Wendy Torrance is the main protagonist of the film, The Shining and the 1977 novel of the same name. She is the wife of Jack and the mother of Danny who stays with Jack at the Overlook Hotel while he is the caretaker.
She was portrayed by Shelley Duvall.
Personality[]
Wendy is a caring and loving mother. She acts respectful towards everyone she meets and even tries to reason out with Jack even when he's berating her with insults when he's being possessed. She is extremely close to her son Danny and makes him her main priority when they are running away from a homicidal Jack.
Biography[]
In 1980, Wendy and Jack's son, Danny, has ESP and has had a terrifying premonition about the hotel. Wendy tells a visiting doctor that Danny has an imaginary friend named Tony and that Jack has given up drinking because he had broke Danny's arm following a binge.
The family arrives at the hotel on closing day and is given a tour. The chef Dick Hallorann surprises Danny by telepathically offering him ice cream. Danny and Dick then has a chat allowed by Wendy. Unbeknownst to Wendy, He explains to Danny that he and his grandmother shared this telepathic ability, which he calls "shining".
A month passes; while Jack's writing project goes nowhere, Danny and Wendy explore the hotel's hedge maze. Wendy becomes concerned about the phone lines being out due to the heavy snowfall and Danny has more frightening visions. Jack, increasingly frustrated, starts acting strangely and becomes prone to violent outbursts. Danny's curiosity about Room 237 gets the better of him when he sees the room's door open.
Later when she is checking the boiler, Wendy finds Jack, asleep at his typewriter, screaming while in the midst of a horrifying nightmare. After she awakens him, he says that he dreamed that he had killed her and Danny, she is confused and tries to cheer him up. Danny then shows up with a bruise on his neck and visibly traumatized, causing Wendy to accuse Jack of abusing Danny. Jack wanders into the hotel's Gold Room where he meets a ghostly bartender named Lloyd. Lloyd serves him bourbon on the rocks while Jack complains to him about his marriage. Wendy later tells Jack that Danny told her that a "crazy woman in one of the rooms" tried to strangle him. Jack investigates Room 237, where he encounters the ghost of a dead woman, but tells Wendy he saw nothing. Wendy and Jack argue about whether Danny should be removed from the hotel and a furious Jack returns to the Gold Room, now filled with ghosts having a costume party.
While searching for Jack, Wendy discovers his typewriter; he has been typing endless pages of manuscript repeating "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" in different layouts. She was confronted by Jack who threatens her before she knocks him unconscious with a baseball bat. She manages to drag him into the kitchen and lock him in the pantry, but this does not solve her larger problem. She and Danny are trapped at the hotel since Jack has sabotaged the hotel's two-way radio and snowcat.
Later, Danny writes "REDRUM" in lipstick on the bathroom door. When Wendy sees this in the bedroom mirror, the letters spell out "MURDER".
Then, Jack (who Grady let him out of the pantry) begins to chop through the door leading to his family's living quarters with a fire axe. Wendy frantically sends Danny out through the bathroom window, but it will not open sufficiently for her to fit through it herself. Jack then starts chopping through the bathroom door as Wendy screams in horror. He leers through the hole he has made, shouting "Here's Johnny!", but backs off after Wendy slashes his hand with a razor blade. Hearing the engine of the snowcat Hallorann has borrowed to get up the mountain, Jack leaves the room and head down into the main lobby. She is relieved. He later kills Hallorann in the lobby with his axe. This act in turn cause Danny (Who was hiding in one of the kitchen shelves) to scream which alerts Jack to his presence. Jack spots Danny from a distance and proceeds to chase him into the hedge maze. Danny, in the mist of the chase, proceeds to walk backwards and cover up his show prints in order to mislead Jack. Meanwhile, Wendy, on the run from Jack, encounters the dead body of Dick Hallorann as well as many frighting visions of ghosts in the hotel. This ends with her witnessing a river of blood gushing from the lobby elevators. After Danny successfully flees from Jack in the maze, he was reunited with Wendy by the Snowcat used by Hallorann which they use to flee the hotel.