The Shining: Chapter 25 Summary & Analysis

It snows every day now, and the temperature, especially at night, is frigid. Whenever the sun shines, Jack, Wendy, and Danny make it a point to get outside, and they have been having a good time pulling each other around on Danny’s sled. They even see a herd of caribou crossing the highway, and Wendy thinks to herself that the road belongs to the caribou now until spring. After the caribou sighting, Wendy goes to the kitchen to make lunch and cries, thinking about the wasps’ nest left under the Pyrex bowl to freeze. Jack is teaching Danny to snowshoe, but Wendy hates it. The snowshoes make her ankles ache, but Jack says Danny will be a pro in no time.

One overcast day, Wendy sits in front of the fire knitting a scarf, and Jack goes down in the basement to check the boiler. He has become obsessive about checking the boiler, and it gives him an excuse to go through more boxes. As Jack digs in the old boxes, wiping at his mouth, he looks insane. He pulls out a different box and finds it full of oddities, such as dismembered dolls and an old letter still smelling of perfume. The letter is from 1934 and mentions something about bad dreams. Jack thinks that the contents of the boxes are like pieces to a puzzle that he must fit together.

As Jack digs in the basement, Danny stands outside of room 217 with the skeleton key in his pocket. He didn’t want to come to the room, not after the incident with the fire hose, but he is curious. After all, Hallorann said he didn’t think the hotel could hurt Danny. When Danny saw blood on the walls of the Presidential Suite, he closed his eyes and it went away, and when he walked by the fire hose on the way to room 217, it was harmless. If Danny goes into the room now and nothing happens, it will prove that the hotel can’t hurt him.

When Danny passed the fire house in the hall, he stopped to touch the brass nozzle. He poked at the hose and dared it to get him, but it just sat there. The hose couldn’t hurt him, and neither can room 217. Danny reaches into his pocket and produces the key, sliding it into the lock. The door opens easily, without noise, and Danny flips on the light switch. The room is large, and the bathroom door is slightly ajar. Danny moves toward the bathroom door as if he is possessed, and opens it wide. The bathroom is large, too, and old-fashioned. There is a claw foot tub with the curtain drawn.

Danny walks to the bathtub and pulls back the curtain. Sitting in the tub is the ghost of room 217—a bloated and purple corpse—and Danny stands frozen, staring into her dead eyes. She smiles at him and begins to stand, and Danny backs up, preparing to run. He runs to the door, which is now closed, and runs directly into it. He bangs on the door and screams, but no sound comes from his mouth. The door isn’t locked, and Danny only needs to turn the knob, but he isn’t thinking clearly. With his mouth open in a silent scream, Danny hears Hallorann’s voice. “I don’t think they can hurt you,” Danny hears Hallorann say.

As Danny thinks of Hallorann’s voice, he begins to calm down. Danny tells himself there is nothing there. He stands at the door for some time and realizes that the door isn’t locked. He goes to turn the doorknob, but the ghost of room 217 places her bloated and purple hands around his throat. Danny turns around and stares directly into her cold, dead eyes.