Analyzing Evil: Jack Torrance and The Overlook Hotel from The Shining

hello everyone and welcome to the 16th episode of analyzing evil featured in this video is our first patron pick jack torrance in the overlook hotel from the shining though jack himself is the character that comes to mind when you think of the shining it's the overlook and jack as a dual character that really embody the villain of this story i'm going to take you through both the book and movie giving you a look at both iterations of the hotel and jack and draw what comparisons i can between the two both characters are obviously similar in certain ways but there are a lot of differences between the jack and hotel we encounter in the book and the jack and hotel we find in the film we're going to start by going to the book and then draw what comparisons we can between the two while we cover the film i'd like to warn anyone who hasn't read the book that while you're still able to follow what i'm presenting to you about jack and the overlook as they appear in the book things would be a lot clearer if you had read the novel before viewing this video i'll be reading some passages and quotes from the book but there's also going to be examples of the things i'm describing about jack and the overlook on screen as well for context and to also save this video from running incredibly long due to too many lines narrated from the book on my part for those who are listening and not watching have no fear as you can still get the whole idea of what i'm presenting to you in this video through audio alone without further ado let's begin let's start with what we're given about jack as he is without the influence of the hotel there are a few things we learn about jack later on in the book after the hotel has started affecting him but these bits of information are central to jack's character even without the hotel so i'll be jumping around some to cover all that we can with that in mind our journey into jack's life and psyche is going to begin at chapter 26 dreamland here is where we get our first look into jack's childhood born to mark anthony torrance and an unnamed mother john daniel edward torrance was raised with two older brothers and an older sister in a middle-class catholic family setting on the east coast of the united states while this setting seems fairly standard it's jack's father that was anything but while jack had in his mind an idyllic early childhood his family lived in constant fear of an explosive alcoholic father as described by jack until he was seven years old he had loved his father dearly waiting for him at the end of every work day for him to walk through the front door and play elevator with jack he says that he had loved him uncritically and strongly in spite of the spankings the black and blues and the occasional black eye even so from the accidental spillages over his father's head as they played elevator to the harsh punishments his father would dull out on a whim to the fear that jack felt of his father's shadow bathing him in darkness as he played with his toys we can safely say that jack was abused both physically and mentally during his childhood the love jack professes to have had for his father during this time as opposed to the fear his family harbored towards him is important to note and will come into play as we review more of jack's scenes in the novel we should also take note of jack's memory of the incidents where his father beat his mother into a hospital bed this is where the veil that is jack's love for his father was drawn back and the reality of his father's substance-fueled brutality finally became clear to jack what surprised jack the most about this moment was the meekness and subservience of his mother toward his father he was shocked when after being beaten that her only response was to ask where the newspaper was as their father wanted to read the funnies now this was quite clearly the ravings of a dazed and concussed mind wavering in agony before falling unconscious but with the added defense of her husband while holding the hand of a priest in her hospital bed this reinforces the incredibly sad notion that jack's mother has been successfully cowed into submission by both her husband and religion from all of these things we need to keep a few things in mind jack's abuse at the hands of a father he once adored that adoration and jack's view of his mother as a weak and subservient woman moving back to chapter 14 we learn that as a result of jack's abuse a temper builds within him and he lashes out at others in response to his own abuse this is quite common behavior as if you looked into the home lives of bullies you may have encountered or seen during your younger years you'd likely find that they were only dishing out to you or people around you what they themselves were receiving at home for jack this would later develop into abuse physical and verbal that he would rain down upon both his wife and his son alongside his temper would develop alcoholism in the same vein as his father which only exacerbated this temper to an even higher degree like any addiction it started out innocently enough but quickly developed into an unbreakable habit that couldn't be stopped the only thing able to shock jack into quitting was harming his own child during one of his binges perhaps a flash to something that he'd been trying to escape his entire life becoming his father and the realization that he was already well down the path of continuing his legacy it's interesting to note though