The Hanging By Stephen King

The human world is a construct, created through man’s manipulation of his environment. It is a world of action, inspired by an unrestricted imagination limited to total human connections. Literature is the language of the imagination. While it is also identified, by Northrop Frye, to be like the human world as it is not just what a human sees, but what a human does with what he sees that makes it human in shape. Literature, in all its forms including as a movie or show, is human in shape because it is carved by the experiences, interests, and the imaginations of its creator.
In 1974, Stephen King used his experience at an old remote American hotel to create the setting of one of his most popular books, The Shining. Stephen King changed the …show more content…
When King began to write The Shining, the United States was in the middle of their 1973-35 recession. Utilizing the desperate and frustrated sentiments of the many jobless man within this period, King builds a situation that forces John Torrance, an English professor who has lost his job to become a caretaker at the Overlook hotel. King also uses the prominent anxious, cynical and suspicious sentiments among the American people towards individuals of authority to create a situation where a man begins to question everyone, including his family, believing their intentions are malicious and restrictive of his personal freedoms. John Torrance embodies the worst of these public sentiments of the 70s within the final aspects of his life. He slowly becomes extremely paranoid due to the suggestions of the hotel’s ghosts, and his renewed interest in drinking. John Torrance eventually becomes delusional and maniacal due to his belief that his family doesn’t want to be happy and is trying to separate him from what he loves, writing and the Overlook hotel. He claims that Wendy and Danny were “planning” ways to cause his downfall and that she was a “liar” for denying it (King [415]). King once again exaggerated the severity of a situation, the effects of public distrust, to create a scenario that adds to the tense and terrifying tones within the book. The progressive and regressive side of social issues, such as racism and sexism within the 1970s are also included within The Shining. For example, the ghostly inhabitants of the hotel and John Torrance blatantly refer to Dick Hallorann as “the nigger” (King[468]). While Danny, a child born in the 1970s, sees Dick as someone he considers to be his friend. This change in generational perspective regarding race was