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
That night, Wendy wakes to a strange sound. It is the elevator, Jack says. Just the elevator. Wendy is instantly hysterical. Who’s running it? Danny wakes, frightened, and Jack gets up to go check. Wendy refuses to stay in the room alone, so she and Danny follow Jack down the dark hallway. Danny flips on the light, and the elevator station is flooded with light. Jack stands in front of the elevator, and the word “party” suddenly pops into Wendy’s mind. She has a vision, as clear as a memory, of thousands of lights and a band playing Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood.”
Wendy seems to be shining here as well. She has a vision, just like Danny does, and a word spontaneously pops into her mind. Like Jack’s hallucinations in the Colorado Lounge, Wendy is seeing the past and the masquerade ball from 1945 that has left its “residue” on the hotel. Wendy’s fear of the elevator is finally realized the moment it begins running on its own. This longstanding fear seems like an intuitive warning to stay away, which can itself be seen as a form of shining.
Themes
Wendy hears the sounds of the elevator’s gears as it rises between the floors. Jack says that it is only a short circuit, but Wendy knows it’s not. She claims she is hearing voices in her head and looks down to Danny. He nods. He hears them, too, and music from a long time ago. Jack says Wendy and Danny are both crazy, and he breaks the glass case in which the key to engage the emergency stop is kept. He puts the key in the socket and the elevator grinds to a halt.
Jack again lets Wendy and Danny believe they are crazy despite what he knows. He admitted to himself in the equipment shed that the hotel is working its evil influence to get to Danny. Danny is hearing the masquerade ball just like Wendy, which is going on in the ballroom down the hall in 1945.
Themes
As the elevator stops, the floor is at Jack’s chest. He pries the doors open and looks in. See, Jack says, empty. It is just a short circuit. Wendy approaches the elevator and boosts herself inside. She throws out party confetti, a green streamer, and a cat’s-eye mask. “Does that look like a short circuit to you, Jack?” she screams.
Wendy is terrified, yet she is still courageous enough to get in the elevator, a particularly brave act under such circumstances. Clearly, Wendy is gaining the ability to perceive elements of the Overlook’s past, just as Danny has been able to do all along.
Themes
