The Shining

by

Stephen King

Wendy Torrance Character Analysis

Jack’s wife and Danny’s mother. Jack and Wendy met in college, and she moved in with him after her mother kicked her out. Wendy has a difficult history with her mother—her mother blames Wendy for her divorce and is jealous of Wendy’s relationship with her father—and when Wendy married Jack, her mother didn’t attend the wedding. The first year of Jack and Wendy’s marriage was the happiest, until Jack started drinking heavily after Danny was born. Jack’s drinking was a constant source of anger and embarrassment for Wendy, and she considered divorcing him six months before he broke Danny’s arm while drunk. After Jack abused Danny—an event that created a major rift in their marriage—Wendy couldn’t bring herself to trust Jack, and when he was fired from Stovington, their relationship suffered more. Living in Boulder, Colorado, Wendy is miserable and cries when she’s alone, but she is willing to go to the Overlook Hotel where Jack has gotten a job as the hotel’s winter caretaker, if it means getting their lives back on track. The first few weeks at the hotel are amazing. Jack is relaxed and happy, and their close living quarters mean that Jack and Danny can’t exclude Wendy, who has always felt like an outsider in the father and son’s incredibly close relationship. Still, Wendy is intensely worried about Danny and his catatonic spells, and she can’t help but admit that he seems to have a talent for reading people’s thoughts and emotions. When the ghost of room 217 strangles Danny, leaving heavy bruising on his neck, Wendy suspects Jack. She becomes determined to get her son safely down the mountain when it becomes clear that Jack has gone insane and plans to kill them. Wendy is frightened of the Overlook, especially the elevator, but she is downright terrified of Jack, which underscores King’s argument that reality, and people in particular, are much scarier than the paranormal. Wendy is a dedicated mother and wife, and even though Jack abuses her and nearly kills her, she never stops loving him. However, Wendy is also fiercely protective of her son and kills Jack (at least in the natural sense) to save Danny.

Wendy Torrance Quotes in The Shining

The The Shining quotes below are all either spoken by Wendy Torrance or refer to Wendy Torrance. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Fear, the Paranormal, and Reality Theme Icon
).
Chapter 5 Quotes

The wanting, the needing to get drunk had never been so bad. His hands shook. He knocked things over. And he kept wanting to take it out on Wendy and Danny. His temper was like a vicious animal on a frayed leash. He had left the house in terror that he might strike them. Had ended up outside a bar, and the only thing that had kept him from going in was the knowledge that if he did, Wendy would leave him at last, and take Danny with her. He would be dead from the day they left.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance, George Hatfield
Page Number: 53
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

I don’t believe such things.

But in sleep she did believe them, and in sleep, with her husband’s seed still drying on her thighs, she felt that the three of them had been permanently welded together—that if their three/oneness was to be destroyed, it would not be destroyed by any of them but from outside.

Related Characters: Wendy Torrance (speaker), Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

They watched until the car was out of sight, headed down the eastern slope. When it was gone, the three of them looked at each other for a silent, almost frightened moment. They were alone. Aspen leaves whirled and skittered in aimless packs across the lawn that was now neatly mowed and tended for no guest’s eyes. There was no one to see the autumn leaves steal across the grass but the three of them. It gave Jack a curious shrinking feeling, as if his life force had dwindled to a mere spark while the hotel and the grounds had suddenly doubled in size and become sinister, dwarfing them with sullen, inanimate power.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 145
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

And still she agonized over it, looking for another alternative. She did not want to put Danny back within Jack’s reach. She was aware now that she had made one bad decision when she had gone against her feelings (and Danny’s) and allowed the snow to close them in . . . for Jack’s sake. Another bad decision when she had shelved the idea of divorce. Now she was nearly paralyzed by the idea that she might be making another mistake, one she would regret every minute of every day of the rest of her life.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance, The Ghost of Room 217/Mrs. Massey
Page Number: 344
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 28 Quotes

“Then you start to see things, Lloydy-my-boy. Things you missed from the gutter. Like how the floor of the Wagon is nothing but straight pine boards, so fresh they’re still bleeding sap, and if you took your shoes off you’d be sure to get a splinter. Like how the only furniture in the Wagon is these long benches with high backs and no cushions to sit on, and in fact they are nothing but pews with a songbook every five feet or so. […] And somebody slams a song- book into your hands and says, ‘Sing it out, brother. If you expect to stay on this Wagon, you got to sing morning, noon, and night. Especially at night.’ And that’s when you realize what the Wagon really is, Lloyd. It’s a church with bars on the windows, a church for women and a prison for you.”

