Jack Torrance
Encyclopedia
Jack Torrance is a fictional character
, the antagonist
in the 1977 novel The Shining
by Stephen King
. He was portrayed by Jack Nicholson
in the 1980 movie adaptation
of the novel, and by Steven Weber
in the 1997 miniseries
. The American Film Institute
rated the character (as played by Nicholson) the 25th greatest film villain of all time
. In 2008, Jack Torrance was selected by Empire Magazine as one of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters. Premiere Magazine also ranked Torrance on their list of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
Jack Torrance is a writer and former teacher who is trying to rebuild his and his family's life after his alcoholism and volatile temper costs him his teaching position at a small preparatory school
. Having given up drinking, he accepts a position maintaining the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado for the winter, in the hope this will salvage his family, re-establish his career, and give him the time and privacy to finish a promising play. He moves to the hotel with his wife, Wendy, and young son, Danny, who is telepathic and sensitive to supernatural
forces. Danny receives guidance from an imaginary friend he calls "Tony."
It is later revealed that Jack's father, also an alcoholic, was abusive towards his family. A flashback scene in the novel shows his father pretending to be drunk so as to brutally bash Jack's mother with a cane.
Danny finds out that the Overlook Hotel is haunted from cook Dick Hallorann, who is also psychic (in fact, it is he who coins the term "the shining" to describe the powers he and the boy possess) and who teaches Danny to use his gift to defend himself and his family from the evil forces at work in the old building. However, Jack succumbs to both cabin fever and his drinking problem, and allows the hotel to convince him to hate his own wife and child (in fact, a good part of Jack's insanity is caused by the hotel's demonic entity, which uses its supernatural powers to psychologically torture them). Jack has encounters with ghosts of previous staff of the hotel, who insist he had always been working there, and must kill his family so he can be promoted to a managerial position.
In fact, the Hotel is not only haunted by the ghosts of those who died violently within it, but the entire Hotel is itself host to a being of unknown origin, who wishes to coerce the father into killing the boy. Apparently, the souls and, perhaps, special abilities of those killed in the building belong to the entity, and the Hotel believes that if it can harness the boy's "shining" (a recurring supernatural ability in the Stephen King universe coined for those individuals who simultaneously exhibit clairvoyant and psychic abilities), then it can gather enough power to "break free" of the building in which it has somehow become trapped.
Jack pursues Wendy, who knocks him out as he tries to kill her. She locks him up in a storage room, and realizes that she is stranded there at the hotel (Jack had cut off all radio communications and also sabotaged the hotel snowmobile, their only means of transport). Jack is later helped out of the food storage room by the ghost of the previous caretaker, who murdered his own family before committing suicide.
Jack then brutally attacks Wendy with a roque
mallet he found, although she escapes. He is interrupted with the arrival of Hallorann, whom he almost beats to death.
Jack finds and confronts Danny and is about to kill him when his son reaches through the hotel's power and redeems his father moments before the hotel's boiler explodes, demolishing the building. Wendy, Danny and Hallorann escape, but Jack dies inside.
Jack Torrance is portrayed in a less sympathetic manner in the 1980 film. In the novel Jack is a tragic hero
whose shortcomings lead to his defeat, while the film implies that he is insane from the start. It also omits his traumatic childhood.
The film's first major deviation from the source material occurs when Jack attacks Hallorann. Instead of merely injuring him with the mallet, Jack brutally kills Hallorann with an axe wound to the heart.
In the film, Jack hears Danny scream, and chases his son to a hedge maze outside the hotel (in the novel topiary
animals come to life and threaten Danny). Danny walks backwards in his own footprints to mislead Jack, then jumps to a side path and slips out of the maze. While Wendy and Danny escape the hotel in Hallorann's Snowcat, Jack gets lost trying to pick up Danny's tracks, sits down to rest, and quickly freezes to death.
While Jack redeems himself in the book, in the 1980 film, he succumbs to his demons and is ultimately damned (much to Stephen King's chagrin). The film ends featuring an old photograph of a dance at the hotel from the 1920s that shows Jack in the event.
Author Stephen King was unhappy with some liberties that the 1980s film director Stanley Kubrick
took with the novel, and decided to produce a three-part miniseries of his vision of the story. While well-received by King fans, it received mixed reviews from critics.
In King's film version, Jack Torrance is presented more sympathetically than in Kubrick's film. Torrance in the King miniseries is similar to the character in the novel, but the ending is changed. In the book, Jack redeems himself, and the boiler explodes due to the hotel's negligence. In the miniseries, Jack sacrifices himself by causing the boiler to explode in order to destroy the hotel.
The miniseries ends with a scene not in the book: Danny graduates from high school, while his spectral father looks on. It is revealed that Danny's imaginary friend "Tony" is, in fact, Danny from the future communicating with his past self, a point briefly touched upon in the book but totally omitted from the Kubrick film.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
, the antagonist
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
in the 1977 novel The Shining
The Shining (novel)
The Shining is a 1977 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The title was inspired by the John Lennon song "Instant Karma!", which contained the line "We all shine on…". It was King's third published novel, and first hardback bestseller, and the success of the book firmly established King...
by Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
. He was portrayed by Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
in the 1980 movie adaptation
The Shining (film)
The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson, and starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Danny Lloyd. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. A writer, Jack Torrance, takes a job as an...
of the novel, and by Steven Weber
Steven Weber (actor)
Steven Robert Weber is an American actor. He is best known for his role in the television show Wings which aired throughout the 1990s on NBC.-Early life:...
in the 1997 miniseries
The Shining (TV miniseries)
The Shining is a three-part television miniseries based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. Directed by Mick Garris from King's teleplay, the series was first aired in 1997.-Plot:...
