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VOL. 12, ISSUE 1 (2026)
A somatic study of Stephen king’s The Shining focusing on childhood trauma
Authors
Lavkush Kumar, Rita
Abstract
Stephen King’s The Shining (1977) transcends its classification
as supernatural horror to offer a clinically resonant exploration of childhood
trauma and its somatic manifestations. This paper examines how King deploys
horror conventions to represent the embodied nature of traumatic experience
originating in childhood, focusing on Jack Torrance’s abusive past and his son
Danny’s victimization. Drawing upon trauma theorists Bessel van der Kolk,
Judith Herman, Cathy Caruth, and Edward Khantzian, this study argues that The
Shining presents childhood trauma as a somatic reality inscribed upon the
body across generations. Jack’s alcoholism functions as failed self-medication
for his own childhood abuse; Danny’s dissociative alter ego “Tony” represents a
child’s creative strategy for containing overwhelming experience; and the
Overlook Hotel operates as an externalized traumatic environment that exploits
these unhealed childhood wounds. By reading The Shining through somatic
trauma theory, this paper reveals King’s work as a sophisticated literary
engagement with how the traumatized child’s body remembers what the conscious
mind cannot contain, how childhood wounds transmit across generations, and what
survival might mean for the traumatized child who becomes an adult.
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Pages:171-174
How to cite this article:
Lavkush Kumar, Rita "A somatic study of Stephen king’s <i>The Shining </i>focusing on childhood trauma". International Journal of English Research, Vol 12, Issue 1, 2026, Pages 171-174
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