Summary
Early Thursday morning, Dick Hallorann boards a plane to Denver. Once there, he calls the mechanic nearest the hotel, Larry, and says that the people taking care of the hotel turned out to be "total assholes," lying that Mr. Ullman asked him to return to the Overlook Hotel and figure out if they have to be replaced. He asks Larry to lend him a Snowcat to pass through the snowy roads, and Larry agrees.
On his way there, Dick drives a rental car through the blizzard-stricken roads and listens to a radio broadcast discussing the numerous canceled flights and closed roads.
Back at the Overlook, Wendy and Danny watch cartoons. Danny still appears catatonic. Wendy tells him she's going to go talk to Jack, and Danny again responds through Tony's voice. Wendy picks up the baseball bat she carried earlier and leaves.
She enters the Colorado Room with the bat, seeing no sign of Jack. She approaches his typewriter and notices that he's written an enormous stack of pages. Looking closer, however, she realizes in horror that the only words on the pages are "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," written thousands of times in various formations.
Suddenly, Jack appears behind her and asks, "How do you like it?" She screams and grips the bat, unable to remember what she came downstairs to ask him. Back in their room, Danny has visions of the bloody elevator and of the door with REDRUM scrawled on it.
Jack proposes that he and Wendy discuss what should be done with Danny, and Wendy suggests hysterically that she thinks they should take Danny to see a doctor. Jack seizes on this as proof of her lack of respect for his responsibilities to the hotel.
Throughout their tense conversation, Jack moves slowly towards Wendy and she backs away from him up the hotel's grand staircase. Finally, she tells him to get away from her, swinging the bat at him. He assuages her, saying that he's not going to hurt her, but adds, "you didn't let me finish. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just going to bash your brains in." She responds by striking him on the head—hard—causing him to tumble backwards down the stairs.
Minutes later, Wendy drags an unconscious Jack through the hotel kitchen. As he begins to regain consciousness, she struggles to open the storage room so as to lock him inside. Just in time, she is able to lock the door.
Jack attempts to gain her sympathy by complaining of his head injury and promising to forget their fight. She grabs a long kitchen knife and tells Jack that she's going to take Danny down the mountain in the Snowcat, vowing to return with a doctor for Jack. He laughs at her and promises her a big surprise when she sees the Snowcat. Sure enough, when she reaches the shed with the Snowcat in it, she finds its engine torn in pieces. She also realizes the radio is broken.
Analysis
This chapter opens with the dramatic irony of Dick Hallorann's journey to the Overlook, before which he lies to Larry, the man who rents him a Snowcat, that he needs access to the Overlook for professional reasons. Not only does this build suspense around Dick's arrival at the Overlook, since no one from the outside world has a clue about the danger in store there, but it also contributes to the sense of terror and isolation that defines the Overlook as a setting.
The turning point in this chapter, however, is Wendy's discovery of Jack's manuscript, which consists of the words "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" repeated thousands of times. This revelation ties into existing themes of socioeconomic class in the film, since Wendy realizes not only that Jack has gone mad, but also that Jack's ambition to become a great writer is undermined by his inability to write. Even the sentence itself refers to Jack's insecurity about his professional ambitions, as he is unable to "work," both at menial jobs (his position as a caretaker at the Overlook) and towards his novel. It is here that we realize Jack's sick intention to "play" throughout the rest of the film, a perversion of the child's play in which we see Danny engage.
Danny ceases to play in this chapter, however, as he recovers from the terrible visions that have forced Tony to take over his consciousness. This is especially evident when Wendy and Danny watch cartoons following the climax of his visions, a repetition of the scene in which both of these characters are introduced. However, this scene differs from the earlier one, as Danny is unable to enjoy the cartoons now that he has witnessed the terrors of the Overlook. Throughout the film, Danny's relationship to play, cartoons, and other motifs relating to childhood is complicated by his loss of innocence, a theme that dominates the film.
This chapter culminates in Wendy's confrontation with Jack, after which she locks him in the hotel kitchen's storage room. Earlier in the film, Wendy remarks that she may need breadcrumbs to find her way out of the kitchen, alluding to the fairytale of Hansel and Gretel, who famously leave a trail of breadcrumbs leading to a witch's house in the woods. This makes Wendy's decision to lock Jack in the storage room particularly poignant, since she assumes control of a space that once terrified her, whereas Jack—a figure similar to the fairytale's witch—is stuck.
This part also conjures themes of gender roles, as Wendy locks Jack in the kitchen, a domestic, even female space. That she also uses a kitchen knife to defend herself is notable, as her earlier weapon—a baseball bat—was a traditionally masculine one. Wendy's choice of weapon here, along with her choice to lock Jack in a traditionally female space, is indicative of a new Wendy—one that uses her role as a wife and mother to seize control of the situation, suppressing the masculine chaos that has veered out of control in the form of Jack's madness.