that jack throughout all of the terrible things he does to people never viewed himself as a bad guy in his own words he had always regarded himself as jack torrance a really nice guy who was just going to have to learn to cope with his temper someday before it got him in trouble all of this is central to understanding just exactly what it is that haunts jack inside his mind he still holds that ever-present memory of the love he had for his imperfect father and the pain he caused him as well this love in this abuse shaped jack's psyche into a near mirror of his father with a few caveats while jack's father seemed to be without mercy or remorse it's jack's exposure to his father's violence that gives him his own sense of remorse we have no way of knowing exactly what mark torrance's thoughts were but from the way jack describes his father we can assume he held little to no guilt for the actions that he took jack on the other hand is torn up by the things he does and the specter of regret hangs heavy over his mind with thoughts of incidents like the breaking of dany's arm or the night with al on the bicycle as well as the regret jack also has an understanding on some level of his own problems and the need for himself to be wary of them at all times he admits that he's still an alcoholic and likely will always be and has constant inner struggles with his temper acknowledging the existence of both and actively trying to better himself the one good note that could have possibly blossomed from his relationship with his own father is his relationship with danny san's the broken arm jack and danny have a bond that's incredibly similar to the bond jack shared with his own father and i believe jack uses this bond as a means to ground himself in reality the only thing keeping his worst excesses at bay in stark contrast to the love for his father it would seem that in some way jack holds a certain resentment towards his mother and women in general when jack is shocked at his mother asking for the newspaper after she's been beaten by his father i believe initially he's simply shocked at this event but eventually he's more shocked at her weakness and is expressing his disdain for that weakness rather than the sympathy one would expect someone to have for a woman in her position this shapes his view of not only women but people in general over the course of his life holding within him a sort of holier-than-thou attitude and a sensitivity to even the most innocent of prodding from women namely his wife his inner dialogue when speaking to people is telling of this as the entire time he's speaking to allman in the first chapter he's berating him in his own mind ullman's no peach but the way jack directs his anger towards his slight annoyances is telling of his penchant to blow even little things way out of proportion jack without the influence of the hotel is a temperamental alcoholic and a misogynist who holds some amount of guilt and remorse for his continued struggle with both his abusive nature inherited from his father and his slips back into this state of temperamental alcoholism that he's tried to shed he isn't necessarily evil as he does have some form of conscious and guilt and does attempt to better himself but his actions are extremely toxic to himself and those around him and though he might at this point be more appropriately placed into therapy and rehab for some this is enough to call him an evil man in short he's self-centered crude and vindictive with a small saving grace in the attempts he makes a reformation in the name of his family as we progress through the book we'll be coming back to take a look at more examples of the things we've already discussed to tie them into the events of the novel but now we need to move on to the overlook the catalyst that transforms jack from an abusive alcoholic into nothing short of a monster there's one more thing i'd like to talk about before we get into the overlook though and that's something that i believe there's strong evidence for in the novel and that being that dany isn't the only torrents who shines i believe through several different passages we can confirm that jack to an extent shines dick halloran tries to delve into jack's mind and comes out with this conclusion he had probed at the boy's father and he just didn't know it wasn't like meeting someone who had the shine or someone who definitely did not poking at danny's father had been strange as if jack torrance had something something that he was hiding or something he was holding in so deeply submerged in himself that it was impossible to get to in the same scene he goes on to tell danny that he doesn't think jack shines at all which i believe is only partially true perhaps hidden in the recesses of his mind along with all of the things he's attempting to repress lies a shine that may have been present in his connection with his father but now it's been buried with his memories of abuse fears of becoming his father and his own attempts at repressing his tendencies towards abuse and alcoholism this is important and the further we tread into the overlook the more this will become apparent now let's officially begin our journey into the overlook starting of course with its beginnings the overlook was built between the years 1907 to 1909 by robert townley-watson and had a troubled history right from the outset the overlook has changed hands several times over the years and had been shuttered frequently between the changing of key holders plagued by suicides murders heart attacks