The Shining: Chapter 32 Summary & Analysis

That afternoon, Jack brings a cot from the storage room so that Danny can sleep in Jack and Wendy’s bedroom with them. They figure Danny won’t want to sleep anytime soon, but he falls asleep early watching television, so Jack goes to work on his play. He doesn’t know why he ever thought the play was any good; it is complete garbage, and he doesn’t think he will ever finish it. In Jack’s sudden interest with the Overlook Hotel, he has begun to have conflicted feelings about his characters. Usually, Jack likes his characters (he once wrote a story about a child molester and even liked that character), but he is beginning to hate this play’s protagonist.

Wendy is talking to Jack, but he isn’t listening. She repeats herself. They must get Danny down the mountain, she says again. Jack asks Wendy how she expects him to do that. He says he can just change his clothes in the phone booth downstairs and fly Danny down like Superman. Wendy says she understands that they don’t have many options, but Danny was catatonic today and needs to see a doctor. Plus, there is clearly some sort of presence in the hotel, and she doesn’t want Danny anywhere near it. They have to get Danny out of here, Wendy says, and all Jack is doing is reading his play.

“We have to get down, we have to get down,” Jack says, mocking Wendy. He says that he will explain again, since Wendy isn’t internalizing certain truths, “as the sociologists say.” They are snowed in, Jack says loudly with irritation. Wendy begs him not to wake up Danny. Jack apologizes for sounding angry. He isn’t mad at her, he says, but at himself. He is the one, after all, who broke the CB. Wendy begins to soften. She says she knows that she can difficult like her mother, but Jack must understand that getting over Danny’s broken arm is very difficult.  

Jack says that he can probably snowshoe Danny down the mountain, but it will takes days, and they might die of exposure. Plus, if Jack snowshoes Danny down the mountain, Wendy will have to stay behind alone, since she can’t snowshoe very well. Wendy agrees that staying in the hotel alone sounds awful, and Jack suggests they wait. A ranger is bound to check on them sooner or later, and when he does, they will go down the mountain then. Wendy asks how the ranger will get them down. A helicopter, Jack says, or a snowmobile. Wait, Wendy says. Don’t they have a snowmobile in the shed?

If they have a snowmobile, Wendy says, they can get Danny down the mountain. Jack says he has never driven a snowmobile before, and Wendy says it can’t be that difficult. Plus, Jack had a Honda 350cc in college. Jack says it is possible, but he doesn’t know what kind of shape the snowmobile is in, and he doesn’t even know if it has gas, or a battery, or spark plugs. Wendy says they can siphon gas from the truck and the Volkswagen. Even the generator has gas, she reminds him, and the battery and spark plugs are probably in the shed, too. Jack says he will go out to the shed and check, but Wendy shouldn’t get her hopes up. He turns around and notices that Wendy has stripped off her shirt and is lying on the bed, playing with her breasts.

Jack and Wendy have sex, and afterward, as they lay in the dark, Wendy asks him what got Danny. Jack doesn’t exactly answer. He admits that there is something special about Danny, something the rest of them don’t have. “The most of us, beg pardon,” Jack says, correcting himself. Perhaps the hotel has something as well. Like what, Wendy asks, ghosts? Jacks says he doesn’t think the hotel has ghosts in a literal sense, but perhaps there is “residue” left from so many years and so many scandals.

Wendy reminds Jack of the ghost of room 217 and asks if he thinks Danny is going crazy. Jack doesn’t know. They know that Danny often falls into trances, and he definitely seems to have precognitive episodes, which, could possibly be part of his subconscious. But, Wendy says, Danny’s bruises are real. Jack agrees and can think of two explanations, neither of which involve ghosts or another person in the hotel. He says Danny’s marks could be a form of stigmata. Wendy asks if that is when people bleed on Good Friday, and Jack says it is something very close. People have studied the connection between the mind and body, and it is possible to make one’s heartbeat slow down or even to make one’s self bleed.

