The Shining: Chapter 23 Summary & Analysis

Jack walks out to the porch of the Overlook Hotel. The sun is bright, but the air is cold, and he zips his jacket up to the top. Jack wipes his lips with his hand and thinks about the weather. Snow is in the forecast, and he can see clouds beginning to build in the distance. He moves in the direction of the animal topiaries with an electric hedge trimmer. There isn’t much work to be done, and it won’t take long, Jack thinks. He mostly has to trim up the dog and the rabbit, so he walks toward the rabbit first and turns on the electric trimmer.

As Jack approaches the rabbit, he talks to it and immediately feels stupid. He starts to trim and feels bad about it—he hates the animal topiaries. It doesn’t seem right to force a hedge into something it isn’t, but Jack keeps trimming anyway. He wasn’t hired to wax philosophical. He trims the rabbit’s face, which looks nothing like a face up close. After Jack is done, he shuts off the trimmer and steps back several paces. From a distance, Jack can better see the rabbit’s features. Of course, Jack thinks, if he owned the hotel, he would cut down all the topiaries and lay sod. The guest could sip cocktails on the hotel’s lawn. Margaritas, pink ladies, and sloe gin fizzes, he thinks, but stops himself. Thoughts like that will get him nowhere, Jack says to himself.

Jack is about to go back to the hotel, but he decides to walk through the playground first. Jack and Wendy have both been surprised that Danny never wants to spend time on the playground, but kids are weird that way, he says to himself. Sometimes they just don’t like what their parents think they should. In the playground, there is a playhouse that is a scaled replica of the hotel. Danny could stand up inside of it, Jack thinks, and looks into the windows like a giant. He puts the hedge clippers down and goes to the slide. He climbs to the top and sits down. It has been 20 years or more since he has been on a slide, and Jack’s backside doesn’t quite fit on the slide like it used to.

Jack walks toward the playground’s cement rings but decides they are way too small for him and keeps walking. Suddenly, he hears a sound behind him. Jack turns around instantly, expecting Wendy or Danny to catch him acting like a kid in the playground and is somewhat embarrassed, but there is no one there. Jack looks to the topiary dog, which is now crouching like it is ready to charge. It had been standing up like it was begging for a treat. Jack’s flesh begins to crawl, and as he picks up the hedge trimmers, he feels his testicles creep up into his body.

The rabbit, which was standing on its hind legs when Jack trimmed it, is now on all fours, and the lions, which were formerly guarding the path are now blocking it. Jack puts his hand over his eyes and removes it, but the scene doesn’t change. During his drinking days, he called such hallucinations during withdrawal, but now he thinks he is going crazy. Jack hears another sound and sees that the lions have moved even closer. He stares in disbelief, trying to perceive actual movement in real time, and wonders what will happen if the lions actually get him.

Jack again slaps his hands over his eyes. There is no way this is happening, he says to himself, and removes his hands. The entire topiary scene is back the way it was—the dog is begging, and the rabbit is on its hind legs—and Jack stands frozen in fright. He reaches into his pocket for his cigarettes and drops several. He bends to pick them up without moving his eyes from the topiaries and puts one in his mouth. Jack tells himself that he is tired and under a lot of stress and begins to head back to the hotel. His instinct is to avoid the topiaries, but he decides to walk down the center of the path. The wind rustles the hedges as Jack walks through, and he decides not to tell Wendy about his little hallucination.