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Chapter 32
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
The next morning, after eight inches of fresh snowfall, Jack stands in the equipment shed. Golf equipment and roque mallets stand against the wall, and Jack goes to the mallets and picks one up. He thinks about the roque tournaments that used to be held at the hotel. “Schizo,” Jack suddenly thinks. Yes, roque is a schizo sort of game, he decides. One soft side, one hard side; a game of finesse, and a game of strength. Jack swings the mallet and smiles at the sound it makes cutting through the air.
Jack’s claim that roque is a “schizo” kind of game again reflects his growing insanity. The mallet has two sides, just as Jack has two sides—the sane side and the insane side. Jack’s smile as the mallet whizzes through the air further makes him appear crazy. While Jack is clearly trying to resist hurting Danny, he is succumbing to the hotel all the same.
Themes
In the center of the shed is the snowmobile. It is fairly new and bright yellow, like a giant “mechanical wasp.” Jack takes a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his mouth. Jack hates the snowmobile and fights the urge to smash it to pieces with the roque mallet. Still, he knows Wendy is right. If he trashes the snowmobile, it will be as good as killing Danny. Jack drops the dip stick into the gas tank. Not much registers, but it is enough to start it. He opens the cowling and discovers the snowmobile is missing a battery and spark plugs.
The description of the snowmobile as a “mechanical wasp” implies it is a threat to Jack. The snowmobile is Wendy and Danny’s way out, thus it is a threat to Jack’s plan, or rather the hotel’s plan. When Hallorann arrives at the novel’s climax, his snowmobile is described much the same way, reflecting the threat he, too, poses to Jack’s evil plan.
Themes
Jack looks around the equipment shed and finds a box with spark plugs. He goes back to the snowmobile and installs the spark plugs and caps. He stops for a moment and touches the snowmobile’s magneto. He goes back to the shelves in search of a battery, and as Jack walks by the snowmobile, he fights the urge to kick the machine. He scours the shed but finds nothing. Pleased, Jack thinks about telling Wendy that the snowmobile is dead in the water. Suddenly, he notices a box in a corner near the door.
The magneto is the part of the engine that provides the electrical current that in turn starts the engine. Without the magneto sending a current to the spark plugs, the snowmobile won’t start. Jack is hoping he can’t find the battery, then he can honestly tell Wendy the snowmobile is out of commission. Without the snowmobile, they will be completely cut off from the outside world.
Themes
As Jack approaches the box, feelings of anger and resentment sweep over him. He looks out the door and sees Danny making a snowman near the hotel porch. Jack thinks about the night before when he contemplated Wendy’s murder. The hotel isn’t just working on Danny, Jack realizes, but him, too. Jack is the “weak link,” not Danny, and the hotel will continue to work him until he snaps. Jack is aware that the hotel probably wants all of them, but it is really after Danny. Danny seems to be the one who has set the hotel in motion—his strange mind winding it up like “malevolent clockwork.”
Wendy later says that Danny’s ability to shine is somehow fueling the hotel’s evil, and Jack implies the same here. When Jack sees Danny out the door, he seems to snap out of his insanity and have a moment of lucidity, which again speaks to the connection between Danny and Jack.
Themes
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Jack is suddenly shaking. He goes to the snowmobile and installs the battery, the electric current flowing immediately. Jack doesn’t want to leave the Overlook, and he is certain that doing so is the wrong decision. All of this is Danny’s fault, Jack thinks, deciding that Danny’s ability to shine is a curse, not a gift. Jack leans over the snowmobile and easily rips out the magneto, flinging it out into a snowbank. There, Jack thinks, feeling suddenly calm. He leaves the shed and heads back to the hotel, stopping for a snowball fight with Danny on the way.
Jack begins to resent Danny and his ability to shine, which again underscores Jack’s worsening insanity and the hotel’s evil control over him. Jack says earlier that destroying the snowmobile is like killing Danny, and here he does it with ease.
Themes
