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1-Page Summary of The Shining

Overall Summary

Jack Torrance, the main character in Stephen King’s novel “The Shining”, is an alcoholic. He was fired from his job as a teacher due to his drinking problem and had not touched alcohol for over a year when he accepted the job of caretaker at the Overlook Hotel. Jack has been married to Wendy Torrance for four years and they have a five-year old son named Danny. The family will be spending the next winter alone at this hotel so that Jack can work on writing his play without distraction while taking care of their child. However, once he arrives at this isolated hotel, he begins to hear voices telling him that it wants blood and violence.

The furnace and boiler are old, but Jack must check them twice a day. The thermostat creeps up on the gauge, so he must occasionally hit the damper to stop it from rising any higher. If Jack doesn’t check it regularly, his family will wake up on the moon. Meanwhile in Boulder, Colorado, Danny sits outside waiting for his father to return home because he’s afraid of what might happen if he goes inside alone. His mother comes out and tells him that his dad won’t be back for hours because he lost his job as a teacher after hitting one of his students who was vandalizing their car (a rundown Volkswagen). She explains that Jack had been coaching a debate team at Stovington High School when George Hatfield cut one of the other students from the team; this made Jack furious with George so much that he grabbed him by the arm and broke it while trying to get him to stop cutting their tires off. Wendy says she believes her husband meant only to restrain George from further vandalism before realizing how hard he was squeezing him—and then she breaks down crying again over her own explanation about why they can no longer live in Boulder anymore or see any friends or go anywhere without worrying about what could happen next time someone sees them together as a family unit.

Danny has tried to explain his special ability to his parents, but they don’t believe him. He’s also told them about Tony, whom he considers an imaginary friend, and they still don’t believe him. Danny sits on the curb and concentrates on Jack’s thoughts. Suddenly, he hears Jack talking inside his head. Danny looks up and sees Tony in the distance waving at him from a window of a building across the street. Danny lets himself be drawn into Tony’s voice until he is standing in a room with snow piled high outside two windows covered by black curtains that are blowing wildly in the wind like ghosts dancing around a fire singing “La Bamba.” There is mirror sitting against one wall with “Redrum” written backwards on it; there are crashing sounds coming from another room where someone is yelling something unintelligible while banging pots together; then everything fades away except for blue carpeting and bright lights shining down on him as if he were onstage during some sort of performance—and suddenly someone starts chasing after him with what seems like an ice pick or mallet (or maybe just a stick) as if trying to kill him! The figure stops right before hitting Danny because somehow Tony saves him again… this time from getting killed by whacking the guy over the head with something long enough to knock out whatever was being used as a weapon! As soon as everything goes dark again (but not quite), Danny opens his eyes back up only to see Jack approaching in their car driving down the road toward where he’s sitting after having already pulled up next to where I had been lying earlier when I saw all those things happen inside my mind…