Wendy dismisses Jack’s idea of stigmata. Danny didn’t think the bruises onto his neck, Wendy insists. Jack says that it is also possible Danny gave himself the bruises. Not on purpose, Jack says, but Danny sometimes falls when he goes into a trance, and it is possible he hurt himself. Sure, Wendy says, she has seen him fall over in a trance before, too; however, Danny’s bruises look like fingers. Yes, Jack says, and Danny could have wrapped his hands around his own throat, too, especially if he had a vision in which he was strangled. 

Wendy says again that they must get Danny down the mountain to a doctor. What Jack is explaining is schizophrenia, Wendy says, which is even scarier than ghosts. You can keep away from a ghost, she says, but how are they to keep Danny away from himself? Jack insists that he is only talking about a very limited kind of schizophrenia. After all, Danny does seem to be able to read minds. As Danny gets older, he will learn to control it better. If only Danny had listened and stayed out of the guest rooms, Jacks says.

Wendy says that Jack can’t possibly be suggesting that Danny deserved what he got. If they stay, they will all be seeing things, Wendy predicts. Jack tells her not to be ridiculous, and she asks again if he saw anything in room 217. Jack says he saw nothing. She asks again if he really plans on taking them down the mountain on the snowmobile, and he tightly clenches his fist. “Stop nagging me!” Jack thinks to himself. Yes, he promises, and tells Wendy to go to sleep.

Jack lays in the dark thinking. Wendy never suggested what they might do when they finally get to Sidewinder with $60 and no car. She is afraid of ghosts but doesn’t seem to recognize how scary being broke and homeless will be. And what is Jack supposed to do? Explain to Al that ghosts are after Danny, so he had to shut down the boiler and leave the hotel to the elements and vandals? Blood begins to pour out of Jack’s clenched fists, and he thinks again about stigmata. Maybe he should explain to Al that he just had to kill Wendy. 

Thoughts of killing Wendy pop into Jack’s mind without warning. He imagines wrapping his hands around her throat and slowly choking the life out of her. He will “make her take her medicine. Every drop. Every last bitter drop.” Suddenly, Jack hears Danny make a noise in his sleep, and he goes to him. Jack is ashamed of himself. He should be thinking about Danny right now. He touches the boy’s forehead and feels a crippling sort of love for him. Jack goes back to bed and tries to sleep. He wonders what could possibly happen if they didn’t go down the mountain tomorrow. He would probably finish the play. One way or another, he will write an ending, and maybe he will even make a little money on it. Then, Stovington will give him his job back. With these thoughts in his mind, Jack drifts off to sleep.

Jack wakes and is standing in the bathroom of 217. He wonders if he is sleepwalking again and begins to walk toward the bathtub, even though he doesn’t want to. He is afraid, but his mind tells him not to be afraid of a dream. He goes to the bathtub and rips open the curtain. In the tub is George Hatfield, naked with a knife stuck in his chest. He accuses Jack of setting the timer ahead and insists again that he doesn’t stutter. Jack says he set the time ahead for George’s own good. Plus, Jack adds, he happens to know that George cheated on his Final Composition. George denies cheating, but Jack says he can prove it.

George puts his hands around Jack’s throat, and Jack reaches for the doorknob. The doorknob turns and he falls through the door; however, instead of room 217, Jack is standing in the basement. He begins to look through the boxes, yelling that he will find “it,” and pulls out a wasps’ nest and a ticking timer that has a bundle of dynamite connected to it by an electrical cord. George won’t be able to hurt him now, Jack thinks just as George appears again and wraps his hands around Jack’s throat. George insists again that he doesn’t stutter, and the electrical cord turns to a cane in Jack’s hand.

Jack beats George with the cane until George lets go of his neck, begging Jack to spare him. “Now you’ll take your medicine,” Jack says to George. “Now by God, won’t you.” George falls to the ground with his hands protecting his face and head, and Jack keeps beating him with the cane, only it has turned into a roque mallet, and the hard end is clotted with blood and hair. Jack suddenly realizes that it is not George before him but Danny. Jack’s realization comes a moment too late, and as he brings the mallet down on Danny’s head, something—or someone—in the hotel begins to laugh.