Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining has been analyzed countless times over the years due to all the symbolism and little details in every scene that have made the audience believe there’s a lot more than the “superficial” story it tells. Among those details are the mirrors, which appear in certain scenes and have made way for different interpretations. Back in 1977, Stephen King’s third novel The Shining was published, and its success helped establish King as a preeminent author in the horror genre. Three years later, the novel made the jump to the big screen, but with a lot of changes to the story and the characters.

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Directed by Stanley Kubrick, The Shining follows Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) an aspiring writer and recovering alcoholic who takes a job as the off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies and takes his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and son Danny (Danny Lloyd) with him. After a snowstorm leaves them cut off from the outside world, the supernatural forces living in the hotel begin to play with Jack’s sanity, while Danny struggles with his powers, referred to as “the shining”, which awake the hotel’s evil forces. Time has been good to The Shining, which is now considered one of the best movies ever, even if Stephen King has never liked it.

Kubrick took a lot of creative liberties when bringing The Shining to the big screen, something that Stephen King (understandably) didn’t like. Still, Kubrick’s work has been endlessly praised, and there are a lot of details in the movie that either hint at upcoming events or offer different interpretations of the story, as happens with the mirrors that can be seen throughout the film. Over the years, viewers have pointed out that mirrors only appear in The Shining in certain scenes and moments, making way for different theories on what was really going on between the Overlook Hotel and Jack.

Every time Jack sees or interacts with a ghost from the hotel, there’s a mirror in the scene. For example, when he encounters the woman in room 237 and later during his conversation with Grady in the red bathroom, with the only exception being the one scene where he can’t see the ghost: when Jack is locked up in the kitchen pantry and Grady talks to him from the other side of the door. This, as suggested by many, indicates that the ghosts in the Overlook Hotel are not real, and instead they are a reflection of Jack’s broken psyche. This would put an end to the endless discussion on whether the ghosts were real or not, but there are other scenes that contradict this idea: every time Danny saw the Grady twins, there were no mirrors around, same towards the end of the movie, where Wendy began to see ghosts too.

Others have suggested the mirrors were Kubrick’s way to represent how Jack was starting to blend with the hotel’s consciousness, which would ultimately mean that Jack was, in fact, talking to himself. Perhaps the mirrors were added by Kubrick to show how Jack was becoming one with the hotel, as a mirror of his inner demons, or maybe they were a way to show Jack’s affinity with the ghosts and further accentuate how distant he was with his family – ultimately, it’s up to every viewer to choose the interpretation that better fits their vision of The Shining.

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Adrienne Tyler
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Adrienne Tyler is a features writer for Screen Rant. She is an Audiovisual Communication graduate who wanted to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans (and it turned out great). Prior to Screen Rant, she wrote for Pop Wrapped, 4 Your Excitement (4YE), and D20Crit, where she was also a regular guest at Netfreaks podcast. She was also a contributor for FanSided’s BamSmackPow and 1428 Elm. Adrienne is very into films and she enjoys a bit of everything: from superhero films to heartbreaking dramas, to low-budget horror films. Every time she manages to commit to a TV show without getting bored, an angel gets its wings.

When she’s not writing, you can find her trying to learn a new language, watching hockey (go Avs!), or wondering what life would have been like had Pushing Daisies, Firefly, and Limitless not been cancelled. Breakfast food is life and coffee is what makes the world go round.

Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once. It was great.

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