and gangland slayings the overlook has had trouble with both its reputation and its stability becoming respected as one of the united states most prestigious hotels while also harboring a sinister history beneath the surface it's interesting to note that the name of the hotel the overlook could have a double meaning on the one hand the hotel overlooks the scenic view in the rocky mountains on the other the hotel has a history of terrible occurrences that have been swept under the rug as well as countless years of neglect and disrepair that have worn down at the very fabric of the hotel all of these are overlooked by the staff namely management and by the overall population through their ignorance of the many hidden tragedies as far as the book is concerned this is the primary reason that the hotel has such a high amount of paranormal activity among its many rooms are the memories of a bygone era where the remnants of many forgotten souls suffered untimely ends the memory of their deaths and hardships hidden remembered only as echoes by the hotel itself years upon years of these unfortunate events have coalesced into a massive malevolent energy staining the overlook the deaths of all these people in the power of their souls creating a malicious entity that seeks to add to the power it has accumulated those who are sensitive to the supernatural feel its tendrils delving into the inner recesses of their minds and the unlucky few who give in to its machinations suffer terrible fates halloran says to dany that he believes the overlook is safe that some bad things happen there and they may show themselves from time to time but they're like pictures in a book they aren't real and they can't hurt you there's some truth to this when the overlook is full of people and it's unable to safely reveal its true nature its powers lay almost dormant there are instances of people experiencing paranormal phenomena during the busy seasons but they're largely harmless occurrences as dick explains however when it has people trapped within its walls that are incapable of escaping its influence the situation changes entirely it finds a vessel to work through like delbert grady or jack torrance in order to add to its power by anchoring more souls to itself through death so halloran isn't lying to dany when he tells him the overlook is harmless he's simply ignorant of its true nature as he hasn't been in a position to experience it in its never-ending quest for more power the overlook finds a beacon of psychic energy in dany and seeks to add his overwhelming power to its own to increase its strength further than it ever had before outside of this i wouldn't say there's any other motive the hotel has for pursuing the death of its occupants the only other option in my mind is the hotel having a sort of longing to always be occupied to feel full and alive even in the dead of winter something that's mentioned quite a few times throughout the shining is the mask of the red death by edgar allan poe for those who don't know the mask of the red death is a story about a nobleman who brings all of his friends into his keep to protect them from a disease known as the red death that's ravaging the land they inhabit the nobleman holds a masquerade ball for his friends and during the course of this ball an unknown figure with a red mask appears and weaves its way through the crowd in silence the story eventually culminates in the death of the nobleman and the revelation that beneath the mask lies nothing an allusion to the disease that makes its way silently through the crowd and takes hold of them this is a very fitting comparison to make to the entity that is the overlook hotel it stays hidden lying just below the surface to tease those sensitive to its powers and slowly erodes the minds of those who are unfortunate enough to be exposed to its influence over time it's interesting to note that for the majority of the story the hotel is unable to directly influence events itself but instead must act through its chosen vessel through a combination of jack's own latent shine and the hotel's growing influence over his mind it's able to manifest things into reality even further than the hints of terror it was capable of materializing before but without access to people who shine it may as well be an ordinary hotel it seems that with the taking of people's souls it also draws its own sort of personality from the malevolence within those who have died within it the most prominent example of this is when the hotel is attempting to defend itself against the encroaching halloran and proceeds to bombard him with all manner of slurs that intimidate him with all of this in mind we can now move on to the hotel and jack together and how the true evil of the story unfolds now as i said the overlook cannot act of its own accord to strengthen its power it needs a vessel for this and in order to inhabit a vessel the overlooked preys on three things within a person desire insecurity and attachment from the very beginning of jack's exposure to the hotel it seems that jack through a combination of his own understanding of his nature and the energy of the hotel sympathizes with grady and can already feel the pull of the hotel weighing in on his psyche take one of jack's thoughts for example he thought of grady locked in by the soft implacable snow going quietly berserk and committing his atrocity did they scream he wondered poor grady feeling it closing on him more every day and knowing at last that for him spring would never come he