Front Porch

The Front Porch of the Overlook Hotel is a broad, covered veranda that runs the length of the hotel's main facade, offering a panoramic view of the manicured lawn, the swimming pool, the roque court, the topiary garden, and the distant mountains. It is the threshold between the outside world and the hotel's interior, a liminal space where the Torrance family experiences their final moments of connection to civilization before being sealed in by winter. The porch is the site of farewells, arrivals, and the family's last view of the outside world, marking the transition from ordinary life to the hotel's isolated, supernatural domain.

Arrival and First Impressions

When the Torrance family first arrives at the Overlook on closing day, they stand on the front porch to take in the view. Jack points out the roque court, which he describes as a game played with a mallet that has a hard rubber side and a wooden side, a detail that later becomes ominously significant. Danny, however, is uneasy; he does not like heights, and the view makes him dizzy. He notices the topiary animals—a rabbit, a dog, a horse, a cow, and three frolicking lions—which his mother calls "topiary." Jack jokes that he used to "trim a lady's topiary" when he worked for a landscaping company, a pun that makes Wendy laugh. But Danny's attention is drawn to the playground beyond the topiary, which includes a playhouse that is an exact replica of the Overlook itself. He feels a sense of isolation, though he does not know the word; the road that leads back to Boulder will be closed all winter, and the thought makes him feel suffocated.

Farewell to the Outside World

On the front porch, the Torrance family stands together as if posing for a family portrait, with Danny in the middle, Wendy behind him with one hand on his shoulder, and Jack to his left with his hand resting lightly on his son's head. Stuart Ullman, the hotel manager, stands a step below them, buttoned into an expensive brown mohair overcoat. The sun is entirely behind the mountains, edging them with gold fire, and the only three vehicles left in the parking lot are the hotel truck, Ullman's Lincoln Continental, and the battered Torrance VW. Ullman gives Jack the keys and reiterates his instructions about the furnace and boiler. He lingers for a moment, as if waiting for the wind to gust him down to his car, then sighs and says, "Have a good winter, Mr. Torrance, Mrs. Torrance. You too, Danny." Danny replies, "Thank you, sir. I hope you do, too." Ullman repeats, "I doubt it," sounding sad, and adds that the place in Florida is a dump. He walks quickly and prissily across to his car, a ridiculously big one for such a little man, and tucks himself into it. The Lincoln's motor purrs into life, and the taillights flash as he pulls out of his parking stall, which bears a sign reading "RESERVED FOR MR. ULLMAN, MGR." Jack watches him go and says softly, "Right." When the car is out of sight, the three of them look at each other for a silent, almost frightened moment. They are alone. Aspen leaves whirl and skitter in aimless packs across the lawn, now neatly mowed and tended for no guest's eyes. Jack feels a curious shrinking feeling, as if his life force has dwindled to a mere spark while the hotel and the grounds have suddenly doubled in size and become sinister, dwarfing them with sullen, inanimate power. Then Wendy says, "Look at you, doc. Your nose is running like a fire hose. Let's get inside." They close the door firmly behind them against the restless whine of the wind.

A Place of Transition and Foreboding

The front porch is also where Jack later sits in a huge white-painted wicker chair he found in the equipment shed, amusing himself with a copy of E. L. Doctorow's Welcome to Hard Times while waiting for Wendy and Danny to return from Sidewinder. When they arrive, Danny races up the hill with a box containing a model car, the Violent Violet Volkswagen, and Jack picks him up, swings him around twice, and kisses him heartily on the mouth. The porch is a place of domestic moments, but it is also where the family watches the snow begin to fall in earnest, marking the moment when the decision to leave is taken out of their hands. They stand on the porch in the fading light, Jack in the middle, his left arm around Danny's shoulders and his right arm around Wendy's waist, watching as the sky clouds over and the snow begins to drift against the porch and the sides of the driveway. The highway disappears under an even blanket of white, and the hedge animals are buried under amorphous white cloaks. Curiously, all of them are thinking different thoughts but feeling the same emotion: relief. The bridge has been crossed. Wendy murmurs, "Will it ever be spring?" Jack squeezes her tighter and says, "Before you know it. What do you say we go in and have some supper? It's cold out here." They go in together, leaving the wind to build to a low-pitched scream that will go on all night. The Overlook faces it as it has for nearly three quarters of a century, its darkened windows now bearded with snow, indifferent to the fact that it is now cut off from the world. Or possibly it is pleased with the prospect. Inside its shell, the three of them go about their early evening routine, like microbes trapped in the intestine of a monster.

The Porch as a Site of Danger and Escape

Later, after Danny's terrifying encounter with the hedge animals, he flees across the front lawn and falls on the porch steps, screaming without sound, scrambling up them on his hands and knees. There is a slashing sound in the air and sudden pain in his leg, the ripping sound of cloth, and a bellowing, angry roar. He falls full-length on the porch, sobbing hoarsely, with a small trickle of blood coming from his nose. The lobby doors fly open, and Jack and Wendy run out to find him. His snowpants are ripped open below the knee, and his calf is shallowly scratched, as if he had tried to push his way through a closely grown evergreen hedge. He looks over his shoulder at the hedge animals, now only vague, snow-cowled humps far down the lawn, and his legs give way. Jack catches him, and he begins to cry. The porch, which was once a place of arrival and farewell, has become a refuge from the hotel's malevolent forces, a last line of defense before the outside world.

The Porch in the Final Escape

In the final moments of the novel, as the Overlook explodes, Dick Hallorann bursts out through the double doors of the front porch, carrying Wendy and Danny. He sees the hedge animals clearly, more clearly than before, and even as he realizes his worst fears are true—that they are between the porch and the snowmobile—the hotel explodes. There is a flat explosion, a sound that seems to exist on one low all-pervasive note, and then a blast of warm air at their backs that seems to push gently at them. They are thrown from the porch on its breath, the three of them, and they fly through the air before striking the snow in a soft billow. The porch, the threshold between the hotel and the world, is the site of their final escape, the place where they are literally thrown clear of the hotel's destruction. The porch, once a symbol of the hotel's grandeur and isolation, becomes the launching point for their survival, a final, violent transition from the nightmare within to the cold, healing snow outside.