Related Characters: Jack Torrance (speaker), Danny Torrance, Wendy Torrance, Lloyd
Page Number: 354
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

As the number 2 rose on the shaft wall, he threw the brass handle back to the home position and the elevator car creaked to a stop. He took his Excedrin from his pocket, shook three of them into his hand, and opened the elevator door. Nothing in the Overlook frightened him. He felt that he and it were simpático.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance, The Ghost of Room 217/Mrs. Massey
Page Number: 369
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

The thought rose up from nowhere, naked and unadorned. The urge to tumble her out of bed, naked, bewildered, just beginning to wake up; to pounce on her, seize her neck like the green limb of a young aspen and to throttle her, thumbs on windpipe, fingers pressing against the top of her spine, jerking her head up and ramming it back down against the floor boards, again and again, whamming, whacking, smashing, crashing. Jitter and jive, baby. Shake, rattle, and roll. He would make her take her medicine. Every drop. Every last bitter drop.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 396
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

His mother was still a little bit afraid, but his father’s attitude was strange. It was a feeling that he had done something that was very hard and had done it right. But Danny could not seem to see exactly what the something was. His father was guarding that carefully, even in his own mind. Was it possible, Danny wondered, to be glad you had done something and still be so ashamed of that something that you tried not to think of it? The question was a disturbing one. He didn’t think such a thing was possible…in a normal mind.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 418
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

“I don’t want to see,” he said low, and then looked back at the rubber ball, arcing from hand to hand. “But I can hear them sometimes, late at night. They’re like the wind, all sighing together. In the attic. The basement. The rooms. All over. I thought it was my fault, because of the way I am. The key. The little silver key.”

Related Characters: Danny Torrance (speaker), Wendy Torrance
Related Symbols: The Clock
Page Number: 479
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 43 Quotes

Around him, he could hear the Overlook Hotel coming to life.

It was hard to say just how he knew, but he guessed it wasn’t greatly different from the perceptions Danny had from time to time…like father, like son. Wasn’t that how it was popularly expressed?

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 503
Explanation and Analysis:

All the hotel’s eras were together now, all but this current one, the Torrance Era. And this would be together with the rest very soon now. That was good. That was very good.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 504
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 44 Quotes

He had no idea what time it was, how long he had spent in the Colorado Lounge or how long he had been here in the ballroom. Time had ceased to matter.

Related Characters: Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance, The Ghost of Room 217/Mrs. Massey, Lloyd
Page Number: 511
Explanation and Analysis:

“For instance, you show a great interest in learning more about the Overlook Hotel. Very wise of you, sir. Very noble. A certain scrapbook was left in the basement for you to find—”

Related Characters: Grady (speaker), Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Related Symbols: The Scrapbook
Page Number: 520
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 46 Quotes

What would she do if he came at her right now, she wondered. If he should pop up from behind the dark, varnished registration desk with its pile of triplicate forms and its little silver-plated bell, like some murderous jack-in-the-box, pun intended, a grinning jack-in- the-box with a cleaver in one hand and no sense at all left behind his eyes. Would she stand frozen with terror, or was there enough of the primal mother in her to fight him for her son until one of them was dead? She didn’t know. The very thought made her sick—made her feel that her whole life had been a long and easy dream to lull her helplessly into this waking nightmare.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 539-40
Explanation and Analysis:

“Gotcha!” he said, and began to grin. There was a stale odor of gin and olives about him that seemed to set off an old terror in her, a worse terror than any hotel could provide by itself A distant part of her thought that the worst thing was that it had all come back to this, she and her drunken husband.

Related Characters: Jack Torrance (speaker), Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 545
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Shining PDF

Wendy Torrance Quotes in The Shining

The The Shining quotes below are all either spoken by Wendy Torrance or refer to Wendy Torrance. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Fear, the Paranormal, and Reality Theme Icon
).
Chapter 5 Quotes

The wanting, the needing to get drunk had never been so bad. His hands shook. He knocked things over. And he kept wanting to take it out on Wendy and Danny. His temper was like a vicious animal on a frayed leash. He had left the house in terror that he might strike them. Had ended up outside a bar, and the only thing that had kept him from going in was the knowledge that if he did, Wendy would leave him at last, and take Danny with her. He would be dead from the day they left.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance, George Hatfield
Page Number: 53
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

I don’t believe such things.

But in sleep she did believe them, and in sleep, with her husband’s seed still drying on her thighs, she felt that the three of them had been permanently welded together—that if their three/oneness was to be destroyed, it would not be destroyed by any of them but from outside.

