On Jack Torrance As a Fossil Form

Abstract

The essay starts with the photograph that reveals the mystery of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) to introduce the notion of a fossil as a mineral compound that continues to evolve into something biologically distinct from the cadaver that provided its origin. The fossil represents a form of survival in stone, a material within which the dead body can continue to decay and so, in a certain sense, to live on. Considered to be a state of suspended animation, the fossil holds a particular attraction for the cinema, as we see in the character of Jack Torrance, a paradoxical figure who takes on a clear identity if we recognise him as a fossil—and more precisely a ‘living fossil’.