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Symbols
The Overlook Hotel has the best roque court in America, and the roque mallet is a symbol of Jack Torrance’s murderous rage and insanity in Stephen King’s The Shining. Roque is an English game similar to croquet, and the roque mallet, has one soft end and one hard end. The mallet first appears in one of the visions that Tony shows Danny. Danny’s vision occurs before his family moves to the Overlook Hotel, and in it, a dark figure with a mallet chases Danny through a strange hallway. “Come on and take your medicine!” the figure yells, swinging the mallet at Danny again and again. Later, when Jack comes home, Danny sees a bloody mallet on the front seat of the family’s car. He blinks, and the mallet becomes a bag of groceries. Danny’s vision is a premonition of the Overlook Hotel, and the dark figure chasing him with the mallet is Jack.
At the Overlook Hotel, when Danny falls into one of his many trances, he begins to chant: “Roque. Stroke. Redrum.” “Redrum” is a word Danny sees scribbled on mirrors in his visions, but he doesn’t know what it means. “Redrum,” of course, is “murder” backwards, and Danny sees this word in his recurring visions of the mallet-wielding figure in the hallway of the Overlook Hotel. When Jack finally goes insane and decides to kill Wendy and Danny, he first attacks Wendy with the roque mallet. Jack savagely beats her with the mallet, breaking her ribs and her back, and when he stops, the “business end” (presumably the hard end), is clotted with her blood and hair. Jack takes the mallet and looks for Danny next, roaming through the halls and yelling just like in Danny’s vision; however, when Jack finds Danny on the third floor, Jack drops the mallet to the floor and tells Danny to run. Jack’s love for his son is so strong that he is able to fight the evil of the Overlook Hotel and his own rage, and when he drops the mallet, Jack both literally and metaphorically resists his murderous insanity and spares Danny’s life.
The Roque Mallet Quotes in The Shining
The The Shining quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Roque Mallet . 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:
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Chapter 8
Quotes
It was the place he had seen in the midst of the blizzard, the dark and booming place where some hideously familiar figure sought him down long corridors carpeted with jungle. The place Tony had warned him against. It was here. It was here. Whatever Redrum was, it was here.
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Chapter 54
Quotes
“Oh Tony, is it my daddy?” Danny screamed. “Is it my daddy that’s coming to get me?’’
Tony didn’t answer. But Danny didn’t need an answer. He knew. A long and nightmarish masquerade party went on here, and had gone on for years. Little by little a force had accrued, as secret and silent as interest in a bank account. Force, presence, shape, they were all only words and none of them mattered. It wore many masks, but it was all one. Now, somewhere, it was coming for him. It was hiding behind Daddy’s face, it was imitating Daddy’s voice, it was wearing Daddy’s clothes.
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Get the entire The Shining LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Roque Mallet Symbol Timeline in The Shining
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Roque Mallet appears in The Shining. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4: Shadowland
...man!” A dark shape advances on Danny, “reeking of that sweet-sour odor,” swinging a huge mallet. Danny can hear the mallet cutting and hissing through the air, and he begs Tony...
(full context)
...parks at the curb. Danny runs to him, excited, but stops when he sees a mallet on the front seat, one end clotted with blood and hair. Danny blinks and the...
(full context)
Chapter 7: In Another Bedroom
...Danny wakes up in his own bed. He can still hear the words of the mallet-wielding figure from his dream. “Come out here and take your medicine! I’ll find you! I’ll...
(full context)
Chapter 8: A View of the Overlook
...It is the place with all the snow and the figure stalking him with a mallet. In a moment of absolute fright, Danny knows that “Redrum,” whatever it is, is at...
(full context)
Chapter 9: Checking It Out
...it is a game similar to croquet. Danny asks if roque is played with a mallet, and Jack says it is, except roque mallets are shorter and have one rubber end...
(full context)
Chapter 16: 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...