Related Characters: Wendy Torrance (speaker), Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

They watched until the car was out of sight, headed down the eastern slope. When it was gone, the three of them looked at each other for a silent, almost frightened moment. They were alone. Aspen leaves whirled and skittered in aimless packs across the lawn that was now neatly mowed and tended for no guest’s eyes. There was no one to see the autumn leaves steal across the grass but the three of them. It gave Jack a curious shrinking feeling, as if his life force had dwindled to a mere spark while the hotel and the grounds had suddenly doubled in size and become sinister, dwarfing them with sullen, inanimate power.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 145
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

And still she agonized over it, looking for another alternative. She did not want to put Danny back within Jack’s reach. She was aware now that she had made one bad decision when she had gone against her feelings (and Danny’s) and allowed the snow to close them in . . . for Jack’s sake. Another bad decision when she had shelved the idea of divorce. Now she was nearly paralyzed by the idea that she might be making another mistake, one she would regret every minute of every day of the rest of her life.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance, The Ghost of Room 217/Mrs. Massey
Page Number: 344
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 28 Quotes

“Then you start to see things, Lloydy-my-boy. Things you missed from the gutter. Like how the floor of the Wagon is nothing but straight pine boards, so fresh they’re still bleeding sap, and if you took your shoes off you’d be sure to get a splinter. Like how the only furniture in the Wagon is these long benches with high backs and no cushions to sit on, and in fact they are nothing but pews with a songbook every five feet or so. […] And somebody slams a song- book into your hands and says, ‘Sing it out, brother. If you expect to stay on this Wagon, you got to sing morning, noon, and night. Especially at night.’ And that’s when you realize what the Wagon really is, Lloyd. It’s a church with bars on the windows, a church for women and a prison for you.”

Related Characters: Jack Torrance (speaker), Danny Torrance, Wendy Torrance, Lloyd
Page Number: 354
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

As the number 2 rose on the shaft wall, he threw the brass handle back to the home position and the elevator car creaked to a stop. He took his Excedrin from his pocket, shook three of them into his hand, and opened the elevator door. Nothing in the Overlook frightened him. He felt that he and it were simpático.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance, The Ghost of Room 217/Mrs. Massey
Page Number: 369
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

The thought rose up from nowhere, naked and unadorned. The urge to tumble her out of bed, naked, bewildered, just beginning to wake up; to pounce on her, seize her neck like the green limb of a young aspen and to throttle her, thumbs on windpipe, fingers pressing against the top of her spine, jerking her head up and ramming it back down against the floor boards, again and again, whamming, whacking, smashing, crashing. Jitter and jive, baby. Shake, rattle, and roll. He would make her take her medicine. Every drop. Every last bitter drop.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 396
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

His mother was still a little bit afraid, but his father’s attitude was strange. It was a feeling that he had done something that was very hard and had done it right. But Danny could not seem to see exactly what the something was. His father was guarding that carefully, even in his own mind. Was it possible, Danny wondered, to be glad you had done something and still be so ashamed of that something that you tried not to think of it? The question was a disturbing one. He didn’t think such a thing was possible…in a normal mind.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 418
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

“I don’t want to see,” he said low, and then looked back at the rubber ball, arcing from hand to hand. “But I can hear them sometimes, late at night. They’re like the wind, all sighing together. In the attic. The basement. The rooms. All over. I thought it was my fault, because of the way I am. The key. The little silver key.”

Related Characters: Danny Torrance (speaker), Wendy Torrance
Related Symbols: The Clock
Page Number: 479
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 43 Quotes

Around him, he could hear the Overlook Hotel coming to life.

It was hard to say just how he knew, but he guessed it wasn’t greatly different from the perceptions Danny had from time to time…like father, like son. Wasn’t that how it was popularly expressed?

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 503
Explanation and Analysis:

All the hotel’s eras were together now, all but this current one, the Torrance Era. And this would be together with the rest very soon now. That was good. That was very good.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 504
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 44 Quotes

He had no idea what time it was, how long he had spent in the Colorado Lounge or how long he had been here in the ballroom. Time had ceased to matter.

Related Characters: Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance, The Ghost of Room 217/Mrs. Massey, Lloyd
Page Number: 511
Explanation and Analysis:

“For instance, you show a great interest in learning more about the Overlook Hotel. Very wise of you, sir. Very noble. A certain scrapbook was left in the basement for you to find—”

Related Characters: Grady (speaker), Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Related Symbols: The Scrapbook
Page Number: 520
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 46 Quotes

What would she do if he came at her right now, she wondered. If he should pop up from behind the dark, varnished registration desk with its pile of triplicate forms and its little silver-plated bell, like some murderous jack-in-the-box, pun intended, a grinning jack-in- the-box with a cleaver in one hand and no sense at all left behind his eyes. Would she stand frozen with terror, or was there enough of the primal mother in her to fight him for her son until one of them was dead? She didn’t know. The very thought made her sick—made her feel that her whole life had been a long and easy dream to lull her helplessly into this waking nightmare.

Related Characters: Danny Torrance, Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 539-40
Explanation and Analysis:

“Gotcha!” he said, and began to grin. There was a stale odor of gin and olives about him that seemed to set off an old terror in her, a worse terror than any hotel could provide by itself A distant part of her thought that the worst thing was that it had all come back to this, she and her drunken husband.

Related Characters: Jack Torrance (speaker), Wendy Torrance
Page Number: 545
Explanation and Analysis: