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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Ondřej Parýzek Jack Torrance’s Haunting in Stephen King’s The Shining Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Jan Čapek 2019 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. ……………………………………………… Author’s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor Jan Čapek for his guidance and invaluable advice. Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 5 1. Theoretical Section ............................................................................................................ 7 1.1. The Gothic .................................................................................................................. 7 1.1.1. The Haunted Place and its Place in the New American Gothic ..................... 7 1.1.2. The Ghost ............................................................................................................ 9 1.2. Psychoanalysis .......................................................................................................... 12 1.2.1. The Uncanny, Haunting and Mirroring ......................................................... 12 1.2.2. Narcissistic Injury ............................................................................................ 15 2. Analytical Section ............................................................................................................ 17 2.1. Jack the Narcissist ................................................................................................... 17 2.2. The Uncanny Overlook and its Haunting .............................................................. 30 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 42 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................ 43 Summary ................................................................................................................................. 45 Résumé .................................................................................................................................... 46 Introduction Stephen King’s The Shining was published in 1977 as his third novel and became his first bestseller. Both the novel and Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film adaptation are now classic works in the horror genre. The main setting of the novel is the Overlook Hotel located in the Rocky Mountains. The Overlook is an example of a “Bad Place” – an archetype which King defines in Danse Macabre and which “encompasses much more than the fallen-down house at the end of Maple Street with the weedy lawn, the broken windows, and the moldering FOR SALE sign” (King, Danse Macabre, 296). King further adds that “the list of possible Bad Places does not begin with haunted houses and end with haunted hotels; there have been horror stories written about haunted railroad stations, automobiles, meadows, office buildings” (299). The beginning of King’s interest in the Bad Place can be traced to his childhood, when King and his friends explored their “local ‘haunted house’ – a decrepit manse on the Deep Cut Road in my hometown of Durham, Maine” (296). In addition to his childhood adventure, two other sources inspired King to write ‘Salem’s Lot (the novel preceding The Shining) – an article about haunted houses as psychic batteries and Bram Stoker’s Dracula: My experience in the Marsten House with my friend crosspatched with this article and with a third element—teaching Stoker’s Dracula—to create the fictional Marsten House . But ’Salem’s Lot is a book about vampires, not hauntings; the Marsten House is really only a curlicue, the gothic equivalent of an appendix . So I went back to the house-as-psychic-battery idea and tried to write a story in which that concept would take center stage. The Shining is set in the apotheosis of the Bad Place: not a haunted house but a haunted hotel. (298) The concept of the haunted house is closely connected to another Gothic concept – the ghost. Both these archetypes are central to the story of The Shining. The Torrance family – the parents Jack and Wendy and their son Danny – arrives at the Overlook to spend the winter season there in solitude as Jack gets the job of the winter caretaker. Jack is a bad-tempered, recovered alcoholic who lost his teaching job when he assaulted one of his students. At the Overlook, the family hopes to overcome their troubled past; Jack, who is also an aspiring 5 writer, hopes to finish his play there. But since the Overlook is a Bad Place, the family is haunted by ghosts and the Overlook gradually gains control over Jack who gets obsessed with the Hotel. This thesis aims to analyse the process of the psychological disintegration of Jack that occurs during the family’s stay at the Overlook. The first section of the thesis further defines the two Gothic concepts that have already been mentioned – the Bad Place and the Ghost – and also introduces the new American gothic, thus putting The Shining in the perspective of the genre. The chapter on the Gothic is followed by a chapter on psychoanalytical theory. Firstly, the chapter introduces the concept of the uncanny, most notably studied by Sigmund Freud; the psychoanalytical view of haunting; and the notion of mirroring, a central part of the work of Jacques Lacan. Secondly, the theory of narcissistic injury and resulting reactive violence is discussed through the work of Matthew Merced. The theoretical section is followed by the analysis of Jack’s disintegration. The analysis is divided into two chapters, which correspond to the psychoanalytical subchapters of the theoretical section, and discovers the causes of Jack’s disintegration. 6 1. Theoretical Section 1.1. The Gothic 1.1.1. The Haunted Place and its Place in the New American Gothic In his introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, Jerrold E. Hogle provides “some general parameters by which fictions can be identified as primarily or substantially Gothic” (Hogle 2). This subchapter overviews the concept of the Haunted Place and shows how it is employed in The Shining. In addition, it discusses The Shining in the context of the new American gothic genre. The first of the Gothic parameters is the setting: “Though not always as obviously as in The Castle of Otranto or Dracula, a Gothic tale usually takes place (at least some of the time) in an antiquated or seemingly antiquated space” (Hogle 2) – these spaces range from ancient ones such as a castle or an abbey to more modern locations such as a factory, a laboratory or even a spaceship. Stephen King’s own definition of the Haunted Place as the Bad Place was already mentioned in the thesis introduction. The Shining is also set in a haunted house, the haunted Overlook Hotel. In the section of Danse Macabre where he deals with two haunted-house novels – The Haunting of Hill House and The House Next Door – King further comments on this concept. King argues that “Our homes are the places where we allow ourselves the ultimate vulnerability” (King, Danse Macabre, 299). This suggestion of home as a safe place is further illustrated by an American cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan in his book titled Landscapes of Fear. The book conceptualizes such landscapes as “almost infinite manifestations of the forces for chaos, natural and human” (Tuan 6). In order to protect themselves from these forces, humans build various constructions (both mental and material); every construction, then, “is a component in a landscape of fear because it exists to contain chaos . Every dwelling is a fortress built to defend its human occupants against the elements; it is a constant reminder of human vulnerability” (6, emphasis added). The human 7 construction designed for protection is both an assurance of safety and, at the same time, a reminder of the possible threat. People are “our greatest source of security, but also the most common cause of our fear” in the forms such as “ghosts, witches, murderers, burglars, muggers, strangers, and ill- wishers” (Tuan 8). But the threat does not always come in the form of villain strangers. “The home, though a haven from external threats, is not exempt from conflicts,” points out Tuan in his discussion of fear in the countryside, claiming the conflicts are “all the more intense for taking place between family members who feel strongly toward each other” (Tuan 129). In Danse Macabre, King too writes about the danger that resides at home: It doesn’t hurt to emphasize again that horror fiction is a cold touch in the midst of the familiar [. .] When we go home and shoot the bolt on the door, we like to think we’re locking trouble out. The good horror story about the Bad Place whispers that we are not locking the world out; we are locking ourselves in . with them. (King, Danse Macabre, 299; original emphasis) The family conflict is pivotal in The Shining. Although the setting here is a haunted hotel, not the actual home of the Torrance family, the Overlook becomes the family’s residence for the whole winter season when there are no guests, so the Hotel functions as a substitute home. This focus on family puts The Shining in the perspective of “new American gothic”, a term by Irving Malin. John G. Parks

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