. The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
rated the character (as played by Nicholson) the 25th greatest film villain of all time
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains is a list of the 100 greatest screen characters chosen by American Film Institute in June 2003. It is part of the AFI 100 Years… series. The series was first presented in a CBS special hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger...
. In 2008, Jack Torrance was selected by Empire Magazine as one of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters. Premiere Magazine also ranked Torrance on their list of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
In novel
University-preparatory school
A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
. Having given up drinking, he accepts a position maintaining the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado for the winter, in the hope this will salvage his family, re-establish his career, and give him the time and privacy to finish a promising play. He moves to the hotel with his wife, Wendy, and young son, Danny, who is telepathic and sensitive to supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
forces. Danny receives guidance from an imaginary friend he calls "Tony."
It is later revealed that Jack's father, also an alcoholic, was abusive towards his family. A flashback scene in the novel shows his father pretending to be drunk so as to brutally bash Jack's mother with a cane.
Danny finds out that the Overlook Hotel is haunted from cook Dick Hallorann, who is also psychic (in fact, it is he who coins the term "the shining" to describe the powers he and the boy possess) and who teaches Danny to use his gift to defend himself and his family from the evil forces at work in the old building. However, Jack succumbs to both cabin fever and his drinking problem, and allows the hotel to convince him to hate his own wife and child (in fact, a good part of Jack's insanity is caused by the hotel's demonic entity, which uses its supernatural powers to psychologically torture them). Jack has encounters with ghosts of previous staff of the hotel, who insist he had always been working there, and must kill his family so he can be promoted to a managerial position.
In fact, the Hotel is not only haunted by the ghosts of those who died violently within it, but the entire Hotel is itself host to a being of unknown origin, who wishes to coerce the father into killing the boy. Apparently, the souls and, perhaps, special abilities of those killed in the building belong to the entity, and the Hotel believes that if it can harness the boy's "shining" (a recurring supernatural ability in the Stephen King universe coined for those individuals who simultaneously exhibit clairvoyant and psychic abilities), then it can gather enough power to "break free" of the building in which it has somehow become trapped.
Jack pursues Wendy, who knocks him out as he tries to kill her. She locks him up in a storage room, and realizes that she is stranded there at the hotel (Jack had cut off all radio communications and also sabotaged the hotel snowmobile, their only means of transport). Jack is later helped out of the food storage room by the ghost of the previous caretaker, who murdered his own family before committing suicide.
Jack then brutally attacks Wendy with a roque
Roque
Roque is an American variant of croquet played on a hard, smooth surface. Popular in the first quarter of the 20th century and billed "the Game of the Century" by its enthusiasts, it was an Olympic sport in the 1904 Summer Games, replacing croquet from the previous games.-Roque court and...
mallet he found, although she escapes. He is interrupted with the arrival of Hallorann, whom he almost beats to death.
Jack finds and confronts Danny and is about to kill him when his son reaches through the hotel's power and redeems his father moments before the hotel's boiler explodes, demolishing the building. Wendy, Danny and Hallorann escape, but Jack dies inside.
In film
Tragic hero
A tragic hero is the main character in a tragedy. Tragic heroes appear in the dramatic works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Webster, Marston, Corneille, Racine, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Strindberg, and many other writers.-Aristotle's tragic hero:Aristotle...
whose shortcomings lead to his defeat, while the film implies that he is insane from the start. It also omits his traumatic childhood.
The film's first major deviation from the source material occurs when Jack attacks Hallorann. Instead of merely injuring him with the mallet, Jack brutally kills Hallorann with an axe wound to the heart.
In the film, Jack hears Danny scream, and chases his son to a hedge maze outside the hotel (in the novel topiary
Topiary
Topiary is the horticultural practice of training live perennial plants, by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, perhaps geometric or fanciful; and the term also refers to plants which have been shaped in this way. It can be...
animals come to life and threaten Danny). Danny walks backwards in his own footprints to mislead Jack, then jumps to a side path and slips out of the maze. While Wendy and Danny escape the hotel in Hallorann's Snowcat, Jack gets lost trying to pick up Danny's tracks, sits down to rest, and quickly freezes to death.
While Jack redeems himself in the book, in the 1980 film, he succumbs to his demons and is ultimately damned (much to Stephen King's chagrin). The film ends featuring an old photograph of a dance at the hotel from the 1920s that shows Jack in the event.
In the miniseries
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
took with the novel, and decided to produce a three-part miniseries of his vision of the story. While well-received by King fans, it received mixed reviews from critics.
In King's film version, Jack Torrance is presented more sympathetically than in Kubrick's film. Torrance in the King miniseries is similar to the character in the novel, but the ending is changed. In the book, Jack redeems himself, and the boiler explodes due to the hotel's negligence. In the miniseries, Jack sacrifices himself by causing the boiler to explode in order to destroy the hotel.
The miniseries ends with a scene not in the book: Danny graduates from high school, while his spectral father looks on. It is revealed that Danny's imaginary friend "Tony" is, in fact, Danny from the future communicating with his past self, a point briefly touched upon in the book but totally omitted from the Kubrick film.