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Chapter 21
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Shining, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fear, the Paranormal, and Reality
Precognition, Second Sight, and the Shining
Family
Isolation and Insanity
Alcoholism and Abuse
Time
Summary
Analysis
As Wendy and Danny drive down Sidewinder Pass, a Creedence Clearwater Revival song about “a bad moon a-rising” comes on the radio. The song ends, and the disc jockey comes on with a weather report: snow storms are expected, and no one should be driving without chains. “Remember,” the jockey says, “that’s how the Donners got into trouble.” Wendy reaches over and shuts off the radio, and Danny says that Jack picked the right day to trim the animal topiaries. The sky is clear, and he remarks that it is hard to believe snow is coming.
The song on the radio about a “bad moon” is like an omen or a harbinger of the potential danger that is headed the Torrances’ way, and the disc jockey’s coincidental comment about the Donner Party reinforces Wendy’s feelings of isolation and seclusion. Snow is coming, and the family will soon be trapped up at the Overlook. If Danny and Wendy are going to leave the hotel, they will have to do it now.
Themes
Wendy asks Danny if he is having second thoughts about spending the winter at the hotel, and Danny swears he isn’t. She asks him what he would think if they didn’t stay the winter at the hotel. Danny reminds her that it is Jack’s job, but Wendy says she thinks Jack might be happier away from the hotel, too. Danny disagrees. Jack is worried about them, and if he leaves his job, Jack is afraid that he won’t find another one. Plus, Jack worries that Wendy and Danny will be lonely without him, and he likes it at the hotel. Wendy asks if Danny knows anything else about Jack’s thoughts, and he says no. “Because he is different now,” Danny says of his father.
Danny’s comments suggest that Jack is hiding things in his mind from Danny’s shine. Danny believes that Jack likes it at the hotel, but Jack really hates it. He has already admitted it and he called Ullman for no other reason than to upset him and hopefully get fired. Deep down, Jack wants to leave the Overlook, too, but seems eerily drawn to stay. Danny’s sense that Jack is “different now” suggests that coming across the scrapbook somehow destabilized and changed Jack.
Themes
Wendy asks if Tony told Danny all of this, and Danny says he didn’t. Danny just knows, even though Dr. Edmonds didn’t believe him. Wendy tells Danny not to think about Dr. Edmonds. She believes in Tony, even though she doesn’t know who or what he is, and she says that if either Danny or Tony think that they shouldn’t stay at the hotel, they won’t. She and Danny can spend the winter somewhere else and see Jack in the spring. Danny asks if they would go to another hotel, and Wendy says they can’t afford it. They will have to go to her mother’s if they leave the Overlook.
Again, Wendy now believes in Danny ability to shine and the existence of Tony, just like Danny said she would. Danny doesn’t want to leave Jack alone at the hotel because doing so will separate their family. This represents Danny’s greatest fear, and he will endure the terror of the hotel simply to avoid it.
Themes
Danny says he knows how Wendy feels about her mother. Wendy doesn’t feel like her mother was much of a mother at all, Danny says. It is almost like Wendy is afraid her mother. Plus, Danny says, he doesn’t like Wendy’s mother either. She is always thinking that she can raise Danny better than Wendy can. Danny would rather stay at the hotel if leaving means going to Wendy’s mother’s house. Wendy agrees and says they will stay, and Danny worries that she is angry. Wendy promises she isn’t angry, and then she asks Danny if Jack has been drinking again. No, Danny answers. “Not yet,” he thinks.
The fact that Wendy is willing to go to her mother’s house to get away from Jack and the hotel proves how desperate she is. Wendy hates her mother, but she is deathly of afraid of Jack becoming abusive and being trapped at the Overlook Hotel. Wendy seems almost afraid of her mother because she is scared that her mother will somehow take Danny from her. Wendy knows that her mother considers Wendy to be a substandard parent, and she does not want to risk losing Danny. Plus, since Danny thinks to himself that Jack isn’t drinking “yet,” it is only a matter of time before Jack falls back into old habits—and when the snow comes, it will be too late for Wendy and Danny to escape.
Themes
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Wendy tells Danny that Jack isn’t perfect, but he has tried very hard to change his ways for them. She asks Danny to try and make Tony come, so he can ask if they will be safe at the hotel. Danny says he has already tried, and Tony doesn’t come. Danny suddenly bursts into tears, begging Wendy not to take him to her mother’s. He wants to stay with Jack, Danny says, and Wendy agrees. They will spend the winter at the hotel with Jack, she says, and everything will be “just fine.”
Despite Wendy’s reassurance that everything will be “just fine,” Danny’s feeling about Jack beginning to drink again suggest that things will be quite the opposite. This is the last chance Wendy has to get out, but Danny convinces her to stay out of fear of breaking up their family . They aren’t safe at the Overlook, and both Wendy and Danny know it on some level. Danny’s inability to call Tony suggests that he doesn’t need Tony to filter his visions like he once did—Danny is beginning to admit to himself that Jack is dangerous and that he will soon start drinking again.
Themes
