders “bourbon on the rocks.” Finally, it explains Jack’s confusion about the amount of money in his wallet: in the first scene at the bar, he attempts to pay but realizes that he’s “temporarily light;” the next time he visits Lloyd, he has somehow acquired the money.
These discrepancies have no other conceivable explanation. In addition, they all feel oddly emphasized in the movie, as though Kubrick intended them as clues to something important.
If you need even more proof, none other than Kubrick himself, who rarely commented on his own movies, said, “The ballroom photograph at the very end suggests the reincarnation of Jack.”
We’ve definitively established that there are two Torrances, both heavy drinkers who resent their wives and harm their children. Consider Jack’s drunken behavior in the maze, howling and moaning (singing?) deliriously. How has he become intoxicated when the hotel has no alcohol on the premises? Answer: by again reverting to “past Jack,” the one shown in the ending photograph, who knew Lloyd the bartender and often drank “bourbon on the rocks.”
Contradiction #4: Hallorann implies to Danny that “shining” is a very rare gift, but by the end of the movie, most of the major characters exhibit it.
The notion that the ability to “shine” is hereditary is refuted by Wendy’s conversation with the psychologist. In this talk, the psychologist deftly exposes the truth: that, in fact, Danny’s communication with Tony began when Jack drunkenly dislocated his son’s shoulder.
What is the significance of this?
Consider each character who shines and the initial appearance of their abilities. Hallorann and his grandmother shine, but the initial appearance is unknown. Wendy shines only after Hallorann’s timely arrival in the Snowcat prevents her from being murdered by Jack. Danny, as just mentioned, began shining after Jack dislocated his arm. (Jack communicates with ghosts but does not really “shine,” as he does not perceive terrible things that happened or will happen, like Danny, Wendy, and Hallorann do.)
It’s clear from these sequences, particularly Wendy’s and Danny’s, that the ability to shine appears after being the target of violence. Danny’s shining appears after his injury. Wendy’s appears after Jack axes his way into her bedroom. Hallorann and his grandmother, it can be inferred, experienced racial hatred and hardship throughout their lives. Thus, “shining” symbolically represents the awareness that violence perpetrated primarily by white men has persisted in the United States since its founding. Only those who have experienced that violence have this awareness.
It makes sense, given this explanation, that those who shine can see into the past: experiencing violence in the present awakens them to historical horrors. Wendy for most of the movie expresses denial about Jack’s alarming tendencies (“It was just one of those things…”), but when she barely escapes her murderous husband, she finally comes to realize the brutality of powerful people in the United States—now and throughout its history.
Suddenly possessing the ability to shine, she can now see the country’s former elites (“All the best people”) in skeleton form, a stuffy-looking man who seems to be enjoying the violence (“Great party, isn’t it?”), and the famous elevator of blood: the representation of bloodshed through the history of the United States. Danny and Hallorann, having already experienced violence at the hands of white men, could already see these images.
Contradiction #5: Tony tells Danny to “remember what Mr. Hallorann said: it’s just like pictures in a book, Danny, it isn’t real.” But in Hallorann’s conversation with Danny, he never says this. Also, Jack tells Grady, “I saw your picture in the newspaper,” although Ullman told him about the Grady murders in person.
These two contradictions seem unrelated but are in fact referring to the same thing. Jack’s comment to Grady can be explained by noting the repeated appearances of a book of newspaper clippings on Jack’s desk with his typewriter. Apparently, Jack has been doing research on the Grady murders. 
It seems silly that Jack would need to do extensive research to write one sentence over and over again. Recall, however, that “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” represents the promotion of a classist structure that places white males in a position of relative privilege. The Grady murders actually would be important research for such an undertaking, since the case concerns a white father killing his family after they defied him.
More difficult to understand is Tony’s attempt to comfort Danny after seeing the twins. But again, the comment refers to the same thing. The “pictures in a book” are the newspaper pictures in Jack’s book of clippings. Thus, Tony is telling Danny, essentially, that the images of the dead twins are not “real” because they are from the past—“pictures in a book” of old newspapers. This actually does correspond with “what Mr. Hallorann said,” since Hallorann compared the disturbing images haunting Danny to “if someone burns toast,” dismissing the images as only a “trace” of what happened in the hotel’s past.
Tony and Hallorann therefore reassure Danny by dismissing the influence of the past on the present. This reassurance, however, is proven to be misguided by subsequent events. When Jack is trapped in the store room, he is physically released by Delbert Grady, not something that a mere “trace” or “picture in a book” would be capable of. The store room scene therefore emphasizes that the past can be very “real” indeed—contrary to the advice of Tony and Hallorann.
This message is important and relevant to modern society: don’t those at the top have reliable means of maintaining their power? Aren’t they bailed out by their old family friendships and connections and even by other unseen, unknown elites who wish to preserve the status quo? The store room scene, which many have cited as a disappointing example of deus ex machina, is actually a reminder of this tangible power of the past to perpetuate itself—a power that Tony doesn’t recognize, and that Hallorann tries to downplay.
End of Part 1
Continue to Part 2, where I conclude the analysis by solving the mystery of Room 237 and examining Kubrick’s careful use of mirrors.
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