shouldn't have been there and he shouldn't have lost his temper as he followed watson through the door the words echoed back to him like a nil accompanied by a sharp snap like a breaking pencil lead dear god he could use a drink or a thousand of them this would be the first of many moments throughout the novel where jack would begin to feel the effects of the hotel not only does it slowly erode his ability to contain his desire to drink it also succeeds in bringing jack around to understanding its own motives it preys on jack's many faults the misogynistic way he looks at his wife his compulsion to drink his temper all of these things become more and more present within jack the further we get into the novel through its own natural beauty and its influence the hotel is also able to capture the heart of its victims jack gains a deep admiration and care for the hotel as well as his position as its caretaker he laments the sad state of the hotel he views in some photographs in a carefully placed scrapbook and when going out to trim the hedge animals he remarks that they don't need trimming as he thinks they're perfect as a way to hook jack into this admiration the hotel provides jack with a heap of interesting information about its history that ignites a desire in jack to create a novel based on the hotel the hotel grows bolder as the novel goes on taunting jack with visions of hedge animals coming to life just outside his line of sight of a child asking dany to play with him forever at the playground and of course the woman in the bathtub and the party streamers lying atop the elevator through all of these occurrences that jack is aware of he willfully denies their existence and does everything in his power to convince his family that everything is fine that they need to stay at the hotel the overlook goes as far as to convince jack to sabotage their only means of escaping by tossing crucial parts for the snowmobile into the snow another thing that is extremely detrimental to jack's mental state is the overlooks exploitation of both jack's fear of becoming his father and his love for him the overlook manifests his father's voice through the radio to go jack into murdering his wife and his son initially giving jack a feeling of utter terror as he hears his father's voice and screaming at the radio that he'd buried him and he's not a part of him anymore but as jack will always be an alcoholic he will always love understand and sympathize with his father as well it's these things that cause jack to identify more and more with his father as the novel goes on and we find amusing that he's in a similar situation to his father with his own wife and that wendy and danny are both now very much in need of taking their medicine as his own mother had been where the hotel finds its most success however is the temptation of jaqen to quote unquote drinking when jack finds himself in front of lloyd downing metaphorical drinks i believe that wendy was right in saying that this is an impossible occurrence i know that she can smell it on him but i think the drinks are symbolic of the hole the overlook solidifies over jack the more he gives in to its influence in the scene with lloyd he shivers as he downs his first martini and the illusion of lloyd as an emerging corpse disappears as the imagined alcohol courses through his body now this is a natural reaction to drinking especially downing something so heavy in one go but since these drinks aren't real i believe the shivers he feels is the result of the overlook latching further onto his psyche as he gives in to the role it has envisioned for jack to take it tantalized him with imagined alcohol an otherworldly party beautiful women and the chance of becoming something greater through management at this wonderful establishment this results in jack becoming nothing more than a puppet he believes that he's the one who's acting of his own free will when he intends to murder his wife and son to add them to the overlook but it's in fact the overlook that has totally taken control of his being to enact its will upon the torrance family this is best seen at the end of the novel when jack is confronted by dany dany recognizes that the man in front of him is no longer his father and that the hotel is completely taking control of jack the hotel even goes so far as to mutilate jack's face to show dany its true face so to speak it's worthy to note that during the course of the book jack did attempt several times to fight the overlook but due to his own weakness he ultimately fails in one last vestige of redemption jack manages to tell danny to remember that he loves him but he's quickly overtaken and sent into a void where he likely cannot return from in the end the overlook meets its demise from the very reason it began its oversight of the boiler and its bowels a fitting end to such a malevolent entity here at this end we have a man who has many faults and a number of them quite evil and toxic with some room for redemption in the mind of us readers in his attempts to keep them at bay and to keep at bay the influences of a greater evil but ultimately he's a deeply flawed and damaged man who suffered abuse of his own and through his own self-destruction has often treaded the path of the abuser himself the hotel through decades of neglect and unfortunate occurrences has cemented within its walls the power of forgotten souls and is on an eternal quest to add to this mass of trapped souls never to check out or leave the never-ending party lighting the colorado room with grim festivity in the dead of winter who knows what kind of man jack torns would have been had he not been taken by the overlook but the puppet through its master became abuse made flesh and an embodiment of the amalgamation of evil pent up within the overlook and within himself i believe this is an accurate picture of jack and the overlook as they appear in the novel now let's move on to the film which is notably different from the novel in many ways let's start with jack again in the beginning jack comes off as a more respected individual than he appears in the book oman is noticeably more friendly towards jack here and owing to the medium of film we don't get any internal dialogue from jack indicating that he's displeased with almond nor do we receive any physical or verbal indication of this this iteration of jack from the get-go seems to be a much more amiable person he states the olmen that he fell in love with the hotel immediately which can be taken two ways genuine or false depending on whether or not he said it to simply impress ullman other than this we don't get the initial feel that jack is affected by the hotel right from the beginning like we do in the novel one thing that's very present in the novel that's noticeably absent here is jack's connection to his son dany and jack both show an intense bond in the novel but here their relationship seems strained as if this dany could still be feeling the effects of the trauma he suffered from his father with the dislocation of his shoulder all in all the jack we meet before the hotel while flawed in the sense that he caused harm to his son and he's a recovering alcoholic appears to be a far better person than we encounter through the internal dialogue in the novel from both himself and wendy the hotel is much different as well in not only appearance but in its history here we can attribute the paranormal activity in the hotel to the fact that it's built on an indian burial ground i'm sure terrible things occurred in the hotel akin to those that we find in the novel the best we get are the visions of a waterfall of blood from dany's perspective or the split head of a partygoer when he appears the wendy we have the dead woman in the bathtub in room 237 of course but in the film we're not given an explanation as to how that woman got there to begin with leaving her death ambiguous at least here we still have the unfortunate occurrence with grady to draw from this is our only confirmed indicator that anything terrible ever happened at the overlook mention of the scrapbook where we learn much of the overlooks history is absent from the film but we do get a shot of it when wendy is talking to jack and he becomes confrontational likely an indicator to the viewer that jack has begun delving into the history of the overlook as he had in the novel perhaps causing this acceleration in his negative mood i think it would be a safe assumption to make that as well as the burial ground the use of native american imagery within the hotel may also be caused for agitating the spirits the commercial use of their culture atop the side of their burial may be part of what fuels the malevolence of the overlook rather than amassing power as it seems to be doing in the novel this overlook seems to perhaps thrive off of the revenge of those buried beneath its foundation the scandals and ill intent of the people who met untimely ends among its halls and the ensnarement of these individuals into a sword of hell that it's created within itself let's move on to jack and the hotel together now initially all seems well jack seems to be happy when wendy brings him breakfast and all around in a decent mood matters quickly deteriorate the more time goes on and it appears to us viewers that not much is influencing jack's terrible transformation outside of his increased exposure to the hotel as i said before we get a shot of the scrapbook but not much of an indication that jack is becoming attached to the overlook through research into its history there isn't a mention of his own abusive childhood either or his father instead what we get in the film is quite possibly far more sinister than what we get in the novel and that's the notion that the jack we see emerging through exposure to the hotel is just who he really is on the inside in the novel jack is engaged in a constant battle with his own demons in the film though it seems that jack is slowly becoming more and more unhinged as time progresses he is undoubtedly struggling with his alcoholism here as well but we receive no indicators that there's anything else troubling him other than this jack here is an angry impatient selfish man whose concerns lay with the work he's been given to do as well as the work he himself wishes to complete the way he treats his wife whose demeanor never falters from pleasant when she's speaking to him is telling of a man who's oft on the abusive end of things and is successful in cowing his wife into submission manipulating her through his cruelty these traits are further exploited by the hotel and brought to their boiling point the longer jack stays in the hotel we see this in hallucinations or visions jack has like when he sees wendy and dany walking through the miniature maze in the lobby we see it in his frustration of wendy and his long stairs into nothingness as the hotel undoubtedly invades his mind and with his trance-like embrace of the woman in 237 then his denial of her existence jack much like in the book develops a fondness for the hotel and his job