o critiques the society that leads to such problems. David Cook offers a Marxist view of The Shining in which the film serves as a metaphor for a society based on exploitation.2 During the hypocritical job interview, Jack says his family "will love" being locked up in the snow. Later Jack becomes obsessed with his "work"-not the maintenance of the hotel, because Wendy takes care of that-but his interaction with the Overlook's past through the scrapbook and realistic ghosts such as the bartender Lloyd. Jack yells about his responsibilities to his "employers," who are apparently "all the best people"-the ghosts of the hotel. As a puppet for his enigmatic employers, he neglects his family and his writing as he types only one sentence-"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"-which symbolizes his futile yet infinite attachment to meaningless work. Thus, the Overlook Hotel acts as an intensified version of society that allows the violence of our economic system to reveal itself through Jack's insanity.Kubrick dealt with similar economic themes in Spartacus and Barry Lyndon as well. In fact, the novel Spartacus equates capitalism with cannibalism, and this same analogy reappears in The Shining. Early in the film, Jack explains to Danny that the Donner Party "had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive." Danny asks, "You mean they ate each other?" And Jack calmly answers in a matter-of-fact tone: "They had to-in order to survive."In neglecting his family and writing-procreation and creation, or Eros-Jack develops a misguided desire for immortality. Thomas Nelson wrote: "Jack Torrance forgets that in a contingent universe an obsession with timelessness becomes tantamount to a love affair with death." 5 Furthermore, Kubrick admitted that The Shining intrigued him because "ghost stories appeal to our craving for immortality."2 As an artist himself, perhaps Kubrick uses Jack as an example of what happens when people seek meaning in alco...
