The Shining: A Literary Analysis

Once Unmasked, REDRUM Takes Place
“He looked at them and they were all dead. Their leaves had turned a suffocant brown. The tightly packed branches showed through like skeletons of half-dismembered corpses. And then his daddy had burst out of the Overlook’s big double doors, and he was burning like a torch.” Danny wakes up, filled with terror. He has to find his dad before he finds him and his mom, before the once sane father tries to get rid of his family, stuck in an isolated hotel.
In The Shining, Stephen King sets the reader in a trance, they become unable to put down the horror-fiction novel. The scary read features adult themes and chilling internal monologue. Stephen King is most widely known for writing horror novels, such as The

Shining (1977), The Stand (1978), and Misery (1987). King has published 54 novels, seven of those under the pen name Richard Bachman, and written around 200 short stories.
Jack Torrance, a recovering alcoholic, gets a job as the winter caretaker at a old hotel, in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. While at the hotel, Jack struggles with his drinking, yet there isn’t a drop of liquor for miles. He takes his wife, Wendy, and their young son Danny. Danny has been gifted with “the shining,” which gives him the ability mentally communicate with people, to send messages and receive them, especially with his imaginary friend Tony, who lives inside of Danny.
The hotel begins to come to life, the past of the Overlook becomes the present.

Voices of guests in the ballroom, and the past caretaker that killed his wife and two girls, haunt the Torrances. Danny becomes a target for the voices that only he hears, and people that only he can see. Day by day, Jack starts to go mad. Soon, he turns violent. Its up to Wendy to save Danny and escape the hotel, with one problem: with snow enclosing the hotel, there is no way out. If they could get out, the hedges would get to them before they could escape. They are stuck inside, with a former family member, now murderer, hunting them.
Using dire situations, and horrifying imagery, King creates a perfect atmosphere for a thriller. He creates characters that people can relate to. Through Danny, King repeats the phrase, “REDRUM,” throughout the book. This phrase adds a mysterious element to the book that has the reader on the edge of their seat, reading the phrase, and wondering what it means. The Shining is an attention-grabbing thriller. With every page turn, a twist turns the tables upside down. Every new addition to the plot leaves the reader thinking How are they going to get through this? How will this end?
“‘Unmask!’ the cry echoed. ‘Unmask!

Unmask!’
Then they faded, as if down a long corridor of time, leaving her alone.
No, not alone.
She turned and he was coming for her.
It was Jack and yet not Jack. his eyes here lit with a vacant, murderous glow: his familiar mouth now wore a quivering, joking grin… The mallet whistled through the air. She stepped backward, tripped over a hassock, fell to the lobby rug.”
The next 78 pages contain imagery and action, life and death, failure and victory. The 605 pages leading up to this point form an unforgettable story. A story of a family that stayed in a hotel one winter. A story of a man trying to finish writing his play. A story of a hotel turning against its guests. This story, is one worth reading.