The Consummate Nicholas and Stephen

“The Shining” is a widely known book and film written by Stephen King and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The two share a similar story plot, the main character Jack Torrance, is a writer and recovering alcoholic who accepts a new position as a caretaker of the Overlook Hotel and overtime he goes insane due to the hotel, leading him to attempt to murder his own family. Although they share the same plot, they are surprisingly different from one another. A few differences include how Jack is perceived, how Wendy (the wife of Jack) is perceived, and how many of the iconic scenes in the movie are not portrayed in the book.

The main character is a completely different person in the book compared to the film. King described Jack to appear as a common and plain man with a rough history of alcoholism, making the reader feel sympathy for him due to his past. He also made it appear as if Jack slowly went mad due to the hauntings going on in the hotel. The film, however, implies that Jack is prone to insanity right from the start, by leaving out his traumatic past and being played by an actor that brings a sense of unease to the character.

Most of the greatest iconic scenes in the movie are not in the book. For example, “The Shining” twins, the famous “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”, and “Here’s Johnny” were all not included in the Stephen King version of “The Shining”. Although the twins were not mentioned as a vision Danny (the son) saw in the book, the murder of the Grady family was revealed. In the movie, Jack never curing his writer’s block and writing, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”, thousands of times was a big sign to prove that he is insane in the movie, although it was never mentioned in the book.

Wendy, the wife of the main character, is also portrayed astonishingly different in each version. In the film, Wendy is perceived as gentle, submissive, nervous, and passive. The film version of the character spends a big part of the story on the verge of a breakdown, while the book’s version keeps calm (as calm as anyone can be in a situation like that, of course) and is much more independent and self-reliant. One of the biggest differences is that Wendy from the novel actually stands up to Jack, whereas the film version is quiet and constantly looks afraid to even talk to her husband – which is understandable given Jack’s personality in the film.