My Analysis of 'The Shining' (Part 3)

The characters' visions and reactions

It's funny to notice that Jack and Danny make the same gesture for different purposes when confronted with the ghosts: they both press their hands over their face at one point in the movie.

Danny is struck with fear when he sees the bloody corpses of the Grady twins. His first reaction is to put his hands over his eyes in an attempt to make the vision go away, and the twins disappear. Hiding your eyes when you see something unbearable is admittedly a child-like coping mechanism, but Danny clearly states he doesn’t want anything to do with the ghosts through this gesture.

Conversely, Jack puts his hands over his eyes, because he can’t stand the situation he’s in, and desperately wants to escape it. He says out loud that he would give anything for a drink, and successfully escapes his reality with the appearance of Lloyd, and a well-stocked bar when he lowers his hands.

Unlike Danny, Jack welcomes the ghosts’ appearances, and seems very happy when he notices Lloyd. He gladly trades a reality with his wife and son to entertain his delusion, and spend more time with the hotel’s ghosts.

Wendy has limited interactions with the ghosts since she first sees them near the end of the movie, but has a similar reaction to Danny’s: fear and rejection. Just as Danny, she also perceives death, violence, and decay in her visions: a fatally wounded man, skeletons, and spider webs.

1. Colors and dress styles

1.1 Danny and the Graddy twins

Danny is the first character to notice ghosts’ appearances when he sees the Grady twins in the game room. They wear blue dresses, and never tries to get too close to him or attack him. If you pay attention, you can notice that Danny always wears blue and red clothes (jersey, denim jumpsuit, jacket, etc.), except at the end, when Tony takes control. Making Danny and the Grady twins wearing the same color is a way to show a link between them.

The Grady twins came with their family at the Overlook as the daughters of the winter caretaker. They got slaughtered by their father when they tried to burn the hotel. Their situation is very similar to Danny’s, putting aside the fact that Danny managed to escape the hotel with Wendy.

They never try to attack him: they leave on their own in the game room, and don’t seem to insist when Danny hides behind his hands when they show up in the corridor. They try to warn him each time they appear in his visions, by showing him what happened to them, and could happen to him if he does nothing. They also appear in Danny’s mind the first time he approaches Room 237 to let him know he’s on the right track.

After Danny is attacked in Room 237 and Tony takes control, Danny no longer wear blue colors, only red and brown ones. In this manner, he’s dissociating himself from the spirit’s previous victims, the Grady twins, as he starts taking matters into his own hands (helped by Tony): he uses all his abilities to call Halloran for help, arms himself with a kitchen knife, and warns his mother of the danger by writing « REDRUM » on the door of the bathroom. The absence of blue colors at the end of the movie could also imply Danny’s loss of innocence and trust towards the person who is supposed to protect him, his father.

Danny acts as an investigator in the first half of the movie, and starts showing his strength and resourcefulness in the second part, hence the change of colors in his clothing. Blue represents meanings of wisdom, faith, and stability, while red stands for action, willpower, and determination.

1.2 Jack and the hotel's ghosts

Jack starts as a pretty normal family guy going to an interview in search of his next job. At the beginning, he looks happy and smiles a lot. For the first third of the movie, he wears brown and green shades of clothing, colors associated with nature, energy, reliability, and stability. Jack seems upbeat and optimistic until the scene in which he’s woken up by Wendy, and says he should « do some work ».

Afterwards, we can see that his mental health is starting to deteriorate with a few telling scenes, while he’s wearing darker colors:

• His typewriter is seen untouched while he’s playing with a ball, and few moments later he sees Wendy and Danny reaching the center of the maze on a miniature version of it.
• He gets very upset with Wendy when she comes to check on him.
• While Wendy and Danny play outside in the snow, he’s staring at the window with a vacant look.
• He has a very awkward and worrying discussion with Danny when the latter goes to the family apartment to get his truck.

From the moment he has a nightmare in which he kills Wendy and Danny, he constantly wears his red jacket. This color resonates with the appearances of the two ghosts he interacts shortly after, Lloyd and Delbert Grady. The former wears a flamboyant and classy red jacket, while the latter takes Jack to a red bathroom. Both of them persuade Jack to lose himself in a delusion, and kill his family. The predominance of the color red at this stage, reminds us of the blood river that Danny keeps seeing since Tony showed it to him, and foreshadows the coming danger.

