The Shining: Chapter 16 Summary & Analysis

Wendy can hear Jack typing down the hall. Since coming to the hotel, Jack’s writer’s block has lifted, and it looks as if he might actually finish his play. He doesn’t really care if the play gets any attention once he hands it over to his agent—he just wants to finish it and move on. Wendy watches Danny as he pours over the beginning reader books Jack found for him, sounding out each word. He is almost obsessive about learning to read, and Wendy has been concerned about this. She tells Danny it is time for bed, and after a little resistance, he goes to the bathroom to bush his teeth.

A few minutes later, Wendy begins to think Danny is taking too long in the bathroom, and she decides to check on him. As she walks through Danny’s room, she notices the wasps’ nest sitting on the highest shelf and it makes her uncomfortable. She can hear the water running in the bathroom and knocks on the door. She asks Danny if he is okay, but he doesn’t answer. Wendy grabs the handle but finds the door locked. Jack comes in to investigate the noise and demands Danny open the door. He bangs on the door and threatens to spank him, and Wendy worries that Jack is losing his temper.  

Jack kicks in the bathroom door, and Danny is sitting on the tub with a blank look in his eyes. Jack shakes him a bit, trying to get his attention, but Danny just stares. “Roque. Stroke. Redrum,” Danny says in a trance. Jack shakes Danny again, and he snaps out of it. “What?” Danny asks. “W-w-wuh-what’s wr-r-r—” Suddenly, Jack yells at Danny, telling him not to stutter. His voice is so loud and aggressive, it catches Wendy off guard and frightens her. She runs to Danny and snatches him up, carrying him from the room.

Wendy holds Danny and gently rocks him back and forth, trying to soothe him. Danny apologizes for being bad, and Jack tells him he isn’t bad. Danny says he doesn’t know why Jack told him not to stutter. He doesn’t stutter. And there was something about a timer, too, Danny says. Jack grows visibly angry again. “What?” he asks Danny. Danny says he doesn’t know what happened. He can’t remember. Wendy asks Danny why he locked the door, and he says that Tony told him to. Danny was just brushing his teeth, thinking about reading, and he saw Tony in the mirror.

Wendy and Jack tuck Danny in bed, and Danny insists on a nightlight. The nightlight concerns Wendy, too—Danny never wanted one before coming to the hotel. As Jack leaves the room, Danny asks him if he would ever hurt him or Wendy. Jack is shocked. No, he says. Danny says that Tony told him about roque, that it’s played in innings like baseball. It is, Jack says, and wonders who really told Danny about roque. It must have been Hallorann or Ullman. “What’s redrum?” Danny asks Jack, but Jack doesn’t know. He thinks again about roque. Who told Danny about it? And how did he know about the timer? As Jack shuts the door and tells Danny he loves him, he thinks about how badly he needs a drink. 

As Danny sleeps he dreams of “Redrum” and the figure chasing him through the hotel, the roque mallet whizzing through the air. Danny suddenly bolts upright in bed, aware of something biting his hand. He realizes it is a wasp, three to be exact, and starts to scream. Wendy and Jack run in and, realizing that the room is swarming with wasps, begin to kill the bugs with rolled up magazines. Jack runs to the kitchen and grabs a Pyrex bowl. He returns to Danny’s room and drops the bowl over the wasps’ nest. Angry wasps fly around under the bowl, pinging against the glass.

Danny has 11 stings total, but he finally calms down and agrees to sleep in Jack and Wendy’s bed. Wendy is obviously irritated with Jack for bringing the wasps’ nest into Danny’s room, but Jack could have sworn the wasps were all dead. He’d used the bug bomb and poured the dead wasps out of the nest. Jack wipes his lips with the back of his hand and thinks with “superstitious dread” that the wasps have come back to life. He killed them and they came back to life. Jack takes the Pyrex bowl and the wasps’ nest to the backdoor off the kitchen and places them outside. The cold will kill the wasps by morning. As Jack makes his way back to his room, he wipes his lips again with the back of his hand. He doesn’t like the Overlook so much anymore.