THE MIND IS THE SMALLEST PRISON OF ALL

Note that when Torrance is locked inside the kitchen locker, you never actually see the door locked, you only hear a sliding bolt. However, given Wendy�s inability to negotiate the unlocking of the door, there is no guarantee that she actually locked the door.

The conversation between Grady and Torrance may not actually have happened. You never see Grady on the other side of the door, and only hear the sound of something that could be a sliding bolt. In fact, bar the bruises on Danny�s neck, again which are never seen to be inflicted by anything but only implicated, everything the hotel does to influence the outcome is can be seen as purely psychological. Even at the stage where there appears to be no other explanation other than the intervention of the spirits of The Overlook in releasing Jack, its never conclusively seen that Jack is locked in, and given Wendy�s difficulty in opening the lock, it�s equally possible that the door was never locked. Nothing perpetrated by The Overlook that is seen in The Shining is conclusively real - it could all be psychological, inside the smallest prison of all : the mind.

After Torrances release, note that instead of using the Roque Mallet as described in the book, Jack now uses an axe. An alternate word for a small axe is a hatchet. Here Jack, as a failed writer, is performing a hack job and literally burying the hatchet.