One of the strangest and most intriguing scenes, both in Stanley Kubrick’s film
adaptation and in Stephen King’s novel "The Shining", is the one in which the
ghost of a man dressed as a bear (a dog in the novel) appears to Wendy near the
end of the story. This scene may conceal a meaning far darker than it seems.
The scene.
The movie "bear" scene.
About 2 hours and 9 minutes into the film, Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall)
wanders through the hallways of The Overlook Hotel with a knife when she
approaches a door at the end of a long hallway. Inside, a man dressed as a
bear is performing oral sex on one of the Overlook’s guests. Wendy seems
completely disturbed by this and runs away.
The book "bear" scene.
While the film focuses on briefly showing a suggestive scene of intimacy
between the two men, the book describes a simpler interaction in which Wendy
encounters a man dressed as a dog in one of the hotel hallways, who barks at
her and teases her in a deranged manner.
However, the book provides a brief overview of both men's lives.
In the book, the man in the elegant suit is actually Horace Derwent, the
mysterious owner of the Overlook Hotel, and the man in disguise is Roger, a
former lover of his. The novel presents Roger and Horace’s story as an example
of the atrocities that have occurred at the hotel; in a cruel act of
domination, Horace ordered Roger to attend one of the hotel’s balls in the
costume and behave like a dog to amuse the other guests. After suffering that
public humiliation, Roger committed suicide at the hotel, and his spirit
became trapped in the Overlook.
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| "The Shining" first edition. |
The "bear" meaning.
Although it is officially known that Stanley Kubrick, the film’s director,
presented this change in the sequence as an “unsolved mystery” in order to
heighten the film’s tension, Kubrick’s films are known for leaving clues and
foreshadowing, as well as hints that carry some deeper meaning, usually tied
to psychological conditions, phenomena, or theories.
The most widely discussed and accurate theory regarding the strange bear sequence in “The Shining” (primarily distributed by Rob Ager) is that it is
actually a metaphor for child sexual abuse.
Evidence of sexual abuse.
During the scene in which Danny talks to his psychiatrist, he is lying on top
of teddy bears. At the Overlook Hotel, there is a picture of two bears above
Danny’s bed, and there is a prominent bearskin rug in the lobby. We can also
see teddy bears in a couple of scenes in the movie. This creates a clear
association between bears and Danny Torrance.
At the beginning of the film, the issue of "Playgirl" magazine that Jack
Torrance is reading in one scene features an article titled “Incest: Why
Parents Sleep With Their Children” on the cover. Connecting the dots, the bear
man from "The Shining" and his companion could be stand-ins for Danny and
Jack.
Danny's experience in Room 237 occurs when a ball rolls into the room, and
Wendy rushes to his rescue after hearing him scream that a “crazy woman” was
choking him. Room 237 is known to be haunted by a female spirit, as mentioned
when Jack encounters a woman in the bathroom. This suggests that Danny’s
experience in Room 237 was his way of externalizing his abuse and that it was
his father who assaulted him. The ball itself appears in another scene with
Jack throwing it against a wall in the hotel lobby.
The theory suggests that, inside the room, Jack comes face to face with the
truth of what he has been doing to Danny after having been in a dissociative
state, previously unaware of his own horrific actions. All of this aligns with
Wendy’s horrified reaction upon seeing the bear man in the hallway, realizing
at that moment what was happening to Danny in the film.
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