The Shining | Social Concerns

The Shining Social Concerns

The Shining, Stephen King's third published novel, avoids the sweeping social concerns manifest in such apocalyptic visions as The Stand (1990) and The Mist (1985), or even the more limited examination of society's treatment of the "outsider" figure prevalent in so much of his fiction from Carrie (1974) onward. Despite its powerful supernatural elements, careful readers of this novel have long noted that a great deal of its core interest lies in its examination of a family attempting to function under conditions of extreme stress, and, perhaps most particularly, in the manner in which it depicts the gradual and ultimately total disintegration of its central character, Jack Torrance.

Within this context, a number of motifs common to King's depiction of parent-child relationships in a great many of his works, in particular alcoholism, child abuse, obsessive behavior of one sort or another, and destructive guilt, are strongly evident in...
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