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Wendy Torrance

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Wendy Torrance
The Shining character
First appearance
Last appearance
Created byStephen King
Adapted byStanley Kubrick
Portrayed byShelley Duvall (1980)
Rebecca De Mornay (1997)
Kelly Kaduce (2016)
Alex Essoe (2019)
In-universe information
Full nameWinnifred Torrance
OccupationHousewife
FamilyAileen (sister; deceased)
SpouseJack Torrance
ChildrenDanny Torrance

Winnifred[a] "Wendy" Torrance is a fictional character and protagonist of the 1977 horror novel The Shining by the American writer Stephen King. She also appears in the prologue of Doctor Sleep, a 2013 sequel to The Shining.

Character

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She is portrayed by Shelley Duvall in the 1980 film adaptation of the novel directed by Stanley Kubrick, by Rebecca De Mornay in the 1997 television miniseries directed by Mick Garris, and played by Alex Essoe in the 2019 film adaptation of Doctor Sleep directed by Mike Flanagan.

Unlike Jack Torrance, little of Wendy's background is revealed in the novel. A bad relationship with her emotionally abusive mother is mentioned.[1] In the film version, the character is much less nuanced than in the book and in the miniseries (written by King himself), where she appears as a "central" character,[2] leading to some critics to refer to the character as "two different versions of Wendy Torrance".[3] Stephen King has often stated that Wendy's submissiveness is one of the main reasons for his aversion to Kubrick's film.[4] Writer Chelsea Quinn Yarbro also criticized Wendy's "weakness" as portrayed in the novel, attributing it to King's general inability to paint convincing female characters.[5]

Other critics have spoken of the novel's Wendy as a "modern Gothic heroine",[6] although not stereotyped.[7]

List of fictional appearances

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Books

Films

Other

The Shining

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Novel

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The book Characters in 20th-century Literature wrote, "Wendy Torrance is a traditional wife and mother whose energies focus on the safety of her child. Although she is primarily concerned about the physical damage Jack might do to Danny, she knows that certain elements in her own upbringing may affect her performance as a mother—notably the influence of her own resentful, highly critical mother."[8]

Film

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In an interview with Roger Ebert, Duvall described working with Stanley Kubrick as "almost unbearable" and said that despite all of the stress she endured during the extensive shoot, her performance was overshadowed by the fame of Kubrick, stating, "After I made The Shining, all that work, hardly anyone even criticized my performance in it, even to mention it, it seemed like. The reviews were all about Kubrick, like I wasn't there..."

In A Cinema of Loneliness, Robert Phillip Kolker[9] states, "On the generic level, Wendy is a stereotyped horror-film character, both the instigator and the object of the monster's rage. But she transcends her generic role, protects herself, and destroys the monster. Wendy assumes the "masculine" role in a wonderful symbolic gesture... Getting up to go to Jack, she moves to the rear of the frame and silently, so far back in the composition that it takes some attention to notice it, picks up a baseball bat, with which she will beat down her violent husband. The figure oppressed by the phallus steals it in order to control it. Later, when Jack attempts to smash his way into the bathroom where Wendy and Danny are hiding, she stabs his hand with a large knife, an act of displaced castration that further reduces Jack's potency and threat. The patriarch is hurt with his own weapons, diminished by an acting out on him of his own worst fear of losing his power. Wendy becomes a prototype for the "final girl" who Carol Clover recognizes as the saving figure in contemporary horror".

King, who dislikes Kubrick's film, criticized the way Wendy was adapted, calling her "one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film."[10] In American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction, Dale Bailey[11] calls the novel version of the character a "modernized gothic heroine".

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Also spelled "Winifred" in Doctor Sleep.

References

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  1. ^ Dale Bailey (1999). American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction. Popular Press. p. 95. ISBN 9780879727895.
  2. ^ Cartmell, Deborah (1997). Trash Aesthetics: Popular Culture and Its Audience. Pluto Press. p. 132. ISBN 978-0-7453-1202-6.
  3. ^ "these two dramatically differing versions of Wendy Torrance - the female who remains always a victim trapped in a psychotic cycle dictated by her husband, versus the assertive, independent woman who deliberately separates herself from the madness of masculinity" (Tony Magistrale, Stephen King: America's Storyteller, Santa Barbara, Praeger, 2010, p. 127)
  4. ^ Laura Miller, What Stanley Kubrick got wrong about “The Shining”, Salon.com, October 2, 2013; "Shelley Duvall as Wendy is really one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film, she’s basically just there to scream and be stupid and that’s not the woman that I wrote about" (Catherine Shoard, Stephen King damns Shelley Duvall's character in film of The Shining, "The Guardian", September 19, 2013; "The movie is so misogynistic, - he told Rolling Stone in 2014 - I mean, Wendy Torrance is just presented as this sort of screaming dish rag" (Andy Greene, Flashback: Shelley Duvall and Stanley Kubrick Battle Over The Shining, Rolling Stone, November 17. 2016)
  5. ^ Cinderella's revenge: twists on fairy tale themes in the work of Stephen King, in Fear itself the horror fiction of Stephen King, San Francisco, Underwood-Miller, 1982
  6. ^ Dale Bailey, American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction, University of Wisconsin Press 1999, p. 92; Douglas E Winter, Stephen King, the art of darkness, New York, New American Library, 1984, p. 48
  7. ^ Heidi Strengell, Dissecting Stephen King: From the Gothic to Literary Naturalism, University of Wisconsin Press 2006, p. 99
  8. ^ Howes, Kelly King (1995). Characters in 20th-century Literature. Gale Research. ISBN 978-0-8103-9203-8.
  9. ^ Kolker, Robert (2011). A Cinema of Loneliness. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199738885.
  10. ^ Han, Angie (19 September 2013). "Stephen King Still Not a Fan of Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining'". slashfilm. Retrieved July 15, 2017.
  11. ^ Bailey, Dale (2011). American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction. University of Wisconsin Pres. ISBN 9780299268732.

Further reading

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  • Jackie Eller, Wendy Torrance, One of King's Women: A Typology of King's Female Characters, in Tony Magistrale, The Shining Reader, Mercer Island, Starmont House, 1991
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