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Chapter 9
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
Dick Hallorann, the Overlook’s cook, is a tall black man with a slight afro that is beginning to grey. He has a Southern accent and laughs a lot, revealing a dazzling white set of Sears and Roebuck dentures from the 1950s. Hallorann is leaving today, too, right after he gives the Torrances a tour of the kitchen and larder. Like Ullman, Hallorann has a job in Florida for the off-season. With a wink, he offers to take Danny to St. Pete with him. Danny smiles and says he would rather stay with his parents.
Hallorann is a genuinely kind man—his good nature is reflected in his smile, and his wink seems to establish a sort of connection or camaraderie between himself and Danny. The fact that Danny would rather stay in Colorado with his parents, despite his intense fear of the Overlook and his disturbing visions about the hotel, is yet another testament to the close bond the Torrance family shares regardless of their issues.
Themes
As Hallorann shows Jack, Wendy, and Danny around the kitchen, Wendy sees that it is indeed stocked. There are dry and canned goods, and plenty of frozen meat, including a turkey for Thanksgiving and a capon for Christmas. They can get milk and fresh bread in Sidewinder until the snow falls, but after that there is plenty of powdered milk. There is more than enough food to see them through the winter, but Wendy can’t stop thinking about the Donner Party. Hallorann says there is even a leg of lamb in the freezer somewhere, and he asks Danny if he likes lamb, calling him “doc.”
Hallorann calling Danny “doc” hearkens back to the beginning of the novel, when Wendy calls him by the same nickname. This, again, establishes a sort of camaraderie between Hallorann and Danny despite the fact that they have just met. Meanwhile, Wendy’s thoughts of the Donners despite the stocked larder imply that her fears of isolation are so deep they can’t be assuaged.
Themes
Jack asks Hallorann how he knows they call Danny “doc.” They didn’t tell him this, and no one has used the nickname around Hallorann. Hallorann laughs and says Danny looks like a “doc,” and then he flashes a wide smile at Danny. Danny hears Hallorann’s voice say in his mind, asking “Sure you don’t want to come to Florida, doc?” Wendy senses something pass between her son and the cook, and Hallorann leads them out of the kitchen, where they walk past a bar called the Colorado Lounge. Hallorann tells Jack that if he is a drinking man, he better have brought his own alcohol, since the bar has been picked clean. Jack tells Hallorann that he doesn’t drink just as they arrive in the lobby. Hallorann’s luggage is waiting by the door, and he asks Danny to help him take the bags to the car.
The fact that Hallorann knows Danny’s nickname is “doc” despite having never heard him called that before suggests that he, too, has a kind of “second sight,” just like Danny. This explains why Hallorann has taken an immediate liking to Danny, and this connection is underscored by the fact that Hallorann seems to directly impart a message into Danny’s mind. Wendy senses this interaction because she has a certain kind of heightened perception or intuition, as well. Meanwhile, the Colorado Lounge foreshadows Jack’s mental struggles during his time at the Overlook—given his constant alcohol cravings in sobriety, the empty bar will almost certainly be a torturous reminder of his temptations.
Themes
