| “ | Here’s Johnny! | ” |
— Jack Torrance, to Wendy Torrance
| ||
Jack Torrance is the main antagonist of the The Shining franchise. He was a winter caretaker at the Overlook Hotel and an author until his death. He was formally a teacher also.
Biography[]
The Shining (book)[]
Personality & Appearance[]
In the novel, Jack Torrance is a loving but troubled father who cares deeply for Wendy and Danny but does not know how to show it properly. Jack's alcoholism and violent temper had lost him a job as a teacher of literature at a prestigious New England prep school.
The only defining attributes that are touched on in the novel is Jack’s longer hair, and reddish blonde color. He is also described as being “moderately tall”. He looks the same in the Doctor Sleep novel.
Background[]
Jack grew up in a middle-class catholic setting on the United States East Coast. Although Jack's father, Mark Torrance, was mentally and physically abusive towards every member of his family throughout Jack's childhood, Jack seemed to have developed a love for the earlier years of their relationship. He saw his father's loud arrivals home as a means to break the silence, and would bond with him in spite of the abuse. However, this affection would end at age 09 after Mark's treatment towards his wife left her concussed and hospitalized.
Jack's siblings despised their father for his abuse. While they also despised the role their mother's devout Catholicism played in convincing her to stay with him, Jack developed a hatred for her specifically for her meek, pitiful appearance. This trait would develop into a deep misogyny as Jack grew older, despising women for appearing weak, while also detesting his wife whenever she would stand up for herself. When he was 7, he got spanked by his neighbor, which grew his hatred of some women.
Growing up, Jack would take his domestic abuse out on his classmates and animals. Jack got good grades in school, but often underwent punishment for lashing out and fighting other kids. He would eventually go to college and meets and later marries Wendy Torrance, they would have a kid named Danny Torrance a year later. Jack had a motorcycle when they met. After developing a liking for alcohol, his taste grew into full alcoholism in his 20s. Eventually, the only incident truly capable of shocking Jack into quitting drinking is an incident in which he harmed his son, Danny, during one of his binges. This set a difference between Jack and his father, as Jack truly regretted any instance of abuse towards his son, and held a small level of understanding of his own problems. Apart from the injury, Jack and Danny held a good relationship similar to the relationship Jack believed he had with his father earlier in his childhood.
Sometime after college, he got a job as an English teacher. Leading up to his firing from the school, Jack had a brief sexual encounter with a student teacher Sandy Reynolds at a party that led to Lucy's conception. He was also debate team coach whose alcoholism and volatile temper costs him his teaching position at Stovington Preparatory School, when he assaults George Hatfield, a student and former member of the debate team, whom he catches vandalizing his car because Jack cut him off from the team due to his stuttering issues, he only regaining his senses after he seriously injures the boy. The school board of trustees decides to suspend Jack until they can figure out how to proceed. Jack's closest friend, fellow recovering alcoholic Al Shockley, gives Jack the opportunity to become the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel during the off-season so he could make a recovery and return to the school and prove he was ready to teach again.
Main Events[]
The Shining (film)[]
Personality & Appearance[]
Unlike his more sympathetic literary counterpart, Jack is almost a threat and unsympathetic character right from the very start. He has a disturbing and unsettling demeanor even when he was simply applying for the job as a caretaker in Stuart Ullman's office. It's also revealed early on in the film that he broke Danny's arm when he was younger, and Jack acts as though it never happened.
In the film, Jack is 5 foot 11. He is about 12 years older than in the book, and has a receding hairline and brown hair. He looks the same in the Doctor Sleep film.
Background[]
Jack grew up in a middle-class catholic setting on the United States East Coast. Although Jack's father, Mark Torrance, was mentally and physically abusive towards every member of his family throughout Jack's childhood, Jack seemed to have developed a love for the earlier years of their relationship. He saw his father's loud arrivals home as a means to break the silence, and would bond with him in spite of the abuse. However, this affection would end at age 7 after Mark's treatment towards his wife left her concussed and hospitalized. Jack's siblings despised their father for his abuse. While they also despised the role their mother's devout Catholicism played in convincing her to stay with him, Jack developed a hatred for her specifically for her meek, pitiful appearance. This trait would develop into a deep misogyny as Jack grew older, despising women for appearing weak, while also detesting his wife whenever she would stand up for herself. When he was 7, he got spanked by his neighbor, which grew his hatred of some women.
