Out Of Your Mind - Jack

"It was almost as though I knew what was going to be around every corner."

From the very start of The Shining, you get the sense that Jack Torrance is already very detached: in his mind and from his small family. He exerts a certain contempt for his harmless, pleasant enough wife Wendy and a disconnect to his young son Danny.

His seasonal job at a vacated hotel requires he (mostly Wendy) maintain the property, allowing him time to confront his writer's block and get to grips with writing a new novel. However, already on edge and having troubles with alcohol, the mysterious hotel that possesses some hold over Jack (in turn infiltrated to Danny), further plagues his psyche.

He snaps at his wife, treating her like an idiot he has no time for, as if he is above her and even a moment of bonding with Danny suggests he never really had any paternal instincts to begin with.

Coupled with his son's more horrifying visions of what went on in that hotel, Jack descends into a psychotic, maniacal breakdown. Its almost as if mid life, an unremarkable family, a failing career and doubt over his talent as a writer, is allowing for him to become seduced by the hotel. He has visions of past events, during a time period he perhaps would have preferred and relished living in, as well as having an innate familiarity and friendliness with the old ghosts. Perhaps they are even derived from his own mind, as characters from his novels, people he has become close to and who he wants to be around. The only way for him to get what he really wants - the hotel, the ghosts, the endless booze and being the life of the party - is to eliminate those who are holding him back.