Hallucinations

Jack had been shingling the roof when he is stung by a wasp. He tries to go down the ladder, but there is a nest full of wasps blocking his way. Jack gets another flashback, this one has to do with him loosing his previous job. He remembers George Hatfield, a student of his that had joined the debate team. The first few weeks George had had been a good contributor to the group with his strong arguments about controversial issues. But when he spoke, he could not pronounce one word without stuttering. Jack had to cut him from the team, and when he did, George took revenge. He had sawed his car’s tires. Jack had lost his temper and had almost beaten George to death. He had been fired the very same day. He thought his temper was just as uncontrollable as his drinking problem. Back to reality again. He went down the ladder to get the bug bomb.

That same afternoon Wendy and Danny had arrived from a nearby town where they had been purchasing some milk. Jack had hugged both Danny and Wendy with joy. Jack had kept the wasp’s nest for Danny has a present. Danny had been delighted and put it in his bedroom. Later, at night, Danny had been focusing on his reading. Jack says it’s bedtime and Danny should brush his teeth and out on his pajamas. Danny does so obediently and locks the bathroom door. He spends there some minutes and when Jack calls upon him but there is no answer. Jack threatens to punish him if he does not open the door. Silence. Jack breaks the doors lock with his foot, and there is Danny, sitting in the edge of the tub as if hypnotized. “Danny!” He does not answer. Instead another voice came out oh his mouth, deep and troubling. “Roque, stroke, the roque mallet… has two sides… roque, stroke, REDRUM!” Danny suddenly became himself, confused. He could not remember what had happened. Something to do with Tony coming and showing him a roque mallet. Everybody was confused. Jack and Wendy where frightened. Jack gave Danny a glass of water and put him to sleep. Midnight came, and a sharp shriek along with it. Jack and Wendy woke up alarmed, only to find Danny twisting on the floor with wasp all over him. Jack carried him to their room where he put some ice on his hand. Danny calms down a bit but is still in a lot of pain. Jack goes down stair angrily thinking that the bug bomb must have been defective, he gets a glass bowl which he uses to cover up the nest. He then slides a book under it and carries it to the front porch. He looks through the glass but he can barley see the nest because there are tons of wasps, at least a hundred. The wasps would not survive in the freezing temperature, Jack carefully places the glass bowl onto the  stairs of the front porch. He then goes back to his room to check on Danny and Wendy.

A couple of months later, Jack finds something strange in the cellar while checking on the boiler. An old scrapbook that contains all of the Overlook’s history. Jack is shocked by what he reads in that scrapbook. The Hotel had been through quite a mysterious history, since its owner was said to be the head of the mafia. For over twenty years, the Overlook was a refugee for mafia members. But in 1967 a drug-lord was killed in the Presidential Suite. There was a picture in the scrap book, a wall splattered with blood and some white stuff. Jack hears foot steps behind him and realizes Wendy had been watching him. She’d been worried now, mainly because Jack’s drinking symptoms had returned; chewing aspirin, whipping his lips or getting constant migraines. Wendy convinces him to go up stairs and rest a little bit.

The next day, Wendy and Danny went to the nearby town’s library, leaving Jack alone to do his duties. Jack would trim the front lawn’s hedges. Each edge was shaped as a different animal. There was a bunny, a dog, and two lions. As Jack trimmed the hedges, he got distracted by some weird noises over in the playground. He went over there to see what it was. When he was near to the swings he looked back. The lion shaped hedge had moved, it was in a striking position. Jack froze. Now the dog was in a running position, towards him. Jack closed his eyes and screamed. This could not be true, he thought. When he opened his eyes every thing was back in its place. Jack just had a hallucination. He decided to keep quite and not tell this to Danny or Wendy.

Snow was falling now, and Jack was asleep taking a nap upstairs. Wendy was knitting next to the fireplace down at the lobby. Danny was in front of room 217, staring at it, with the key in his hand which he had stolen from Daddy’s office. There was this certain force that made him unlock the door and open it. The room was cold. Danny turned to the bathroom. The bath tub had its curtains closed. When he slid the curtains open, Danny wet his pants with fear. A dead woman lied on the tub. Danny tried to run but the door was locked. He remembered what Hallorann had told him about some things not being real. Danny closed his eyes and relaxed. And when he opened them, the dead woman was still there, choking Danny.

“The lion on the left had advanced all the way to the fence now; its muzzle was touching the boards. It seemed to be grinning at him. Jack backed up another two steps. His head was thudding crazily and he could feel the dry rasp of his
breath in his throat” (307).

            I am a bit confused here, hadn’t Mr. Hallorann told Danny that only people what had “the shine” could see stuff that wasn’t really true in the hotel. Is Jack just having a hallucination because he was tired, or is this part of something bigger? Maybe Jack has schizophrenia, or maybe he shines as well.

“And then the voice of Dick Hallorann came to him, so sudden and unexpected, so calm, that his locked vocal cords opened and he began to cry weakly not with fear but with blessed relief. (I don't think they can hurt you ... they're like pictures in a book ... close your eyes and they'll be gone.)  His eyelids snapped down. His hands curled into balls. His shoulders hunched with the effort of his concentration: (Nothing there nothing there not there at all NOTHING THERE ,THERE IS NOTHING!) Time passed. And he was just beginning to relax, just beginning to realize the door must be unlocked and he could go, when the years-damp, bloated, fish-smelling hands closed softly around his throat and he was turned implacably around to stare into that dead and purple face.” (321)

            How is this possible? When Halloran said he had seen something horrible in this room, had he seen the same dead woman that choked Danny? Is this one of the ghosts that Ullman had mentioned? Is this real or just a hallucination? Will this “ghost” strangle Danny to death? Maybe Danny is just having one of those nightmares that he sometimes has. Maybe Tony is showing him the future.

Danny had always been right, Tony had told him the truth. They where doomed in the Overlook. This Hotel did not welcome any visitor. Hallucinations haunted Danny and Jack. But these hallucinations where some what real, they could hurt you, just like that dead woman had strangled Danny. Who knows maybe they would all be murdered by ghosts. REDRUM. MURDER.

Closing The Overlook

.

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

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.