Growing up, Jack would take his domestic abuse out on his classmates and animals. Jack got good grades in school, but often underwent punishment for lashing out and fighting other kids. He would eventually go to college and most likely meets Wendy and they move in together after her mom kicks her out and have a kid, Danny. After developing a liking for alcohol, his taste grew into full alcoholism in his late 20s.
Sometime after college, he would get a job as an English teacher. Leading up to his firing from the school, he was also debate team coach whose alcoholism and volatile temper costs him his teaching position at Stovington Preparatory School, when he assaults George Hatfield, a student and former member of the debate team, whom he catches vandalizing his car.
Eventually, the only incident truly capable of shocking Jack into quitting drinking is an incident in which he harmed his son, Danny, during one of his binges. He also did rehab before or after the incident. This set a difference between Jack and his father, as Jack truly regretted any instance of abuse towards his son, and held a small level of understanding of his own problems. Apart from the injury, Jack and Danny held a good relationship similar to the relationship Jack believed he had with his father earlier in his childhood.
Main Events[]
Jack was a writer who accepted the job of the 1980-1981 winter caretaker for the Overlook Hotel. On October 29, Jack arrives for an interview with manager, Stuart Ullman and on-season caretaker, Bill Watson, they talk about the job and what it holds, Jack takes the job despite being informed of the building's grisly past and reputation as a cursed place (which he shrugged off as a superstition). Back at the Torrance’s home, Danny (Jack’s son) has ESP and has had a terrifying premonition about the hotel through Tony, Danny also ask’s Tony if Jack got the job (which he does), Danny then passes out. Jack then calls up Wendy (Jack’s wife) to tell her about the job. After what happens to Danny, she calls a home doctor to talk to Danny. After the doctor ends the chat with Dan, she and Wendy sit on the couch to chat. She tells the doctor about a past incident when Jack dislocated Danny's shoulder during a drunken rage. The incident convinced Jack to stop drinking alcohol.
Jack eventually takes his wife Wendy and son Danny with him to the hotel and thought that the solitude of the place would help inspire him in his writing as well. On closing day, the family gets a tour around the hotel. Once they meet the the head chef, Dick Hallorann, Jack let’s Dick take Wendy and Danny to explore the kitchen while he keeps on going with Ullman and Watson. Eventually, they all meet together and Dick takes Danny while his parents go to check out more locations.
One day in late November, he is awoken by Wendy, giving him a late breakfast. Later, he shows his first sign of going insane about a month after his application when he verbally abuses his wife Wendy for "distracting" him from his work. She walks away and continues to write.
Not long after, Danny has communicated with him about their experiences in the hotel. Danny uses his Shining ability to tell that Jack wants to hurt both him and his mother, implying that Jack has already gone insane.
2 days later, he has one of his more sympathetic moments in the film when he has a nightmare about killing Wendy and Danny, before waking up, screaming and crying about it to Wendy. However, when a silent Danny walks in on and reveals the neck injury that he received from the old woman in Room 237, Wendy accuses Jack of abusing his son again. Jack is surprised and confused by this.
Jack bitterly goes downstairs to the Hotel's abandoned pub to brood about his family, whispering to himself that he'd sell his "goddamned soul" for a glass of beer. Not long after this, Lloyd the Bartender mysteriously appears (implying the Overlook Hotel may have taken up Jack's deal) and offers Jack fine alcohol on the house. Jack accepts the bourbon, breaking the alcohol abstinence he had been taking for the past few months. Lloyd and Jack act as if they've known each other for years, as the latter tells Lloyd that he's not happy with both his family and his life, and claims that he injured Danny's arm three years ago, whereas Wendy claimed that it was only five months ago. This implies that this wasn't the first or last time that Jack injured Danny or Jack lied to make himself look better. Wendy comes in and immediately apologizes for accusing him and immediately tells him about the woman in Room 237. He calls her crazy instead of accepting the apology before she makes herself serious. Dick Hallorann sees what happens next, using the shining. Jack then checks the room where he finds a beautiful woman in the bathtub. With a sinister grin on his face, he lustfully embraces the woman as she seduces him and they start kissing, blatantly cheating on his wife, before discovering that the beautiful woman is actually the ghost of a hideously deformed old lady. In shock, he escapes the room as the ghost cackles wickedly. Dick Hallorann, knowing something really bad is about to happen, he tries to get to the hotel in a period of a day.
