The Shining

Jack Torrance is the book’s main character. He is Danny’s father and Wendy’s husband. When the novel beings, Jack is a professionally disgraced writer. A natural creative type, Jack has published several popular short stories and taught creative writing at Stovington before being suspended for the incident with George Hatfield. Jack is addicted to alcohol, and his temper gets the better of him when he is drunk. Jack loathes himself, a trait that exacerbates the situation at the Overlook. The hotel knows how to use Jack’s self-hatred against him and his family.

Although Jack can be oblivious to his family’s needs, he is also aware that he can be cruel and selfish. During his confrontation with George Hatfield, he “flushed, not with anger but with shame at his own cruelty. This was not a man in front of him but a seventeen-year-old boy who was facing the first major defeat of his life” (112).

Jack’s self-loathing often manifests in acts that sabotage his own prospects, and which make it hard for him to sustain relationships. Wendy believes that Jack desires “his own destruction” but is incapable of “possessing the necessary moral fiber to support a full-blown deathwish” (183). His addiction also adds to his cycles of misery.