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The Shining by Stephen King
King, Stephen. The Shining. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977. Print.
Jack Torrance after losing his job because of his temper and alcoholism, decides to take up a care taking position over the winter at the Overlook Hotel, with his wife Wendy and his son Danny. Danny Torrance is a young boy with a strange gift of seeing things and events in the future and beyond normal context. When arriving at the hotel Danny meets the hotel cook Dick Hallorman who tells him that he also shares his gift and calls it the shining. He warns Danny of things in the hotel and tells him to call him if he needs him. As soon as they settle into the hotel, Jack begins losing his mind and experiencing strange things in the hotel like seeing ghosts. Danny is aware of the dangerous things in the hotel, but does not let the bad things harm him or get into his mind to manipulate his thoughts, but he notices his fathers new dangerous personality which is influenced by the horrible things in the hotel. One night Jack loses his mind and something tells him to kill his family, Danny and Wendy escape with the help of Hallorman, this leads to him ultimately getting killed after the boiler explodes.
Controlling and Opposing Value
In the beginning I was really unsure how to do the controlling and opposing values, at first I believed the controlling value would be Danny and Jack feeling safe and secure in their thoughts, and the opposing value would be the two feeling scared and letting the terrible thoughts control them. I still fell like these ideas are relevant in the story, but with help from Kopp, we reworked the values to make more sense.
if Jack and Danny See through the illusion they feel courage but then this could result in death because they are not cooperating with the bad things in the hotel. If the two let it consume them, they will be stuck in fear but potentially live because they are recognizing the bad things as they are.
- Qualitative Progressive Form- qualities are inferred and felt and they evoke moods, a given mood allows us to enter another mood that might follow.
The mood I feel The Shining has through the whole story is fear. Fear of the unknown and what is going to happen next, not just fear experienced in the character but for the reader. The mood fluctuates from fear to relief when something happens inside the character that breaks through the fear.
In Part 4 of the book, We are hearing Jack's thoughts about the Overlook Hotel, in the excerpt you can see how the author reassures us about Jack feeling safe and sound, to all of a sudden fear. I felt relief then fear in a matter of two sentences. "It seemed that he might be able to find peace here. At least, if they would let him..... When he woke up he was standing in the bathroom of 217. He began to feel afraid...." |
Symbolic Code- generates unresolvable oppositions
The symbolic code used most in the book for me was reality vs. fantasy, Reality being when Danny or Jack feel that the strange things in the hotel are not real, compared to the fantasy being when Danny or Jack feel that the strange things happening in the hotel are real.
On page 185, Danny goes exploring in the hotel, he see's a fire hose and first see's it as just a firehose hanging on the wall, but then quickly see's the firehose as a snake coming after him. In the book, and by the text I provided you can see how he basically makes up the whole thing in his mind, he talks himself into believing there is a snake after him.
On page 185, Danny goes exploring in the hotel, he see's a fire hose and first see's it as just a firehose hanging on the wall, but then quickly see's the firehose as a snake coming after him. In the book, and by the text I provided you can see how he basically makes up the whole thing in his mind, he talks himself into believing there is a snake after him.
"So it had fallen off the wall, so what? It was only a fire extinguisher, nothing else. It was stupid to think that it looked like some poisonous snake......Suddenly he knew that he was nearly frozen with terror; if he did not make his feet go now, they would become locked to the carpet.... he ran, suddenly he heard it behind him, coming for him the soft dry whicker of that brass snake's head as it slithered rapidly along the carpet after him."
Repetitive Form- Consistent maintaing of principles under new guises
There are so many things that are repeated in this book, but I believe the main one is Danny's fear for his father Jack. It starts when he is young and Jack breaks Danny's arm in a drunken rage. He then consistently talks about how he is worried about his families safety in the hotel. He wants Jack to have this job because he knows his family needs the money, so he doesn't tell his Dad about the house, but really he is afraid to tell him.
On page 57 Danny has just had a terrible nightmare about his dad hurting him, but is afraid to tell him because he knows his Dad is thinking of the bad stuff and that scares Danny.
(The words in parenthesis are Danny's thoughts)
On page 57 Danny has just had a terrible nightmare about his dad hurting him, but is afraid to tell him because he knows his Dad is thinking of the bad stuff and that scares Danny.
(The words in parenthesis are Danny's thoughts)
"But it was no good. Daddy's mind was someplace else, not with him. Thinking about the bad thing again.(I dreamed you hurt me daddy)"
"What was your dream Doc?"
"Nothing," Danny said.
Rhetoric of Narrative- Asking Reader to become something, someone who has a specific values
I feel that Stephen King ultimately wanted you to feel sympathy for Danny. He did not want you to feel sympathy for Jack who was the antagonist of the story, and he wanted you to hate him. He did this by showing you Jack's drunken past and things he did that were harmful towards other people while he was drunk. He portrayed him as a bad guy with issues that couldn't be fixed, and that the hotel just made worse for him.
In reality I felt bad for Jack. His family did give him multiple chances of being a better father, husband, and person but he was consumed by alcoholism and the hotel.
In reality I felt bad for Jack. His family did give him multiple chances of being a better father, husband, and person but he was consumed by alcoholism and the hotel.