When Jack gets back, he lies to his wife about not seeing anyone in the room, in order to cover up his tracks, claiming that Danny injured himself. When she asks for them to leave the hotel, he berates and insults her, claiming that he absolutely refuses to leave the hotel before storming off in a rage. When he returns to the Gold Room, it's now filled with ghosts before reuniting with Lloyd and asking for a drink. He starts exploring the place before a waiter accidentally spills lemonade all over him. The waiter apologizes and takes Jack to the bathroom to clean him up. There, they have a friendly conversation, before Jack recognizes him as Charles/Delbert Grady, the previous caretaker, and reminds him of what he did. Grady then claims that he "corrected" his family and that Jack needs to "correct" his. Jack is then seduced by the hotel, he willingly agrees to kill his family. First breaking the radio, then the snowcat.
When Wendy goes on to check up on him (with a bat) after the Room 237 incident, she walks in the Colorado lounge and discoverers the screenplay for a play he was writing, noticing all he’s been writing the entire time was the phrase “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. He then appears stalking Wendy up to the stairs, threatening her, until she hits him with the bat down the stairs, knocking him down. After Jack unsuccessfully attempts to murder Wendy, she locks him in the pantry for her and her son's safety.
He's quickly let out though by the spirits and gleefully attempts to kill his wife and son with his iconic axe. Later, Wendy is asleep when Danny (as Tony) writes "REDRUM" in lipstick on the bathroom door. When Wendy wakes up and sees this in the bedroom mirror, the letters spell out "MURDER". Then she hears Jack breaks down the door for there caretakers room, Wendy and Danny hide in the bathroom, she opens the window to get them free from the hotel, only Danny can fit through it so she is stuck. When Jack successfully gets in, he stalks his way to the bathroom. Jack then starts chopping down the bathroom door with the axe and leers through the hole he has made, yelling the iconic "HERE’S JOHNNY!", but retreats after Wendy slashes his hand with a butcher knife. Hearing the engine of a Snowcat that Hallorann has borrowed to get up the mountain, Jack leaves the room and begins to wander about the hotel, he murders him with the axe. He then chases Danny around the hotel until they make it outside.
The film ends by featuring an old photograph of a ball at the hotel from July 4, 1921, that shows Jack at the event. What does this exactly mean is beyond anyone's speculation and is likely up for the viewer to think about.
The Shining (miniseries)[]
Personality & Appearance[]
Like the book, in the miniseries, Jack Torrance is a loving but troubled father who cares deeply for Wendy and Danny but does not know how to show it properly. Jack's alcoholism and violent temper had lost him a job as a teacher of literature at a prestigious New England prep school.
In the miniseries, Jack is taller (abt. 6 foot 3) and skinnier. He has wavy dark blonde hair. He is also about 5 years older than in the book.
Background[]
Jack grew up in a middle-class catholic setting on the United States East Coast. Although Jack's father, Mark Torrance, was mentally and physically abusive towards every member of his family throughout Jack's childhood, Jack seemed to have developed a love for the earlier years of their relationship. He saw his father's loud arrivals home as a means to break the silence, and would bond with him in spite of the abuse. However, this affection would end at age 7 after Mark's treatment towards his wife left her concussed and hospitalized.
Jack's siblings despised their father for his abuse. While they also despised the role their mother's devout Catholicism played in convincing her to stay with him, Jack developed a hatred for her specifically for her meek, pitiful appearance. This trait would develop into a deep misogyny as Jack grew older, despising women for appearing weak, while also detesting his wife whenever she would stand up for herself.
Growing up, Jack would take his domestic abuse out on his classmates and animals. Jack got good grades in school, but often underwent punishment for lashing out and fighting other kids.
After developing a liking for alcohol, his taste grew into full alcoholism in his 20s. Leading up to his firing from the school, Jack had a brief sexual encounter with a student teacher Sandy Reynolds at a party that led to Lucy's conception. He was also debate team coach whose alcoholism and volatile temper costs him his teaching position at Stovington Preparatory School, when he assaults George Hatfield, a student and former member of the debate team, whom he catches vandalizing his car.
Eventually, the only incident truly capable of shocking Jack into quitting drinking is an incident in which he harmed his son, Danny, during one of his binges. This set a difference between Jack and his father, as Jack truly regretted any instance of abuse towards his son, and held a small level of understanding of his own problems. Apart from the injury, Jack and Danny held a good relationship similar to the relationship Jack believed he had with his father earlier in his childhood.
