The Shining and symbols

[amandap]

If anyone has ever read The Shining by Stephen King, I could use your help. I am reading the book for a paper in my world lit class and I have pretty much got it all figured out for the analyasis part of the paper. But I am still confused on a few things and what they mean....

The Behive: When Jack places the bee hive in Danny's room and during the night the bees come to life and start to sting him all over. And when Jack was a child, there was a bee hive outside his house that his dad smoked and killed all the bees.

Fire: The fire comes up a number of times in the last 100 pages. When Jack decides to let the boiler keep climbing in psi's and not let the steam out... there would be an explosion with fire. And then that night in Danny's dream, the Overlook catches on fire and his mom points out to him the hedge animals that are burned up. Then Jack comes out of the Overlook's front doors and is on fire.

Hedge Animals: When Jack is out in the garden alone, the hedge animals seem to come to life. I think that this is just King's way of showing us how he is starting to become more insane... but I could be wrong.

Thanks to anyone who can help!

 

[NerdzCo]

Okay...

Basically the bees that are in danny's room are meant to represent things never dying at the overlook hotel.

The Fire is more or less for the suspence.

The hedge animals represent again that the Hotel is in control... and that inanimate objects are not really inanimate.

Hope this helped

<http://nerdzco.tripod.com>

 

[JRakovan]

ok

the bees also represent things like Jack's alcoholism..ie something that he thinks is dead is not, comes back to life, harms his son....see?

Jack deciding to let the boiler climb in pressure is a fairly self explanatory metaphor...building pressure, again repressed things, ignored things come to the surface, explode

the animals...come alive in the isolation of the hotel..the animal or bestial impulses coming to life

pretty straight stuff, freudian understanding of id, ego , superego..jack is the ego, the ghostly person that talks to him is the id, the wife, janitor, etc are the superego, which jack loses touch with in isolation, the repressed id "comes to life"...all horror pretty much works on this principle..there are also elements of greek tragedy here, jack is the tragic hero, punished for his hubris to 'uncover that which is divine" i.e. the secrets of the hotel, the act of creation itself...the spirits of the hotel act as furies, punishing jack for his over reaching, we experience catharsis as readers watching jack destroy himself, isolate himself first form society in the hotel, then later from his family

 

[rghale]

didja

did you ever think that it might be totally entertainment...? could it possibly be that an artist painted a picture that you enjoyed looking at, only because it was beautiful...does it really need explanation or is it truly what it seems to be? just a story.

 

[rghale]

didja

btw "elementary my dear watson, elementary." the simplest explanation is usually the right explanation...:lol:

 

[Anamnesis]

Of all the threads to bring back . . .

I wonder if she ever finished her paper.

 

[Bacherries]

Just a story or a complicated discourse of symbolic references and hidden meaning - its brilliant either way.