Alcohol's role

My final blog post will analyze the theme of alcohol in the novel, The Shining. Jack has had a long history with alcohol. It was a love and hate relationship his father was abusive and an alcoholic. He even beat his mother drunkenly with a cane. This novel really suggests that alcohol and violence go hand in hand. The memory of his father and all the trauma he went through during his childhood has influenced him negatively, even causing him to becoming an alcoholic.
Now as an adult alcohol has almost destroyed his marriage. Jack has a hot temper and can get very aggressive. He even at one point broke Danny's arm. One night after almost running someone over when driving under the influence, he vows to never drink again.

What I find interesting about this novel is the blurred line in how much is the alcohol responsible for Jack's actions in the Overlook hotel and how much is the Overlook's supernatural forces. Yes, the alcohol is provided by the supernatural but how accurate would his actions be if he was drunk in another environment?

His anger and rage that comes out when he drinks and have nothing to do with the Overlook. It's what caused him to break Danny's arm. The Overlook only just amplifies and manipulates Jack a bit and directs his dangerous rage towards his own family.


"Standing on top [the table] was a martini glass, a fifth of gin, and a plastic dish filled with olives"

The Overlook recognizes that Jack's weakness is alcohol and uses it to manipulate him. It knows that Jack's favourite drink is the martini and uses it to its advantage.

The Overlook doesn't exactly possess Jack but helps facilitate him into the violent mentality to hurt his family and also gives him the means to do so.

The Overlook acts kind of like the train thought of a drunk person who has a bad temper. It is aggressive, dangerous, unstable, but seems rational to the person under the influence itself. That's how it seems like with Jack and the Overlook. The Overlook is Jack's train of thought when he is under the influence of alcohol.

"'You let them lock you in?' Grady's voice registered well-bred surprise. 'Oh, dear. A woman half your size and a little boy?'"

The conversations between Jack and the Overlook are unrational but to Jack, it seems completely normal. What the Overlook is really doing is provoking Jack to violence towards his own family with the aid of alcohol.

It can be related to some degree to Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Towards the end of that play we don't if crazy or not or what he is seeing is in fact a ghost or just a hallucination.

Just before or after every major conversation between the Overlook and Jack, the Overlook gives Jack alcohol. This helps to facilitate Jack's inner turmoil and rage that comes from alcohol to the surface.

"'Drink your drink,' they all echoed"

The Overlook tries to make Jack drunk because that is when he is most vulnerable. He is also rewarded with drinks when he follows what the Overlook tells him to do.

At the end of the novel, Jack is ultimately taken down by both supernatural forces who manipulated Jack and supplied him with alcohol, but one of the novels major theme stands strong that alcohol is the cause of domestic violence.

Writing that lets you Imagine

Stephen King’s style is very unique. He tailors his use of words and imagery based on the setting, mood, and feeling of a certain scene. In Chapter 28, after Wendy and Jack fight, Jack goes down to the dining room. He imagines that it is 1945 and all the free booze that would be available. He then finds the bar. For the next 30 lines, Stephen King is really focusing on recreating the feeling of an ex alcoholic’s craving for alcohol. Here is an excerpt:

“All the same, a bitterly powerful wave of nostalgia swept over him, and the physical craving for a drink seemed to work itself up from his belly to his throat to his mouth and nose, shriveling and wrinkling the tissues it went, making them cry out for something wet and long and cold”

King really uses a lot descriptive language to convey Jack’s urge to drink. Words like wet, long, cold, shriveling, and wrinkling allow the reader to recreate the image and feeling that King is trying to portray. There is lots of imagery going on in this one excerpt.  King paints the image of a wave swallowing up Jack in the passage “ a bitterly powerful wave of nostalgia”. It is telling the reader that the nostalgia, his craving, is slowly overpowering him and that he is losing control over staying sober. When I read this passage the imagery of a slithering snake comes to mind, “physical craving for a drink seemed to work itself up from his belly to his throat to his mouth and nose”. And lastly the imagery of being dried out, like a sponge, is created through King’s words, “shriveling and wrinkling the tissues it went, making them cry out for something wet and long and cold”.  King has the fascinating ability to create a specific image in your mind such as a slithering snake without having to specifically use words that relate to it. He uses very suggestive words that don’t give away the image so easily and allows for the imagination of the reader to fill it up. I find it quite incredible.

King very clearly sets the mood and tone of the scene. The mood in this scene is very uneasy and is filled with anger and frustration. This mood is achieved with the type of words King uses that are coarse. Here is an excerpt that exemplifies this:


“The only thing that remained was that smell of beer, [...] not to be eradicated by any cleaner invented. Yet the smell seemed sharp...almost fresh. [...] The first bar he’d been in for nineteen months and the damned thing was dry, just his luck.”

King’s word use adds to the tone of the whole scene of uneasiness and anger since many of the descriptive words are coarse. ‘Eradicated’ is usually used to get rid of pests or something substantially harmful. It is used here to get rid of the beer smell. An overly harsh word to use for something not so harmful. The beer smell is described as ‘sharp’. This is a horror book and the reader’s mind will automatically think of a knife when something is described as sharp and I believe this was King’s intention. This contributes to the uneasiness tone using coarse words. Lastly, a mild curse word is used and simply isn’t necessary but it just adds to feeling of frustration and anger present in the scene.

This scene revolves around one of the themes of the novel of alcohol causing violence. The gin martini, Jack’s favourite drink, is a symbol and it is used in this scene. Jack says, “You set me up an even twenty martinis An even twenty, just like that, kazang.” The martini symbolizes Jack’s alcoholism and until this point, Jack was completely dry. Now we see that is caving into his old habits and addiction as he is ordering twenty martinis at once!

This scene is a perfect example of King's captivating writing style that makes The Shining that much more interesting. His use of imagery, descriptive words, and symbolism allows the reader to create such a vivid picture of the story which is essential for a good horror novel.