Main Events[]
Doctor Sleep (book)[]
Jack appears in the novel Doctor Sleep, in which his son Danny (now going by Dan) learns that Jack is also the biological father of Lucy Stone, a woman whose daughter Abra has manifested “shining” abilities even stronger than Dan's. Shortly before he was fired from his teaching position, and unbeknownst to Wendy, Jack had a brief sexual encounter with a student teacher Sandy Reynolds at a party that led to Lucy's conception. Dan is thus Lucy's half-brother and Abra's half-uncle. He learns through Concetta Reynolds.
In the climax, Jack's ghost intervenes to help Dan's friend Billy Freeman, and Lucy and Abra Stone defeat Rose the Hat and the True Knot, at the site where the Overlook once stood, now called 'Bluebell Campgrounds'. After the battle, Jack and Dan make peace with each other before he, Billy, and Abra leave the location.
Doctor Sleep (film)[]
Death[]
The Shining (book)[]
On the third-floor, Jack finds and confronts Danny, and is about to kill him when his son reaches through the hotel's power and brings out his father's true self. Jack tells Danny to run and remember how much he loves him, before the hotel's power takes over again and forces Jack to bash in his own face with the mallet, killing him. Jack had forgotten to dump the boiler, which grows too hot and causes the hotel to explode. The spirit is killed, but Danny, Wendy and Hallorann get out just in time.
Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980)[]
During a fearsome manhunt, he maniacally and gleefully chases Danny with his axe through the snowy maze until Danny outsmarts him by leaving a false trail, allowing him and his mother to escape. As he stumbles around in the maze, all Jack can do is scream and yell incomprehensible gibberish, showing just how far his mental state has degraded. Jack is ultimately left to freeze to death in the giant maze outside the hotel, clearly having gone way too far to redeem himself.
The Shining (miniseries)[]
Murders committed by Jack Torrance[]
The Shining (1980)[]
- Dick Hallorann - Stabbed in the chest by Jack with an axe.
Appearances[]
- The Shining (book)
- The Shining (film)
- The Shining (miniseries)
- Doctor Sleep (book)
- Doctor Sleep (film)
Trivia[]
- Stephen King never liked the 1980 movie. His dislike for the movie was used in Ready Player One where the protagonists have to find the answer to the riddle "a creator who hates his own creation".
- In the novel, Jack gets redemption and burns the Overlook Hotel down, in the 1980 film, Jack doesn't get redemption, he simply freezes to death in the hedge maze while attempting to kill his son Danny. Dying as a monster.
- Jack is currently the only Stephen King villain to be both the protagonist and antagonist.
- Unlike the novel, Jack's full name John Daniel Edward Torrance is never mentioned in the film series, and is only known as John Torrance.
- Jack's role was solely switched as the main antagonist of The Shining film, since he was giving more depth than the Overlook Hotel.
- It is possible that Jack could've also had psychic abilities that were repressed alongside the abuse he endured early in his childhood.
- Jack makes a brief cameo appearance in the film Ready Player One, in The Shining level, as he is chasing Aech. However, Jack is seen backward as his face isn't seen at all.
- In the sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep, it was revealed that during his days as an English professor, Jack Torrance had an affair with a student and she had a daughter named Lucy. Lucy would go on to have a daughter of her own named Abra, who possessed a more potent version of the Shining. That would make Jack Abra's grandfather, and Danny Lucy's half-brother (and therefore Abra's uncle). His ghost would appear briefly to assist his granddaughter in the climax.
- In The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror 5, there is a parody of The Shining titled The Shinning where Homer is driven insane after Mr. Burns and Waylon Smithers cut off the beer supply and Cable TV, causing him to attempt to kill his family. His wife, Marge poses as Wendy Torrance, his son Bart poses as Danny Torrance (who possesses an ability called the Shinning) and Groundskeeper Willie poses as Dick Halloran. This episode was dubbed as the scariest Simpsqqqaa!waw2 21stons Halloween Special.
| Characters | |
| Main | Jack Torrance • Wendy Torrance • Danny Torrance • Stuart Ullman • Dick Hallorann |
| Minor | Albert Shockley • Bill Watson • Delbert Grady • Doctor • Grady Twins • Horace M. Derwent • Jack's Mother • Lorraine Massey • Mark Torrance • Robert Townley Watson • Roger • Suzie • Tony • List of characters in The Shining (book) |
| Doctor Sleep | Abra Stone • Concetta Reynolds • Lucy Stone • Sandy Reynolds |
| Other | Andrew Pomeroy (Misery) |
| Category:Characters | |