Allusion
Metaphorical allusions are an effective way to lend texture to a novel. Since this is essentially a haunted house story relocated to a hotel, King does what any self-respecting masterful of horror would do: he pays homage to the queen of horror and the all-time American haunted house story.
“There was a little boy to terrorize a man and his woman to set one against the other, and if it played its cards right they could end up flitting through the Overlook’s halls like insubstantial shades in a Shirley Jackson novel, whatever walked in Hill House walked alone, but you wouldn’t be alone in the Overlook.”
The Shine
The title of the novel itself is the book’s first metaphor. “Shining” is a metaphor for an imprecise collusion of telepathy, precognition and clairvoyance. As Halloran put explains to Danny?
“Me, I’ve always called it shining. That’s what my grandmother called it, too. She had it. We used to sit in the kitchen when I was a boy no older than you and have long talks without even openin’ our mouths.”
Double Entendre
Metaphorical language comes in handy when adults want to talk dirty around children. And entire section of conversation is used for this point when Jack is attempting to explain what a topiary is to young Danny who in his innocence remains blissfully oblivious to the tawdry metaphorical meaning:
"That’s a business that fixes people’s lawns and bushes and hedges. I used to trim a lady’s topiary.” Wendy put a hand over her mouth and snickered. Looking at her, Jack said, “Yes, I used to trim her topiary at least once a week”
“Did she have nice hedges, Dad?”
Foreshadowing
A subtle bit of foreshadowing occurs with what seems to be an unremarkable use of simile when Jack notices an important element of the novel for the very first time. It was on November 1 that Jack first finds the scrapbook, as blissfully unaware in his own innocence that it will put into motion his downfall as Danny is of his topiary dirty joke. Unlike tourists visiting a certain Italian tower, Jack will be crushed beneath a mighty fall:
"And that was when he saw the scrapbook.
A pile of five boxes stood on his left like some tottering Pisa."
The Boiler
One quite important element of the Overlook Hotel which is not put to use in Kubrick’s film adaptation is the boiler. The boiler is directly mentioned nearly fifty time in the text and plays a huge role in the novel’s climax, delineated through metaphorical imagery:
“Words turned into a shriek of triumph, and the shriek was swallowed in a shattering roar as the Overlook’s boiler exploded.”