impeding the efforts of his wife to leave the hotel and denying the existence of anything wrong with it what starts jack further down the path of evil is the repeated encounters he has with lloyd and then delbert grady whose spirits the hotel is using to influence jack's mind this time it isn't so much a promise of management that has jack eager to murder his family but the goating of grady saying that his son is attempting to go against his will that his son is attempting to ruin the fun and majesty that is the overlook unbound rather than trying to add his son's power to the overlook this slow descent into madness and violence certainly is a vast part of what makes both jack and the overlook a terrifying dual villain in the film but what adds to the terror that is jack torrance is also the performance of jack nicholson he's a man who has an extraordinary amount of control over the muscles in his face and has a great amount of variation in the movement of his body as well if you pay close attention to his face every time he speaks it's always different there isn't a repeated motion within his facial muscles each time he begins a new sentence it's incredibly apparent that the way jack speaks and moves is strange and this makes for a vivid performance and a terrifying character along with the evil of jack himself these facial expressions really drive home a sense of dread as you watch his transformation and then his assault on his family rather than a halfway redeeming ending for jack in the film we only receive a man begging for help as he freezes to death chasing his son here though in the end jack is able to join the never-ending party at the overlook and in a way he completes the goal that the overlook had given him by ridding the grounds of his son's influence and becoming one with the hotel overall the picture we get of jack in the film is one of an abusive recovering alcoholic who has a strained relationship with his family a man whose worst impulsions are hiding not too far from the surface and are quickly brought out by the influence of a hotel whose history is one of desecration and death a hotel that's built on a foundation of revenge which seeks to torture and trap those who it manages to find wandering its halls alone in the dead of winter while jack torrance brings the terror of reality of real-world scenarios where many people have found themselves in abusive situations the overlook shows a supernatural horror and malicious intent bringing out the worst in people whose demons are locked within themselves awakening the evil within them as these demons are brought relentlessly in their cages by the overlook to finish things off let's again summarize what we've learned about both the hotel and jack from the book and the movie jack in the book is in a way a tragic figure but the sins and ugliness he holds within himself often outweigh what sympathy we may have for the man and this evil he holds within him is only expanded upon by the overlook not created from nothing jack in the film is similar only without much of anything in the way of redeeming qualities or tragedy a man whose demons aren't locked away quite so tightly and has a fragile hold upon his own troubled psyche both iterations of the hotel are malicious entities but for two different reasons one is a vengeful spirit trapping the souls who desecrated the sanctity of those buried beneath its surface within their sacred grounds and the other is a malicious entity who slowly developed into its own being over time through the repeated tragedies that occur beneath its roof and seeks to add to the power it has already accumulated to manifest them back into reality hosting a party and a full house that will never end as i said before both iterations of jack aren't necessarily evil depending on your perspective but both are certainly troubled and toxic individuals both iterations of the hotel however are most definitely malicious and evil but for separate reasons regardless of what your personal take is both iterations of jack and the hotel are terrifying to watch and read and are more than worthy of being labeled some of the greatest horror villains in the history of the genre thank you all for tuning into this episode and i hope you enjoyed what are your thoughts on jack and the overlook let us know what you think about any of these iterations down in the comments and leave a suggestion for a villain you'd like to see featured in a future episode while you're at it i'd like to say thank you again to all of my subscribers who've helped me to close out 2020 with a staggering 70 000 subscribers it's one of the best ways you can support me and i thank each and every one of you for doing so if you'd like to support this channel even further you can do so by signing up as a patron over on patreon you can find a link to my patreon on screen as well as a video explaining my reasonings for opening up this patreon thank you to everyone who signed up so far and a most vile thank you to those whose names you're seeing on screen now you can follow me on the social media platforms listed in the description for occasional updates on the channel and feel free to join the channel's discord server as well as always thanks for watching and i'll be seeing you soon [Music] you

Channel: The Vile Eye

Views: 715,729

Keywords: Jack Torrance, The Shining, Stephen King, Jack Nicholson, Shelly Duvall, Evil, Analysis, Stanley Kubrick

Id: oYF2pvjAdnA

Length: 29min 45sec (1785 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2021