The Shining

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1977

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-7

Part 2, Chapters 8-10

Part 2, Chapters 11-13

Part 3, Chapters 14-18

Part 3, Chapters 19-23

Part 3, Chapters 24-25

Part 4, Chapters 26-32

Part 4, Chapters 33-37

Part 5, Chapters 38-42

Part 5, Chapters 43-47

Part 5, Chapters 48-52

Part 5, Chapters 53-58

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 5, Chapters 38-42Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 5: “Matters of Life and Death”

Part 5, Chapter 38 Summary: “Florida”

Hallorann is in Florida when he smells oranges and then immediately hears Danny’s scream. He tries to get out of work but must resort to lying; he tells his boss that his son got shot. All week, for reasons he does not understand, Halloran has been thinking about his own death. He remembers the maid, Delores Vickery, in hysterics. She had seen Mrs. Massy in the 217 bathtub and had been glad when Ullman fired her. That was when Hallorann went to 217 and saw the body. He heard the shouts to unmask and saw the hedge animals moving.

Hallorann remembers many guests who left quickly, or who claimed to have seen things. Unfortunately, he is late and misses his flight to Denver. In the men’s room at the airport, he hears Danny scream again.

Part 5, Chapter 39 Summary: “On the Stairs”

Wendy finds Danny singing an Eddie Cochran song. His lower lip is swollen. He says he called Tony in the bathroom and must have hit his head in a trance. He assures her that Jack did not do it. Then he tells her that the people—and things—in the hotel refuse to let Tony come anymore. He also believes that the Overlook is trying to make Jack feel like it wants him the most. Danny also says Jack threw part of the snowmobile away. He tells Wendy that the ghosts will try to make Jack hurt them. Wendy takes a knife as Danny listens to ghosts downstairs. They both hear a voice yelling for the unmasking.

Part 5, Chapter 40 Summary: “In the Basement”

Jack worries about the boiler. He has been looking at papers in the basement all night. Its pressure is at 210 pounds per square inch (psi). He was told that anything above 180 psi was dangerous. Jack imagines the potential explosion and believes that Wendy and Danny would have time to escape; then they could collect his life insurance policy. He remembers his father burning a wasps’ nest and telling him that fire can kill anything.

Then he is angry with himself; he is the caretaker and has a duty to the Overlook. He releases some of the pressure, down to 80 psi. He wants a drink and feels like the hotel will reward him for saving it.

Part 5, Chapter 41 Summary: “Daylight”

Danny wakes from a dream about a fiery explosion. He focuses and tries to find Jack in the hotel; he sees that Jack is thinking about drinking just as a voice shouts at him to get out of Jack’s mind. In the hallway, Danny sees a man on all fours, dressed in a dog costume. His mouth is bloody. The man in the costume growls, barks, and says he will eat Danny. Danny goes back to his cot. He knows something has changed. If the hotel could not hurt him at first, he believes that now it can. He calls for Hallorann again, then has a vision of his father swinging a blunt object at him.

Part 5, Chapter 42 Summary: “Mid-Air”

Hallorann is on a flight to Denver. He makes small talk with a pleasant woman who sits next to him. Earlier, he called a ranger who said they had not received a CB mayday call from the Overlook. The ranger argued with Hallorann and said he could not possibly know what is happening there, so the ranger did not treat the situation with any urgency.

Chapters 38-42 Analysis

Beginning with Chapter 38, the chapters grow shorter and more rapid-fire as the action escalates. The primary purpose of these chapters is to put Hallorann in motion on the way to the Overlook. He has been contemplating his own death the entire week prior to Danny’s call, often thinking: “Dying was a part of living. You had to keep tuning in to that if you expected to be a whole person. And if the fact of your own death was hard to understand, at least it wasn’t impossible to accept” (313). He knows that by leaving Florida, he may be accepting his own death.

Jack comes close to accepting his death but fails at the last moment. When he lowers the pressure of the boiler, he chooses the hotel’s wishes over his own. This is one of his last clear moments of agency; he is aware that if he lets it explode, he could destroy the hotel and save Danny and Wendy, even if it means he has to die. Instead, he lowers the pressure and thinks greedily about how the Overlook might reward him with a drink. Another cycle repeats itself.

When Wendy sees Danny’s swollen lip, her first instinct is to blame Jack. She thinks: “The wheels of progress; sooner or later they took you back to where you started from” (325). No matter what promises Jack makes, and no matter how hard he tries, they always circle back around to physical and emotional wounds, combined with the chaos of Jack’s temper and addiction.