(full context)
Chapter 17: The Doctor’s Office
...Tony repeats, over and over again. Danny can also hear the strange figure with the mallet screaming at him to “take [his] medicine,” and then Danny pulls himself from the darkness...
(full context)
Chapter 32: The Bedroom
...and Jack keeps beating him with the cane, only it has turned into a roque mallet, and the hard end is clotted with blood and hair. Jack suddenly realizes that it...
(full context)
Chapter 33: The Snowmobile
...eight inches of fresh snowfall, Jack stands in the equipment shed. Golf equipment and roque mallets stand against the wall, and Jack goes to the mallets and picks one up. He...
(full context)
...hates the snowmobile and fights the urge to smash it to pieces with the roque mallet. Still, he knows Wendy is right. If he trashes the snowmobile, it will be as...
(full context)
Chapter 37: The Ballroom
...entering it. He is in the Presidential Suite, with the unmistakable sound of the roque mallet whizzing through the air. Danny can just make out the figure with the mallet, but...
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Chapter 41: Daylight
...but he falls through the darkness and is chased by the figure with the roque mallet. Danny screams and forces himself back to reality. He climbs into bed with Wendy and...
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Chapter 44: Conversations at the Party
...to the front of the clock as Strauss’s waltz plays. The father holds a roque mallet and begins to strike the son repeatedly. The son falls, and blood splatters the inside...
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Chapter 48: Jack
...a martini glass, and a bowl of olives—and next to it all is a roque mallet. Jack picks up the mallet and swings it through the air, creating a loud hissing...
(full context)
Chapter 50: Redrum
...gets to 12, Wendy hears: “Unmask!” She turns around and sees Jack holding a roque mallet, only it isn’t really him. His eyes are empty, and he has murderous and insane...
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Wendy turns and runs up the stairs. She hears the roque mallet whiz through the air behind her and is struck with searing pain in her side....
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Jack reaches for the mallet, and Wendy stabs him the lower back, up to the knife’s handle. Jack screams and...
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Chapter 52: Wendy and Jack
...on her and is only four steps from the top. He is holding the roque mallet in one hand, pulling himself up the stairs with the other. He is right behind...
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...up from behind and bludgeons Wendy in the middle of the back with the roque mallet. She hears a snap, and immense pain rushes through her body.
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...use as a weapon. Jack goes to work on the bathroom door with the roque mallet, and inside Wendy finds a box of razor blades. She takes one out, cutting her...
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Chapter 53: Hallorann Laid Low
...up the stairs, Jack strikes him in the back of the head with the roque mallet. Hallorann falls, bleeding, to the floor. Now, Jack says, it is time to find Danny.
(full context)
Chapter 54: Tony
...calling again, and in the distance, he hears the now familiar sound of the roque mallet striking. Danny is afraid, but it is a muted fear. Danny has been scared for...
(full context)
...calling his name, threatening him with a spanking and striking the walls with the roque mallet. Danny runs over the bright blue and black carpet, and the doors have numbers again.
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...running. The bodies fade, as if they hadn’t been there, and Danny hears the roque mallet again. One of the doors opens, and a rotting woman steps out, inviting him in....
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Chapter 55: That Which Was Forgotten
...can hear the thing that looks like Jack periodically strike the walls with the roque mallet. Danny is almost relieved. This thing isn’t really his father. “The mask of face and...
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...ahead and kill him—he won’t give him what he wants. The thing raises the roque mallet, but drops it. Danny sees Jack in the thing’s eyes, and the thing tells Danny...
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...He tells the thing that looks like Jack to leave. “It” reaches for the roque mallet, and Danny can see the knife still stuck in its back. With mallet in hand,...
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Chapter 57: Exit
...the equipment shed and grabs the blankets. He stops, noticing that one of the roque mallets is gone. It doesn’t really matter, Hallorann thinks. It isn’t like they will be playing...
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...enters his mind and tells him to kill Wendy and Danny. Hallorann throws the roque mallet and runs back to the snowmobile. Even if the Overlook burns to the ground, Hallorann...
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