The Shining Chapter 44 Summary

Conversations at the Party

• Now Jack's "dancing with a beautiful woman" (44.1), unaware of and without care for the passing of the time.
• Something inside him, maybe the last sober part of him, tries to make him understand that it's 6 am and it's December.
• The woman wants to take Jack "upstairs" (44.17). She says the Harry Derwent won't miss her because he's "too busy teasing Roger" (44.17).
• When Jack looks over and sees Roger down "on all fours" (44.19).
• He's growling and jumping around. Harry is giving him orders, including "Speak, boy, speak!" and "Sit up, doggy" (44.22).
• Roger is obeying. When Derwent pours champagne into Roger's mask, the woman Jack is dancing with tells him that Harry is bisexual, but Roger is gay.
• Harry had a weekend with Roger some months before. Now Roger follows him everywhere doing whatever he says. Harry never sleeps with the same guy twice, and it's driving Roger insane.
• The woman Jack is dancing with wanders off to talk to someone. Jack feels disoriented and can't remember things properly.
• Derwent is telling Roger to do flips. Roger tries to do one, but ends up cracking the back of his head on the tile floor.
• Jack doesn't feel so good and moves away.
• He bumps into a man in white, pushing a drink cart. He wants to get out of the ballroom.
• He orders a martini from the man and then asks him his name.
• The man introduces himself as Delbert Grady. Jack asks him if he used to be the caretaker here at the Overlook.
• Grady says he did not used to be the caretaker. Jack is anxious and presses him. He asks about Grady's wife and daughters.
• Grady tells him the wife is in the kitchen and the daughters are in bed.
• Jack comes out with it and accuses Grady of murdering his family, but Grady says he doesn't remember anything like that.
• He says that Jack is the caretaker, he's "always been the caretaker" (44.57). He and Grady were hired simultaneously, by "the same manager" (44.57).
• Jack asks him if he means Ullman, but Grady doesn't recognize Ullman's name.
• He says he can't believe Jack doesn't know the person responsible for giving him the job at the Overlook.
• Grady implies that this is Danny's fault. He implies that Danny is constantly betraying Jack.
• Jack agrees.
• Grady says Danny "needs to be corrected" (44.66), like Grady's corrected his daughters and his wife. He tells Jack that one of his daughters tried to set the Overlook on fire.
• Grady had to teach his family "to love the Overlook" (44.68), just like Jack needs to teach his family.
• Jack agrees. Danny and Wendy are both out to purposely sabotage his plans. He has a responsibility to do it.
• Grady says he thinks the manager can help Jack handle Danny and Wendy.
• Jack asks if Danny and Wendy can just leave the Overlook, since Jack is the one the manager is really interested in. He feels very confused.
• Grady explains that Danny is "using his talent" to try to get a "n***** cook" (44.77) to come to the hotel and interfere.
• Jack asks if he's talking about Halloran, and Grady says that he is.
• Grady praises Jack for all the research he's been doing for the Overlook. He explains that the manager left the scrapbook for Jack to find. The manager also has other things for Jack to look at it, if he wants to.
• He does.
• Grady says Jack will able to really get ahead at the Overlook, if Danny lets him.
• Jack tells Grady that he "wouldn't allow [his] son to make decisions regarding [his] career" (44.96).
• Grady clarifies – Jack's success at the Overlook depends on how he punishes Danny's betrayals.
• Enraged, Jack promises he'll get Wendy and Danny under control.
• Jack feels bad and finishes his drink. He wanders over to "a clock under a glass dome" (44.114).
• At this moment, Derwent gives the call, "Midnight! Unmask! Unmask!" (44.117).
• The clock strikes twelve as Jack turns to see which famous people are hidden under which masks.
• The figures of a man and his son begin moving. The father has a mallet, and he begins beating the son with it.
• Blood hits the glass dome, "red liquid [is] spraying up like an obscene rain shower" (44.126) making it hard for Jack to see what's going on. But he can still see the rise and fall of the mallet.
• Jack feels sick and prays for all of this to stop. He doesn't care what happens, as long as he can hang onto a small thread "of sanity" (44.131).
• The ballroom scene vanishes, and he's alone. He feels drunk, but sees no drinks.
• He leaves the room; in the lobby he trips and hits his nose on the ground, making it bleed.
• Jack heads back to the Colorado Lounge and finds it still devoid of activity – but, the bar looks "fully stocked" (44.137). Jack thinks, "God be praised!" (44.137).
• He calls for Lloyd or Grady, but they don't appear. He decides to jump over the bar and make his own drinks.
• Oops. Clumsy. Jack falls and hits his head and then goes to sleep.
• The wind is noisy, and it's snowing hard. It's now 8:30 in the morning.