The charm of The Shining lies largely in its ambiguity and uncertainty. It adds illogical details to a logical system, creating a rich and intriguing text.
For decades, movie fans have offered various interpretations: The Overlook Hotel is a microcosm of patriarchy, a foreshadowing of the collapse of the American Dream, and the events actually allude to the brutal genocide of Native Americans by white people… These claims all make sense, but I think the key to interpreting them is the truly logical story in the movie, which is the tragedy of Jack Nicholson's transformation from a loving father to a madman. All other elements are based on this, and the screenwriter has captured the commonality between the shattered dreams of writers, racial genocide, and the collapse of patriarchy: meaningless pride.
The mother theme of The Shining is rooted in the crumbling white male dominance under the civil and women's rights movements. However, it is worth noting that the two generations of murders in the mansion were committed by caretakers at the bottom of society. In other words, if they were the owners of the mansion (i.e., successful people), this story would no longer exist. Like many of Stephen King's other works, The Shining has strong autobiographical colors. Jack's tragedy was doomed from the beginning of the film because he was a loser struggling painfully between ideals and reality.
Jack wanted to become a writer, struggling for years, yet ended up with nothing to show for it. Not only did reality give him endless pressure, but his wife's virtues also caused him great pain. She was probably also a fan of his books at first (when Jack was told that a vicious murder had occurred in the mansion, he said, "My wife won't mind; she loves horror stories the most"), and before they got married, they probably had extremely romantic times together, but now she is firmly supporting his writing.
However, after the birth of their child, their son replaced Jack as the center of her life. On the one hand, this divides the couple into two parallel worlds of "ideal" and "reality." The wife, who is always buried in housework, seems to imply how worldly this world is with every move. On the other hand, even though she is burdened with trivial matters and in poverty, the wife always has a smile on her face, which does not give Jack any excuse to vent, only to pile up various grievances in his heart.
As for his son, Jack clearly loves him very much. He hurt his son because Danny threw his manuscript around, seriously affecting his work. Teaching was his sideline to make a living, but with his main career facing difficulties, his sideline and his son consumed his energy, so it is not unreasonable for him to take extreme actions. Raising offspring is a very demanding test of responsibility and maturity. Jack once complained to the bartender, "As long as I'm alive, she won't let me forget about that."
In fact, his wife is quite reasonable about Jack's accidental injury to their son, so what really bothers Jack is his own guilt and anxiety. At the age of entering middle age, he has made no achievements in his career and can not even support his wife and children. He has fallen to the point of being a hotel caretaker and his wife, who mops floors and washes dishes while raising their son, has become the actual backbone of the family.
What made it even more unbearable for him was her unconditional tolerance. In around the 43rd minute of the film, Jack is sitting at his typewriter, suffering from writer's block and randomly typing some obscene sentences, when his wife suddenly appears, greets him, and then says, "Maybe you could show me what you've been writing.” This caused Jack, who had been trying to suppress his anger, to explode instantly.
Perhaps many people have had this experience: when you are extremely frustrated and self-doubting, the more someone says you are great, the more you feel that the other person is deceiving you, pitying you, and hurting your self-esteem. But what if they say you can't do it? You might want to beat him up. Many times the root of irritability is not external pressure but self-importance and self-abandonment at the same time. Because it is easier to give up than to face challenges, we would rather be a loser who is always irritable.
Therefore, Jack's anger is a kind of displacement: he feels that his ideals have been destroyed by the ideal family, and his love for his wife and children is tearing apart his love for writing. The fragile idealistic heart of an idealist is shattered thoroughly in the face of harsh reality. Around the 59th minute, Jack dreams of "killing his wife and children with his own hands, and cutting their bodies into pieces." This paragraph reflects his true desire: to destroy his family and return to the time when he was young and full of energy.
However, Jack's situation has not yet reached the point where he must kill his wife and children to be freed. What really breaks him is his own chauvinism (as well as his racist thoughts - which are actually the same thing in a sense). Jack, or rather Stephen King, does not pursue pure literature but uses literature to make money and become famous while maintaining his style. In his conversation with the bartender, his words are full of contempt for women and minorities. And reality? Only an empty wallet and a shabby jacket.
The Overlook Hotel has such a great impact on Jack because it releases his restless fantasies and makes him sink into unreal desires, unwilling to return to the "reality" where his wife and children are. The last words of the former caretaker who killed his wife and children to Jack were, "You’ve always been the caretaker." This means you are me, I am you, and this hotel is a terrifying and greedy illusion that imprisons countless humble souls who cannot overcome their own entanglements and would rather sink and escape. So Jack's ultimate fate is to be nailed to the black and white photo with the label "1921", wearing a luxurious suit, with a satisfied smile on his face, in the center of the banquet crowd. He prefers to be "successful" here than to suffer the agony of writing at the foot of the mountain, receiving and returning manuscripts.
Therefore, the true horror of The Shining is that Jack's struggle is your struggle; everyone is in the same tragedy.
Life is a one-way street; the further you go, the more desolate it becomes, and the end is death. Do you linger in the hotel with its countless illusions, nail yourself to the eternal cycle of pain, or cherish those who truly care, support, and like you, and bravely walk down the mountain, leaving behind meaningless pride? In theory, we all know that the latter is correct, but in reality, we always choose the former because escape is easier. Stephen King successfully walked down the mountain and regained his life, but there are still many people who may be more talented than him still climbing the path to the top of the mountain.
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