Analysis of The Shining by Stanley Kubrick

The shining depicts traditional gender roles and family life. Jack Torrance comes to the Overlook Hotel hoping to get the position of winter caretaker. He is in the company of his son Danny, and his wife Wendy. The guesthouse stands on an Indian burial ground. The manger, Stuart, notifies Jack that the former warden got cabin fever then murdered his family and ended his life. Jack Torrance is a white, hostile, heterosexual man. Jack is the typical archetype of hegemonic masculinity at the beginning of the movie. His character legitimizes males’ superior position in the society and justifies the subordination of women, in this case Wendy. During the movie, it becomes clear that features of Torrance’s virility, like being an author as well as an alcoholic end up in inquisitions of his machoism, he is therefore seen as relatively inferior.

Jack’s incapacity to sustain a solid job has caused him to become the custodian of the guesthouse just to satisfy his “manly tasks” of caring for his family. This suggests the ethnic supremacy of Whites over Blacks, even with the fact that Danny is a baby and Wendy is a woman, making the trio inferior to the White man. Such engagement of the actors illustrates that there are several ranks of inferiority among the crowd. Torrance walks over the guesthouse with the landlords, indicative of his supremacy and higher status as a white man. Remarkably, both Jack and Wendy are led outdoors to be shown the Snowcat. Ideally, from the patriarchal and hegemonic prospects, as a lady, Wendy normally would not have been acquainted with the virile, al fresco tool.

Torrance’s lost manhood becomes evident once more when Jack is referred to room 237 to explore the manifestation of the wild lady who injured Danny. The lovely, ladylike woman in the tub rapidly becomes an aged, deformed woman. Torrance flees the room and tells Wendy that nothing was there just to sustain his masculinity. The supportive role in the family is crucial in the movie as well. Wendy’s regular bullying of her husband’s manliness results in Torrance’s endeavour to restore his fatherly role and male supremacy. The way things stand in the movie patriarchy. There is also the monster that is what interrogates masculinity and male dominance. A lot of the features in the movie that question Torrance’s character as the leader has been deliberated.

This encompasses Danny’s part as the child who completes his father’s choice to take back complete control. It is evident that the ‘monster’ intimidates the current situation and to sustain the current situation, the monster has to be overcome. He went as far as detaching himself from his family. For Jack, nothing appeared meaningful or made sense any longer. Ideally, if anyone exists in their physical space whereby the space’s only existence is themselves; then gradually if not rapidly, life loses its meaning to them. During the start of the movie, we are presented with a vehicle heading to a remote hotel. The guesthouse in this film signifies a sense of isolation. There is also another side of humanity that flourishes.

For Jack Torrance, what began as a pure frustration became emphatic belligerence towards his family. He has a good side to him as well as an evil side that comes to light when he is intoxicated. The other theme in the film is detachment. Throughout the movie, the audience can sense a sort of detachment from reality. The phrase contains a vital link to the hotel, and the past times are reiterating. The guesthouse itself is full of unexplainable mystic goings-on that leads the audience and leaves them in an upsetting frame of mind. Solid, cryptic pictures become active through the characters; therefore, leaving them doubtful on what is real and what is simply a thought. The Structure The shinning by Stanley Kubrick is a movie-making work of art.

The director is a renowned master filmmaker, and he showcases his real style and builds a somewhat rare horror story within the movie. There are basically two types of repression: basic and surplus. The former enables people to live in a ‘normal’ way and cohabit with the rest. The latter is the practice of training people from their early childhood to assume set roles (Kubrick, 1980, p. as a result, surplus repression causes ambivalent outlooks towards the family. Jack instinctively dreams of success and high income, maybe of something new. The supernatural aspects separate the unknown and known and play on the viewer’s fears. From the beginning, it is implied that Torrance harnesses the option of being the movies’ major violent character.

There are momentary remarks on Jack’s past violent conduct as well as alcoholism. The viewers are cultured early enough to be afraid of Torrance and later becomes the movies main rogue where the audience might have assumed this role to be appropriate to the spirits of the hotel. Jack is a relatively skilled writer. Nonetheless, the selection of songs makes this moderately attractive image seem gloomy and terrifying and highlights the enormity of the environs which entirely override the characters. After this, the audience enters the hotel where the whole movie occurs. The ‘interview’ part is majorly a standard shot of two characters, i. e. Mr Ullman and Jack. The enormity and connectivity of the place aggravate the audience then causes a deceived feeling.

This might be an insight into Torrance’s mind. Jack has to work on his conflicting personalities. As the film starts, he is seen as a good and normal citizen who is a dependable husband and solid father. Jack is a former tutor and motivated writer. The lighting in the film is additionally rare of its genre; there is not much use of chiaroscuro illumination or shadows as the audience would think. The film does not give a cold, confined dim setting. There are exclusions to this though where the director conveys a somewhat customary method to horror illumination. For example, the traditional horror lighting can be perceived as soon as the audience sees Torrance in a silhouette throughout the climactic maze pursuit scene where the audience sees him as a frightening black figure.