THE SYMMETRY OF THE SHINING

The use of mirrors are very important in this film as they reflect the duality of personality. Symmetry, reflections, mirrors, and dual personalities dominate this film.

Through the use of a shot of Danny and Dick, it is then unclear exactly what we are experiencing when we see the panning shot entering Room 237. Given that previous use of pans have been to indicate / suggest the hotel following and observing, we then see that whomever it is, is actually venturing to meet the hotel instead of being persued by it instead.

The hand we see is unclear, but directly echoes Kubricks �Lolita�, in which a man is seduced by something equally beautiful and comfortable, and brought to ruin by the consequences. The ambiguity is clarified by the next shot, where we see a seemingly regressing Jack almost in awe of a naked woman. His grin extends to almost cartoonish qualities, as he regresses further. The link between Danny and Jack is clear. - Since we do not know whom it is who is exploring the room at the begining of the scene, we are not surprised by seeing Jack or Danny. Jack then approaches Danny�s childlike state of wonder when confronted by a naked woman. Danny is lured by a ball and assaulted by something. Jack is lured by sex, and also assaulted.

The identity of the woman in the bath is never made clear. However in the novel, the woman in the bath is shown to be that of an old, rich lady, who had taken her young lover to the hotel to relive her vanishing youth. Abandoned by her lover, she committed suicide in the bathtub she may now use to lure Jack. It is only by looking in the mirror that Jack sees the true side, the reverse face of this naked temptress : a rotten, dead woman with clumps of putrid meat falling from her sides.

Jack is further seen to regress into a childlike / inhuman / inarticulate state. He is unable to say anything or respond, except to grunt in an animal fashion and cower in terror. At the same time, the hotel, which often manipulates Jack, is equally inarticulate. The old lady, personifying the hotel, can do nothing but cackle. Again, with the lady in Room 237, we see the dual/mirror imagery Kubrick employs throughout the film. He only sees the true side of the hotel through looking in the mirror. The beautiful exterior, the vile reality. Akin at all points then, to the opulent decadent riches and comfort of the hotel, and its repugnant true personality.

This shot, that of a man involved in an embrace with the forbidden whilst being watched through glass by another, is taken directly from Kubrick�s �Lolita� : in which Humbert is in bed with Charlotte while looking at a picture of the younger Lolita over Charlotte's shoulder - a shot which caused great controversy when Lolita was released in 1962. In �The Shining�, Jack kisses the naked woman in the bathroom, then sees her older, decomposing reality in the mirror over he shoulder.

Reality is always looking over your shoulder, haunting the things you see and the things you think you see. Upon Jacks return to the family bedroom, he pretends he saw nothing. To do so would be to admit that this �dream home� where Jack feels so comfortable is nothing but a prison - and a troubled, threatening one at that. Jack, knowing that to admit the reality of his situation is to admit that he is deluding himself prefers to live in a state of denial. With his eyes wide shut.