1. IT’S ABOUT DEALING WITH CHILDHOOD TRAUMA!
Maybe The Shining is simply about dealing with abuse and repressed memories. This may be the simplest and most direct reading of the film, and it gains even more traction when you know what King’s new book, Doctor Sleep, is about. It all comes down to breaking patterns (of, say, abuse) by moving backwards. A deleted scene from the movie revealed that Jack had come home drunk once and dislocated Danny’s shoulder. This gave the boy more reason to fear his dad than just the whole, you know, raging psychosis thing.
Danny also closes his eyes to make the horrific visions, like the blood in the elevator, go away. Which is kinda like repressing them. Plus, ultimately he’s only able to escape his father by literally backtracking over his own footprints in the maze at the end of the film.
