Closing The Overlook

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Jack and his family are on their way through the mountains to the Overlook Hotel where they will be staying the entire winter. When they arrive to the Hotel, they are amazed by its magnificence. As soon as Danny sees the Hotel he is shocked with fear, this had been the horrible place that he’d dreamed of. Inside the Hotel there was plenty of movement. Everyone was checking out  because it was the last day which the Hotel would stay open. Maids where covering the furniture with plastic sheets to protect them from the dust. Mr. Ullman greets them as soon as they come in. And tells them that Mr. Hallorann is waiting in the kitchen so that he could explain everything that had to do with their food supplies and the kitchen itself.Mr. Hallorann tours them through the kitchen and all its features. When he is done he takes his packed bags and heads for his truck. Mr. Halloran casually asks Danny to help him.Once they where outside, Hallorann asks Danny to sit in the passanger’s seat. Mr. Hallorann knew about Danny’s gift, he has it too. He calls it “The Shining.” Halloran asks Danny what kind of things does Tony show him, to which Danny responds that he shows him things that are about to happen. Worried about this, the cook tells him that those things are not always true. And that he should be really careful about this place, this place is dangerous for people who shine. Halloran specifly tells him that he should stay out of room 217, he claims to have seen some terrible, terrible things inside that room. Hallorann points out that although these thing may seem real, these thing can’t hurt him. If he sees something he should close his eyes and it would be gone. Danny promises that he would stay out of there and that if there is something wrong, he would call him using his mental ability. Hallorann tells Danny that he has a flight to catch and that he must go. Danny gets out of the car and watches it disappear behind the mountains. 

Once inside Ullman takes the whole family for a tour around the entire Hotel. Ullman shows them through the basic rooms of the Hotel, such as the ballroom, the dinning room, the lounge and the third floor suites. While they where visiting the Presidential Suite, which was the most exclusive room that you could find in the Hotel, Danny saw something horrible. A wall to his right was splattered with blood and some slimy stuff that must have been brains. He remembered Hallorann’s voice telling him that if he sees something gruesome, he must close his eyes, which he did. When opened them again, the wall was just as white as the others. Once the tour had finished, Ullman hoped on his car, started the engine and disappeared over the mighty mountains, leaving Jack and his family completely alone.

“There was a bad thing there. But ... I don't think it was a bad thing that could hurt anyone, Danny, that's what I'm trying to say. People who shine can sometimes see things that are gonna happen, and I think sometimes they can see things that did happen. But they're just like pictures in a book.”

Personally I’ve experienced something really similar. Once I was walking through my house’s aisle at night, when I thought I saw the figure of a man at the end of the aisle. I blinked and it was gone.                                                                             

What kind of things has Mr. Hallorann seen in the Hotel? Where they any similar to Danny’s hallucinations? Do these things have to do with the ghosts that Ullman was talking about.

“Danny, who was staring not out the window but at the red-and-white-striped silk wallpaper to the left, where a door opened into an interior bedroom. And his gasp, which had been mingled with theirs, had nothing to do with beauty. Great splashes of dried blood, flecked with tiny bits of grayish-white tissue, clotted the wallpaper. It made Danny feel sick. It was like a crazy picture drawn in blood, a surrealistic etching of a man's face drawn back in terror and pain, the mouth yawning and half the head pulverized — (So if you should see something ... just look the other way and when you look back, it'll be gone. Are you diggin me?) He deliberately looked out the window, being careful to show no expression on his face, and when his mommy's hand closed over his own he took it, being careful not to squeeze it or give her a signal of any kind. The manager was saying something to his daddy about making sure to shutter that big window so a strong wind wouldn't blow it in. Jack was nodding. Danny looked cautiously back at the wall. The big dried bloodstain was gone.”

Mr. Halloran had mentioned to Danny that people who shine could see things that are going to happen or that already did happen. Which one could it bee in this situation? Is Danny looking into some sluiced or murder that happened years ago? Or is he seeing his own fate? Could it be possible that they would fall victims to the Hotel as other had?

There is something defentely wrong with the Overlook. If Tony told him that he was in danger, he is probably right, considering that Tony always shows him things that are about to happen. Maybe there are ghosts in the Hotel. Maybe Ullman knows about some ghosts or something evil in the Hotel. Who knows?

Getting 2 Know the Overlook

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I have started reading The Shining, a novel written by best selling author, Stephen King. The novel begins with the main character, Jack Torrance, at an interview for a job as the off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. Mr. Ullman, the hotel manager, gives the job to Jack and explains his duties and responsibilities. He would have to go down to the cellar and pump the boiler, which would heat the hotel. 

This is how Tony is described by Danny.

Later that day Jack returned home to his son Danny and his wife Wendy and informs them that he got the job and that they would have to move to Colorado for the winter. From various flashbacks the author gives us background information about this family. Jack was an alcoholic for almost three years, every night he came home without even being to walk. Once his son Danny had spilled some of Jack’s beer on his paperwork. Jack had squeezed his arm with all his might and twisted it. Danny had to be rushed to the hospital with a broken arm. Since then Wendy had considered divorcing Jack, for everyone’s benefit.

 But to prove he could change, Jack had stopped drinking all together. Danny had a gift. He could see what other people where thinking and feeling. He would these dreams, or hallucination, where his imaginary friend, Tony, would show up and show him things that where about to happen. Tony would show him the future. Just before they move into the Overlook Hotel for the winter, Danny has this hallucination about the hotel, there is something wrong about it. Something sinister lurks in the Hotel. A specific word kept haunting Danny in his dreams. REDRUM

“Danny had poured the can of beer all over the pages. Probably to see it foam. See it foam, see it foam, the words played over and over in his mind like a single sick chord on an out-of-tune piano, completing the circuit of his rage. He stepped deliberately toward his three-year-old son, who was looking up at him with that pleased grin, his pleasure at the job of work so successfully and recently completed in Daddy's study; Danny began to say something and that was when he had grabbed Danny's hand and bent it to make him drop the typewriter eraser and the mechanical pencil he was clenching in it. Danny had cried out a little ... no ... no ... tell the truth ... he screamed. It was all hard to remember through the fog of anger, the sick single thump of that one Spike Jones chord.” (23)

What???? Just try to imagine your own father breaking your arm when you where three, just because you spilled his beer. Just think of all the beatings Danny had to take from his drunk father when he was just three. I feel extremely sorry for Danny, not just for this incident, but for every night his father came home drunk. He would tell Danny horrible bedtime stories that would haunt Danny’s dreams and thoughts.

“Any big hotels have got scandals,” he said. “Just like every big hotel has got a ghost. Why? Hell, people come and go. Sometimes one of em will pop off in his room, heart attack or stroke or something like that. Hotel are superstitious places.” (31)

            I find it kind of weird that Mr. Ullman would say something like this. Is there something wrong with the hotel? Is there some kind of ghost or something that Jack and his family should watch out for? Is there some previous history of deaths or suicides in the Overlook Hotel?

            The Overlook Hotel is not a very good place for Jack and his family. All this stuff about people dying here or being killed just doesn’t seem right. Specially Danny’s dreams, if Tony tells him this place is bad news he’s probably right. Even Mr. Hallorann sais he has seen some horrible stuff in the Hotel. Something nasty awaits the Torrances in the Overlook, waiting.