The Shining Literary Elements

Stanley Kubrick

Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall

Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers

Horror

English

Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor (Scatman Crothers)

1980

Stanley Kubrick

Remote mountains of Colorado, Present-day

The point of view in the film alternates between Jack, Danny, and an objective camera.

Foreboding, naturalistic, surreal, horrific, suspenseful, and voyeuristic.

Protagonist: Danny; Antagonist: Jack

The film's major conflict revolves around Danny's struggle to cope with his father's gradual descent into madness and/or possession.

The climax of the film is Danny's escape from the snowy maze, where he misleads his father into getting lost.

-Mr. Ullman tells Jack about the former caretaker of the hotel who murdered his family before committing suicide. Jack says it doesn't bother him.
-Mr. Ullman jokes that he wouldn't want to enter the hedge maze unless he had an hour to figure out how to escape from it.
-Wendy asks Dick Hallorann how he knew that Danny's nickname was Doc, as she hadn't referred to him that way during their conversation.
-Jack tells Mr. Ullman that he expects Wendy will be entertained by the story of the hotel's bloody past, as she loves ghost stories and horror movies.
-Wendy asks Jack if the beautiful scenery they see on the drive to the hotel is the site of the Donner Party tragedy.
-Mr. Ullman tells Jack and Wendy that the hotel is rumored to be built on an ancient Native American burial ground, and that it suffered attacks from some local Native American tribes while it was being built in the early twentieth century.
-Wendy compares the kitchen to a maze when Dick Hallorann gives her a tour of it, and jokes that she'll need breadcrumbs to find her way out of it in the winter, referencing Hansel and Gretel.
-Dick tells Danny that there is nothing wrong with Room 237, but he also warns Danny to "stay out."
-Jack tells Wendy that he fell in love with the hotel the first time he saw it and felt as if he'd been there before. He describes it as déjà vu, but more powerful, as if he knew what was around every corner.
-Jack surveys the scale model of the hedge maze in the hotel lobby as his wife and son explore it. The maze will eventually be his downfall.
-Constant references to the impending snowstorm foreshadow the family being stranded at the hotel.

-When Wendy tries to convince Danny that moving to the Overlook Hotel won't be so bad, she says, "It'll be a lot of fun."

-"The Shining" was one of the earliest films to use a then-new invention, the Steadicam. It was used heavily in scenes where the camera follows Danny through the hallways on his tricycle, or through the hedge maze.

-Wendy alludes to the story of Hansel and Gretel when Dick Hallorann shows her the kitchen, joking that she'll need breadcrumbs to find her way out.
-When we first meet Wendy, she is reading "Catcher in the Rye," which shares some of the film's themes about youth and the loss of innocence.
-When Jack chops down the bathroom door to reach Wendy, he shouts, "Here's Johnny," a reference to the Johnny Carson show.
-In the same scene, Jack yells, "Honey, I'm home," a common household greeting that had broad cultural associations with an idyllic domestic scene in which a husband arrives home from work to greet his wife and family.
-In the same scene, Jack recites lines from the story of The Three Little Pigs, which is eerily relevant, as he is acting as the Big Bad Wolf, but also because Danny is able to escape due to his mother's quick thinking.

N/A

-When Jack tells Danny he would never hurt him, he says he wants to stay in the hotel "forever and ever and ever," which is the same phrase the ghosts of the Grady twins used when they appeared to Danny earlier. When they used the phrase, they meant that they aimed to kill Danny, making him a ghost in the hotel.