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Chapter 4
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
Jack pulls the Volkswagen up to the drugstore and tells Danny to wait in the car. He just has to make a phone call. They have a phone at home—Wendy insisted on it since Danny is prone to “fainting spells”—but Jack wants privacy. He is calling Al to thank him for the job, and he would rather not do it in front of Wendy. Jack’s pride is all that he has left. In the drugstore, Jack goes to the phone booth and looks out the window at Danny. Jack feels his love for Danny rise up inside of him, but Jack’s face remains emotionless.
Although Jack has inexcusably abused Danny, it’s clear that he still loves his son, and that Danny loves him back. This suggests that the connection between family members, especially parents and children, cannot be completely broken. Meanwhile, the fact that Danny has repeated “fainting spells” implies that his precognitive abilities affect him physically as well as mentally.
Themes
Six months ago, life had not been so tough. Jack’s job at Stovington Preparatory Academy paid well, and Torrances even had a small savings account. Then, Jack “lost his temper” with George Hatfield. Jack remembers when Al told him that the Board of Directors at Stovington wanted his resignation. Jack gave it to them, but he knew that had it not been for George Hatfield, he would have gotten tenure instead. He remembers badly wanting to get drunk so badly afterward—he’d wanted “to take it out on Wendy and Danny,” his temper “like a vicious animal on a frayed leash.”
Jack didn’t just “lose his temper”—he physically assaulted George. Jack (as well as those around him) don’t fully appreciate the gravity of his assault on George, as they are all eager to brush the incident off as Jack simply getting a bit too heated. Furthermore, Jack’s desire to hurt Wendy and Danny rather than to blame himself after getting fired speaks to his abusive and violent nature. Jack’s wife and child have nothing to do with him losing his job or wanting a drink, yet he still wants to make them pay for it.
Themes
Jack picks up the phone. For a handful of quarters, the operator will connect Jack with Al, who is 2,000 miles away, for three minutes. “Time is relative, baby,” Jack says to himself and drops in the quarters. Al’s father was a steel baron, and when he died, he left Al a huge fortune and several seats on various boards. One of them was at Stovington Prep, and upon taking this seat, Al immediately became friends with Jack. They were always the drunkest people in the room, so they just sort of gravitated to each other.
The idea of time as relative is present throughout the novel, and Jack’s short aside here hearkens to this idea. His former recollection of breaking Danny’s arm as having lasted an eternity (despite it actually happening in an instant) is another example of this. As Jack remembers his friendship with Al, it’s clear that the men are connected because of their alcoholism, which explains why Al was willing to excuse Jack’s behavior and recommend him for a job at the Overlook.
Themes
At the time, Al and his wife were separated, and Jack and Wendy’s marriage was falling apart, too. Jack would often stay out drinking until dawn and come home to find Wendy sleeping on the couch with Danny. Jack hated himself, and he often thought of “the gun or the rope or the razor blade.” Still, Jack didn’t believe he was an alcoholic, even though he knew Wendy cried in the bathroom and his colleagues gave him “cautious looks” at parties and functions where alcohol was served. They were all talking about him, and Jack knew it, but he still didn’t think of himself as an alcoholic.
Jack’s thoughts of suicide suggest that he struggled with mental health issues and feelings of despair long before arriving at the Overlook, and Wendy’s consideration of divorce started long before Jack abused Danny. Despite these long-standing issues, Jack takes little responsibility and doesn’t always think of himself as an alcoholic, even when his coworkers’ “looks” and Wendy’s nights on the sofa make his problem obvious.
Themes
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At the prep school, Jack was considered somewhat of a big deal. He had published several short stories and was working on the play. He finally stopped drinking about a month after breaking Danny’s arm, which, as far as Jack is concerned, was the end of his marriage. One night, Jack was out late drinking with Al, and Al was driving him home in his Jaguar. Al took the curve at 70 miles per hour and suddenly realized there was a kid’s bike in the road. There was no time to stop, and Al hit the bike at about 40 miles per hour. They immediately got out of the car, feeling instantly sober, but couldn’t find a body anywhere. When they got back in the car, Al said he was never drinking again.
Danny’s broken arm shatters Wendy’s trust in Jack, which was already suffering on account of his drinking. Interestingly enough, it isn’t breaking Danny’s arm that makes Jack stop drinking. It is realizing that Al could have killed a random kid in the road that finally makes Jack stop—perhaps because he is more afraid of getting caught than he is of actually doing harm to those he loves. Now, Jack’s previous reputation as a successful writer and teacher makes his existence as a washed up, unemployed drunk all the more unbearable.
Themes
When Jack got home that night, he tucked a sleeping Danny into his bed and went to the closet where he kept his .38 in a shoe box. Jack sat holding the gun until dawn, when he finally put it back in the box. That morning, Wendy asked Jack if he had been in an accident. Danny had had a dream that Jack had been in an accident, Wendy said. “He has funny dreams sometimes,” she offered as an explanation when Jack lied and said that he wasn’t in an accident. Jack’s thoughts are interrupted by the operator. His party isn’t answering, she says, but Jack asks her to try a few more rings.
Again, Jack is deeply disturbed and in tremendous pain, even before he gets to the hotel, and sitting all night holding a handgun is evidence of this. Jack often contemplates suicide, which even Danny knows—Danny, of course, knows about what happened the night before in Al’s Jaguar because of his precognitive abilities. Even if Wendy doesn’t want to admit it and downplays Danny’s visions as “funny dreams,” there is still a part of her that trusts Danny’s intuition over Jack’s words.
Themes
Al finally picks up the phone. Jack tells him that he just called to say thank you. He got the job at the Overlook and will be heading there soon. Al commends Jack on staying sober through the George Hatfield ordeal and promises that the Board at Stovington will come around by spring. Some of them already think they were too hasty in demanding Jack’s resignation, Al says. Jack thanks him again and hangs up. In the car, Danny begins to tell Jack about the vision he had while waiting for Jack to get back from the Overlook. But Jack is distracted and, Danny knows, thinking about the “Bad Thing.” Danny is disappointed. “I dreamed that you hurt me, Daddy,” Danny thinks to himself.
Danny seems to know here that Jack is the figure with the mallet from his vision, but he doesn’t want to admit it. The implication here is that had Jack not been preoccupied and thinking about drinking, Danny would have felt comfortable talking to him about what he saw in the vision. Perhaps then, whatever is about to transpire at the Overlook Hotel could have been avoided. But Jack is reminded of his alcoholism everywhere he turns, and it consumes his every thought, to the detriment of his family.
Themes