1.3 Wendy and the visions of violence and decay

Early in the movie, Wendy admits to Jack that she found the hotel scary at first, but that this feeling faded away shortly after. She doesn’t have the Shining, nor was she the main target of the hotel’s ghosts, but she still felt something evil and frightening rested in the hotel.

Wendy wears blue and red colors, just like Danny, at the beginning of the movie when she’s still at the family apartment. This color duo represents a balance between the positive affects of the blue shades (confidence, stability, faith, loyalty), and the intense impact and power created by red tones (strength, action, danger, stress).

Throughout the rest of the movie, she wears earthly colored clothing, similar to Jack’s at the beginning of the movie (when he’s at the interview, and when they visit the hotel with the manager). This change of colors supports the fact that Wendy is taking over as head of the family, with the responsibilities attached to this position. As I outlined before, green and brown tones represent nature, reliability, and stability among other things.

As Jack begins to lose his mind, he starts wearing dark colours, while Wendy remains dressed with green and brown clothes until the end of the movie. At some point, she becomes Danny’s only source of stability and reliability. She continuously tries to make sure that Danny is safe and protected (and escapes with him at the end), like a good and responsible parent should.

It’s interesting to notice that she’s wearing a bright yellow raincoat when she briefly speaks with an employee of the nearest radio station. This discussion feels like a bowl of fresh air since it’s Wendy’s first contact with someone from outside the hotel in months. This interaction draws a contrast with the state of her relation with Jack, with whom the communication is far from going smoothly, and also increases the feeling of isolation surrounding the Torrance family.

Yellow is the color of sunshine, hope, warmth, and happiness. During this scene, the tension built since the beginning of the movie, drops in intensity. The fact that Wendy succeeds in reaching the radio station is somewhat reassuring: at this point, the family can still contact people outside of the hotel, and the employee at the radio station has a comforting presence.

Wendy is in a relaxed stance with one foot on the desk in front of her, and bright sunlight lightens the room. This scene plays as a relaxing interlude for her and the spectator.

2. Past, present and future

Jack loses himself in the past, Wendy is constantly looking towards the future, while Danny can see both as he represents the present.

At the end of the movie, Jack is left behind at the hotel and Wendy flees with Danny. Jack dies shortly after, and is immortalized in the past, as we can see in the photo taken on July 1921.

Wendy escapes with Danny to live another day. Wendy represents what the future looks like for Danny when they flee the hotel, while his father will remain in his past.

To put it in a nutshell, Danny experienced a life with both his parents, he watched his family disintegrate during the movie, and ended up with only his mother at the end.

Everything in the characters' relations with the spirits shows us that they respectively represent the past (Jack), the future (Wendy), and the continuity between them (Danny).

Jack only sees expressions of the hotel’s past such as the ghosts and the crowded ballroom. He’s seduced by the luxury and wealth he sees when traveling in the past. When he’s in the crowded ballroom—and right before he bumps into Delbert Grady—we can see a bloody handprint in the dress of a guests walking by him, and he fails to notice it. The violence and death are right under his nose, but he chooses not to see them. Just as the founders of the hotel and VIP guests chose to ignore the fact that the hotel is built on top of dead bodies, and that Native Americans died trying to defend their fellows’ graves.

When he enters in the Gold Room crowded with rich folks, the camera follows him; he’s always at the center. The hotel’s spirits only appear for him in order to entertain his delusion, and make him feel important and valued.

Nobody cares about the bloody handprint on the lady’s dress

At the end of the movie, Wendy only sees skeletons, spider webs, and dead people: she sees the past as she uncovers the true nature of the horrendous events that occurred in the hotel. Everything she sees is dead and aged, as she perceives only the negative sides of what Jack saw, and is not interested in the least in exploring the past.

Wendy’s vision of the hotel’s ghosts only involves death and decay

Danny gets his first vision of the blood river before he arrives at the hotel. His imaginary friend—which is an expression of his abilities—shows him what happened, and what will happen at the hotel, making Danny lose consciousness as he’s too frightened by what he sees.

Danny is also able to see the Grady twins—who are a reflection of the past—and to listen to his parents’ conversation even when they are in remote locations of the hotel, making him a silent witness to the action.

He sees the main problem before it occurs, he’s part of the solution since he called Halloran for help, and managed to escape with Wendy at the end.

Danny outsmarts his father and manages to escape from the maze.

'The Shining' is a rich and fascinating masterpiece I could watch over and over again, to find new details I missed and question their meaning. I might come back to this page later to talk about new elements to analyse. In the meantime, I welcome your comments and opinions on this review.