The Shining by Stephen King

Violence, drug addiction, abuse, and alcohol. These are some traits needed for a book to be banned in a country. In the book “The Shining” by Stephen king, is about a character name Jack Torrence who has taken up a job as a winter caretaker after being fired from his last job.  After Jack is accept and hired for the job, him his wife Wendy, and his son Danny all move to Colorado. While they are in the hotel many paranormal activity starts to happen leading to Danny to realize that he has the “shining” and also leads Jack into insanity. While this book deals with a lot of bad things like alcohol, abuse, and insanity, I still believe that this book should not be banned.

Let us begin with Jack Torrence. Jack is a loving father who wants the best for his family. But when he starts to work for the hotel in Colorado, he begins to lose his mind. But Jack also has some skeletons in his closet. “He had whirled Danny around to spank him, his big adult fingers digging into the scant meat of the boys forearm, meeting around it in a closed fist and the snap of the breaking bone had not been loud, but it had been very loud, huge, but not loud” this quote from the book explains how Jack broke his son’s arm because he dropped jacks drink on his papers. But it wasn’t any type of drink it was alcohol because Jack was an alcoholic while this was happening.  Another one of Jacks skeletons is the reason why he was fired in the first place. “Your daddy hit George to make him stop cutting the tires and George hit his head. Then the men who are in charge of the school, said George couldn’t go anymore and your dad couldn’t teach anymore” the reason why he was fired is because he hit a kid for slashing his tires and jack didn’t have to react like this. But when Jack explains this, he says that he doesn’t remember much but he does remember smiling and putting his fist up before hitting George.

If you couldn’t tell before jack has a low temper but his temper is made even lower when he used to be an alcoholic. “They came around the last curve before the bridge at Serenty, there was a kid’s bike in the road, and then the sharp, hurt squealing as rubber shredded from the jags tires, and jack remembered seeing Al’s face looming over the steering wheel like a round white moon. Then the jingling crashing noise as they hit the bike at forty…”this quote from the book talks about the night that Jack and Al had both very drunk and while they were drunk driving, hit a kid’s bike. Jack also goes on to say that when they got out of the car they didn’t see a kid but just saw the bike and the both questioned why there was a bike in the middle of the road. Jack had a problem and didn’t realize it until that night and because of alcohol jack said that he would miss class or come into class reeking of alcohol unshaven. These are just some reasons why Jack and his wife Wendy relationship started to crumble. Jack explains that because of him being an alcoholic and coming home late reeking of alcohol and missing work had caused him and his wife to split.

Insanity could be another reason why this could have been banned. For example jack believes that he is talking to a bartender while really he’s talking to a ghost in the hotel. “So here’s what. Jack said you set me up an even twenty martinis. An even twenty, just like that, kazang. One for every month I’ve been on the wagon and one to grow on. You can do that, can’t you? You aren’t busy? Lloyd said he wasn’t at all”. Also while jack is in the office of the hotel, he starts to hear is dad’s voice come out the radio. The book said “Kill him, you have to kill him, Jacky her too. Because a real artist must suffer, because each man kills the thing he loves. Because they’ll always be conspiring against you”. This quote is important because it shows you why this book could be banned.  Because Jacks dead father is telling him to kill his family because they’ll always conspire against you which eventually tries to do when he goes insane.

I believe that no books should be banned because they can’t cause you harm at all. It’s the way you process the book and think about it because people have a lot of different perspectives of books they read and there messages. Though this book deals with a lot of violence, abuse, insanity, and alcohol, I don’t believe that this book should be banned because like I said before this book doesn’t harm you at all. You can harm yourself the way you think about the story.