How It All Goes Down
Jack
- Jack is eating crackers and feeling that he's reached a low point.
- He'll need some nutrition to punish Wendy and Danny.
- Wendy has really betrayed him. She's made Danny lose trust in him; she's tried to kill him; and now this.
- A small piece of him thinks that the real issue here is the alcohol, and where it came from.
- He tells himself that when he drinks, he "lose[s] [his] wits" (48.11).
- When he looks at his watch and realizes how long Wendy has had him locked up in here, "He could begin to sympathize with his father" (48.13).
- His mother had been a lifeless woman, a burden to his father all along. She had trapped him in marriage and kept him prisoner.
- It was his father who supported the burden of his mother, and of the three kids. But, his father had taught them "respect" and "discipline" (48.14).
- None of them appreciated it, not even Jack, and this is why Jack is being punished now.
- Now he understands that it wasn't alcohol that made his father cane his mother. Nope, it was just his father punishing his mother for her "disrespect" (48.17).
- He wonders what exactly she'd done to provoke him.
- When he is free from the pantry, he'll punish Wendy properly.
- He starts shouting threats again, but then he hears Grady outside the pantry door.
- Jack tells Grady he'll "take care of them" if Grady releases him.
- Grady wants Jack to promise he'll deliver Danny to the Overlook, and "kill" (48.40) Wendy.
- Jack promises. Grady unlocks the door.
- When Jack opens the door, Grady is no longer in the kitchen.
- Someone has left something for Jack in the kitchen: "a martini glass, a fifth of gin, and a dish of olives" (48.50), and— a roque mallet.
- Jack picks it up and begins trying it out in an extremely violent manner.
- And now he's smiling.