Jack hallucinates a bartender

Jack Torrance, the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, has been sober for nineteen months. But the isolation of the snowbound hotel, the pressure of his failing play, and the hotel's own malevolent influence have been eroding his resolve. In a pivotal scene, he enters the Colorado Lounge, a bar that has been stripped clean for the season, and hallucinates a full-service bar and a bartender named Lloyd. This hallucination is not a mere mirage; it is the Overlook's first successful seduction of Jack, a psychological breakthrough that the hotel will exploit to claim him as its own.

The Hallucinated Bar and the Bartender Lloyd

Jack enters the Colorado Lounge, a place he knows to be empty. The shelves are bare, the beer taps dry. Yet, as he stands in the dim light filtering from the dining room, he sees ranks of bottles twinkling behind the bar and smells fresh beer. He fumbles for the light switch, and the low bar-lighting reveals only empty shelves. The smell of beer, however, remains sharp and fresh, a scent that Jack rationalizes as having faded into the woodwork. He sits on a stool and, in a moment of desperate craving, addresses the empty room. "Hi, Lloyd," he says. "A little slow tonight, isn't it?" Lloyd, a figment of Jack's imagination, responds. Jack orders an even twenty martinis, one for every month he has been on the wagon and one to grow on. He imagines Lloyd setting them up, and he begins to drink them, one by one, tossing the imaginary glasses over his shoulder. He feels himself getting high, attributing the sensation to the Excedrin he has been chewing. The hallucination is so vivid that he carries on a full conversation, revealing his deep-seated resentment and self-pity.

The Monologue on the Wagon

Jack's conversation with Lloyd becomes a bitter, self-justifying monologue about the nature of sobriety. He describes the "wagon" as a bright, clean float in a parade, a way to escape the gutter of alcoholism. But he then reveals its true nature: a church with bars on the windows, a prison for him and a church for the women who enforce its rules. He describes the wagon's floor as bare pine boards, its pews as hard benches, and its passengers as flat-chested women with hair pulled back into buns, singing hymns. "That's when you realize what the Wagon really is, Lloyd," Jack says. "It's a church with bars on the windows, a church for women and a prison for you." This speech is a direct expression of Jack's resentment toward his wife, Wendy, and his son, Danny, whom he sees as the wardens of his sobriety. It is a confession that he views his own reformation not as a personal victory but as an oppressive imposition. The hotel, through this hallucination, gives voice to Jack's darkest feelings, validating his anger and self-pity.

The Collapse of Reality and the Hotel's Embrace

As Jack continues his imaginary drinking, the hallucination deepens. He senses people watching him from the booths, people from a costume party, laughing at him. He whirls around, but the booths are empty. The laughter dies. A cold certainty forms in him: he is losing his mind. He begins to bellow a song, "Roll me over in the clover," to drown out the silence. This moment of public breakdown is interrupted by Wendy, who has come downstairs with Danny, who is in a catatonic state. Jack, still in the grip of his hallucination, denies hurting Danny and then, when Danny runs to him screaming "It was her!" about the woman in Room 217, Jack immediately turns on Wendy, accusing her of harming their son. This marks a complete inversion of reality, where Jack, now fully under the hotel's influence, projects his own guilt and violence onto his wife. The hallucination of the bar was the key that unlocked the door to the hotel's possession of Jack Torrance.