The Shining: Chapter 29 Summary & Analysis

Jack carries Danny into the kitchen, and Wendy follows, claiming she doesn’t know what Danny is talking about. Jack knows that, he says. Although, Jack admits to himself, he rather enjoys having the shoe on the other foot. He puts water to boil on the stove and drops a tea bag in a large cup. He asks Wendy if she has any cooking sherry, and when she says she does, he pours a large dollop into the cup. He adds water and tells Danny to drink, warning him it will taste awful. Danny does as Jack says and drinks the spiked tea.

Wendy watches Danny drink the tea and feels slightly jealous, knowing Danny wouldn’t drink it for her. She stops herself and realizes that she wants Jack to be responsible for Danny’s bruises so she can continue to blame him. It is just like when she was young, and she fell at the playground. Her mother had blamed her father and said it was because he wasn’t watching her closely enough. For better or worse, Wendy thinks, she will always carry a part of her mother with her. She tries to get Jack’s attention, but he is focused on Danny.

Jack orders Danny to tell them what happened and not spare any details. Danny agrees and says he wants to tell them everything. Jack asks why Danny hasn’t wanted to tell them what is wrong, and Danny claims he doesn’t want Jack to lose his job. Wendy says that the talk she had with Danny didn’t do much good, and he shakes his head woefully. Jack is immediately upset, thinking Wendy and Danny are talking behind his back, but Wendy explains that they were talking about how much they love him. Danny thought the hotel seemed good for Jack, but now Jack is changing and spends all his time in the basement.

Wendy tells Jack that he even talks in his sleep now, mostly gibberish, but he often yells “Unmask! Unmask!” and talks about slot machines. Plus, Wendy says, all of Jack’s drinking symptoms have returned, like wiping his mouth and chewing aspirin, and now there is this writing project that Al has forbidden. Jack asks Wendy how she could possibly know about that, and she says that Danny told her. Jack reminds her that the Dr. Edmonds said Danny doesn’t really have “second sight,” and Wendy says that Dr. Edmonds is a quack.

Jack asks Danny if he really knew about his conversation with Al, and Danny admits he did. He says that he knows all about how Jack called Mr. Ullman and got him upset and that Al doesn’t want him to write anything about the hotel. Jack is shocked and asks Danny who strangled him. “Her,” Danny says—the ghost of room 217. Danny tells his parents that he knew things were bad at the hotel, even before they left Boulder, because Tony showed him dreams. Danny says he can’t remember the dreams exactly, but there was a “monster” chasing him, and there was “redrum.”

Jack asks Danny what “redrum” is, but Danny doesn’t know. He tells Jack and Wendy that Mr. Hallorann told him he had “the shining,” and that Danny’s shine is the strongest Hallorann has ever seen. They ask what shining is, and Danny explains it is how he knows things. Mr. Hallorann can shine, too, Danny says, and he told Danny that people who shine see bad things in the hotel. Danny explains how he saw the blood on the walls in the Presidential Suite, and Jack can’t believe his ears. He tells Wendy about Vito Gienelli and says that Danny perfectly described the picture of the crime scene in the newspaper from 1966. 

Danny says that Hallorann told him about to stay away from the playground and room 217, but Danny disobeyed and went into the room anyway because he didn’t think that anything in the hotel could hurt him. Jack asks Danny what Hallorann said about the playground. He wasn’t specific, Danny says, and only said something about the topiaries. Wendy eyes Jack suspiciously and asks if something happened to him in the playground, but he denies it. Danny says he stole the skeleton key and let himself into room 217 and found the ghost in the bathtub. She chased him, and he was so scared that he couldn’t get the door open. Then, Danny says, she grabbed him. He must have passed out, because the next thing he remembers was screaming in Wendy’s arms. 

Jack tells Wendy to take care of Danny and begins to walk out of the kitchen. With obvious panic in her voice, Wendy asks where he is going. To room 217, Jack says. She begs him to stay, but Jack says they must find out if someone else is in the hotel. “Don’t you dare leave us alone!” Wendy screams. Jack rubs his lips and tells Wendy that she sounds exactly like her mother, then leaves the room. Danny tells Wendy not to worry. Jack doesn’t shine, Danny says, so nothing can hurt him. Wendy doesn’t believe him.