What does the woman in the bathtub mean in The Shining?
After reading an article about the design of Room 217/237 in the Kubrick film, I noted an explanation of the woman in the bathtub, Lorraine Massey, as being someone who lusted after bellboys and killed herself out of disgusted shame by wrist-slitting.
The woman in King's novel is Lorraine Massey, who used to seduce bellboys and engage in sexual acts with them. Lorraine was the wife of a prominent New York lawyer, but during her stay at the Overlook, she was with a younger man.
In The Shining, she exists to remind Jack of his flimsy morals, and also plants a seed of doubt in young Danny's head. From that point forward, Ms. Massey serves as a psychological reminder of everything awful that happened in Danny's life, which explains her appearance in Doctor Sleep's opening act.
After a corpse tries to strangle Danny in the infamous room 217 and Wendy and Jack see the resulting bruise on their son's neck, Wendy accuses Jack of abusing Danny.
Jack takes his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), with him, but little do they know, the Overlook has some dark secrets of its own. Triggered by Danny's psychic abilities, the hotel releases some dangerous supernatural forces that break Jack's sanity — and the safety of Wendy and Danny.
The family has to care for the hotel for the winter, but they cannot leave the mountainous area. In this isolation every day becomes the same for Jack as his writer's block becomes quotidian. The combination of isolation, monotony, creative frustration, and supernatural forces extract Jack's insanity.
The color red here is symbolizing the blood and transfers a feeling of horror and anxiety which repeats several time. The Red here also warns the viewer of the horror to be followed in the movie and the threat that is hidden somewhere in the hotel.
The ending of The Shining, particularly the photo of Jack in the 1921 ballroom, suggests that Jack is a reincarnation of a former hotel employee, although this explanation is not explicitly stated in the film. The Shining explores themes of cyclical violence and abuse, and Kubrick's film is full...
Wendy is implied to have an active imagination, as she's seen reading throughout The Shining and Jack mentions that she's a fan of horror stories, and this, along with traumatic experiences and her already fragile mental state, could have deeply messed with her perception of the world around her.
He'll just have to give the maze another shot in another "life." Rod Munday: I think the Maze in The Shining is perhaps allegorical to humanity's nascent understanding of its capacity for evil, and of the elaborate diversions we create to repress that knowledge.
What mental illness does Jack have in The Shining?
The story presented Jack Torrance as a man who dislikes authority. He moved to an isolated hotel with his wife and his son in Colorado over the winter, hoping to improve and cure his poor writing. As the days passed, he began showing the symptoms of schizophrenia and attempted to kill his family.
Soon, after a winter storm leaves the family snowbound, the supernatural forces inhabiting the hotel influence Jack's sanity, leaving his wife and son in grave danger.
Moments later, he would improvise the “Here's Johnny!” line, which was a reference to the intro of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Interestingly, Kubrick originally shot the scene with a fake door, but Nicholson – who once trained as a fire marshal – chopped it down too quickly.
Once you realize that Jack has been absolutely bonkers long before taking the job as the caretaker for an isolated hotel, everything the man does in the film starts to make more sense, and his end becomes an inevitability instead of a tragedy10. Jack's subtly crazy presence also serves to “other” him.
Danny wanders into room 217 and is attacked by a dead woman in a bathtub. Jack sleepwalks and destroys the CB radio, one of the family's only connections to the outside world. Wendy sees the marks on Danny's neck from the dead woman and accuses Jack of hurting Danny.
Jack tries to kill Danny, but his love for his son breaks through long enough that Jack allows him to escape. Moments later, Jack causes the hotel's boiler to explode, destroying the hotel and himself.
However, the Overlook Hotel turns out to be consumed by the evil energy from all the people around it during its existence and immediately targets Danny so it can feed on his Shining, slowly manipulating Danny's isolated father into trying to kill his family.
