Literary Devices

    Symbolism: REDRUM- this symbolizes MURDER. (16.2)

                    The Wasp’s Nest- this symbolizing him “hurting Danny once again.(16. 10)

                    The Roque Mallet- this symbolizes the destruction to come and what its done already. (16.27)

                    The Shining is an allegory. Which is a book full of symbolism.

Allusion: King puts a masquerade ball in which references Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of Red Death.  Where Jack tries to escape away from his family but is only followed by more trouble.

Tone and Diction

The tone in The Shining of short simple sentences that throw thoughts or feelings into the storyline. Sentence: “A scream would give him away and then”

Thought: “(then REDRUM) (come out here and take your medicine you *******  crybaby)” (16.2)

Then it will return to the sentence.

 The diction in the story is the denotation  but the words meanings are meant to be taken differently at points in the story. There are more negative connotations in the book. The book is almost consumed with violence and negative thoughts. “Instead of aiming at Danny, it reversed the handle, aiming the hard side of the roque mallet at its own face.” (55.76)

Point of View

    The point of view in the book is usually the narrator's. Using a lot of “he, she, they” to describe what is going on.

-” He murdered his girls with a hatchet, his wife with a shotgun, and himself the same way.” (1.60)

-”He understood a great many things about his parents, and he knew that many times they didn't like his understandings and many other times refused to believe them. But someday they would have to believe.” (4.6)

The point of view is sometimes by Holloran or Tony.

-"You shine on, boy. Harder than anyone I ever met in my life, and I'm sixty years old this January" (11.7). Holloran

-"Your Daddy hit George to make him stop cutting the tires and George hit his head" (2.46). Tony

Characterization

    Jack Torrance : A sympathetic character and great potential. Jack is a protagonist character. He’s also a demonic character, with his temper and his alcohol problem, along with the abuse he forced upon Danny and verbal upon Wendy. The Overlook brings out what was pushed back for months.

    Wendy Torrance: A heroic mother who suffers so much to save her child from her husband who has gone mad. Not only the physical part but the verbal abuse.

Danny Torrance: A smart and outgoing kid with the special gift of being able to “Shine”.Everybody who meets Danny knows he is intelligent and that there is something special about this kind hearted child. Also very forgiving with the three counts of abuse from his father and almost being killed by him in the end of the book. Danny and his father are foil characters.

Tony: The one who shows Danny all of his supernatural visions of what is to become. He sees Tony as a flesh and blood person but his parents only see Tony as an imaginary friend. Danny at the end sees Tony as a shadow.

Theme

    In chapter 9 of The Shining the theme is represented when Danny Torrance in his head thinks, “ he kept telling himself, over and over, that the things Tony showed him didn’t always come true”. I believe the theme of The Shining is natural and supernatural collide and cause mayhem. This quote represents the theme because Danny has help from the supernatural to face the mayhem with the natural. Tony is the supernatural and his dad is the natural. The things Tony shows him are “supernatural” to Danny because he is only a boy, he doesn’t understand that the things Tony shows him are the future of bad things to come with the natural world.