The Shining Summary: Plot, Characters and Ending
The Shining follows Jack Torrance, a struggling writer and recovering alcoholic who takes a job as winter caretaker of the isolated Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies. His young son Danny has a psychic gift, the shining, and the hotel's evil feeds on it, slowly turning Jack against his family.
The novel's ending differs from Stanley Kubrick's famous film version.
| Character | Who they are |
|---|---|
| Jack Torrance | Former teacher and aspiring writer |
| Wendy Torrance | Jack's wife |
| Danny Torrance | Their five-year-old son, who has the shining |
| Tony | Danny's invisible friend, who shows him visions |
| Dick Hallorann | Hotel cook who also has the shining |
| Delbert Grady | Ghost of a former caretaker |
| Lloyd | Ghostly bartender |
Why do the Torrances go to the Overlook?
Jack lost his teaching job after he attacked a student who had slashed his car tires. Months before, drunk, he had broken Danny's arm. He has stopped drinking, and a friend gets him the caretaker job. The family will be alone at the Overlook from autumn until spring, cut off by snow. On closing day, the cook Dick Hallorann tells Danny that he too has the shining and warns him to stay out of Room 217.
↑ Back to the topHow does the hotel affect them?
As winter sets in, Danny sees terrible things: blood on the walls of the presidential suite, hedge animals that move when no one looks, and in Room 217 a dead woman in the bathtub who tries to strangle him. Jack finds a scrapbook of the hotel's dark history, full of murders and scandal, and becomes obsessed with it. He grows irritable and has the old urges to drink. He sabotages the radio and the snowmobile.
↑ Back to the topWhat happens to Jack?
In the empty bar, Jack is served drinks by a ghostly bartender, Lloyd, and finds himself at a ghostly party. The ghost of Delbert Grady, a former caretaker who killed his family, tells him he must correct his wife and son. The hotel wants Danny, because his power would make it stronger. Jack attacks Wendy with a roque mallet, and she locks him in the pantry, but the ghosts let him out.
↑ Back to the topHow does help arrive?
Far away in Florida, Hallorann picks up Danny's psychic cry for help and travels through a blizzard to reach the hotel. Jack, no longer himself, beats him with the mallet and hunts Danny through the halls. When he corners the boy, Danny tells him he is not his father. For a moment the real Jack comes through, tells Danny to run and then smashes his own face with the mallet.
↑ Back to the topHow does The Shining end?
Danny remembers that the old boiler must be released or it will explode, and that Jack forgot. The hotel's power, inside Jack's body, rushes to the basement to save it, too late. Hallorann, Wendy and Danny escape on the snowmobile as the Overlook explodes and burns, taking Jack with it. The next summer, Hallorann works at a resort in Maine, where Wendy and Danny are staying, and he comforts Danny as he grieves for his father.
↑ Back to the topMore about The Shining
This summary reveals the whole plot, including the ending.