Character Analysis Of Wendy In The Film 'The Shining'

In the film ‘The Shining’, Shelly Duvall plays the character ‘Wendy’ the stereotypical ‘woman in distress’ and a rather quite sexist outlook on women.

In the beginning of the film, the way Jack behaved towards wendy already showed that he had some sort of resentment towards Wendy, some sort of grudge he was holding against her, “As long as I live, she’ll never let me forget what happened.” Wendy’s character plays the nurturing mother, a ‘good’ wife that fixes things around the hotel like a typical housewife would. This whole ‘typical’ female role as a wife and mother is considered ‘ideological’ and it is semiotic to the male dominated society nowadays. She does jobs that is actually Jack’s job position to do so, like like a scene where she

This already shows the audience that she is more capable of being strong and independent without her husband dominating her. What gives the concept that the hotel they are staying at is isolated is the high string intense music that plays throughout selected scenes in the film like when Wendy is trying to run away from Jack while he tries to find and kill her, there is nobody around and she is alone to defend herself, there is high intense string music playing. In the scene where Jack’s unpredictability shows is when he yells at her, seeming to blame her for something that is entirely black and white, his fault. He says “do you have the SLIGHTEST IDEA, what a MORAL AND ETHICAL PRINCIPLE IS, DO YOU? Has it ever occurred to you what would happen to my future, if I were to fail to live up to my responsibilities? Has it ever occurred to you? HAS IT?.” At this point, yes, Wendy is crying and evidently petrified but being brave does not mean you can’t also be scared. This scene uses a low angle shot, she is on a higher step of the stairs holding a bat and Jack is a step lower, this shot makes Wendy appear as more heroic and dominant. This scene shows how Wendy is finally showing courage and assertiveness as shown in the photo

This brings a sense of relief because if you think about it, not many films allow the female character to save themselves without the help of another male ‘hero’. In the film ‘The Shining’ instead of the women dying, it is Jack who is found frozen, trapped in a maze. Throughout the film Jack seems like the type to not want to take initiative of his own problems and likes to put the blame of others, in this case it is his wife Wendy (like hurting Danny and have a drinking problem). He even concedes with Delber Grady (the last caretaker) who murdered his wife and kids, that Wendy should be ‘corrected,” this relates back to the ‘olden’ times as you’d like to say when violence towards your wife was not taken to offense and taken seriously. As in the film ‘The Shining’ that is turned around and the phrase “what goes around comes back around” it is Jack who gets the karma, he’s the one who dies, it’s Jack that dies is “the harshest way possible” and like Grady says, it turns out Wendy is really “stronger than we