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Chapter 12
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, Wendy, and Danny stand on the porch of the Overlook Hotel as Ullman and the last of the employees drive away. They watch the cars disappear in the distance, and Jack realizes they are completely alone. He has a “curious shrinking feeling,” as if his “life force” is growing smaller and the hotel is growing larger. He looks around the grounds and thinks the hotel seems to have grown and “become sinister, dwarfing them with sullen, inanimate power.” Jack looks down at Danny. Danny’s nose is “running like a fire hose,” Jack says, and Danny and Wendy inside.
The shrinking “life force” Jack feels represents the hotel’s dark energy beginning to take hold of him. The hotel seems to be completely in charge, reflected in the “inanimate power” that hovers over the Torrances. Jack is finally beginning to sense the Overlook’s isolation just like Wendy and Danny have, and he is finally beginning to appreciate just how secluded they really are. On another note, Jack’s comparison of Danny’s nose to a fire hose conjures images of the hose attached to the fire extinguisher on the second floor that so disturbed Danny, again foreshadowing this object’s significance later on in the story.
Themes
