Jack is freed from the pantry

Jack Torrance sat on the floor of the pantry, eating Triscuit crackers one by one, his mind and body a scripture of pain. His head throbbed with a sick hangover, his mouth tasted foul, his shoulders ached from battering the door, and his throat was raw from useless shouting. He had cut his right hand on the doorlatch. He refused to give in to his wretched stomach, which wanted to vomit, and thought of the Excedrin tablets in his pocket, deciding to wait until his stomach quieted. He was eating the crackers not for taste but because he would need his strength when he got out. He was going to kick some ass.

The Voice of Grady

As Jack sat in the darkness, a piano began to play boogie-woogie somewhere in the hotel, and people laughed and clapped along to "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight." The party had begun again. Jack's hands curled into helpless fists; he had to restrain himself from battering at the door. Then a mild voice spoke just outside the pantry door: "Here, here, now. No need to shout, old fellow. I can hear you perfectly well." It was Delbert Grady. Jack lurched to his feet and demanded to be let out. Grady responded with well-bred surprise, pointing out that Jack had let a woman half his size and a little boy lock him in, which hardly set him off as being of top managerial timber. A pulse began to beat in the veins at Jack's right temple. Grady expressed doubt that Jack had the belly for what needed to be done. Jack shouted that he did, that he swore it. Grady pressed him: "You would bring us your son?" Jack answered yes. Grady warned that Jack's wife would object strongly and seemed to have gotten the better of him, suggesting perhaps they should have been dealing with her all along. Jack swore he would bring Danny, that his wife would not be able to object. Grady coldly stated, "You would have to kill her, I fear." Jack replied, "I'll do what I have to do. Just let me out." Grady demanded his word on it. Jack gave his word, his promise, his sacred vow.

The Release and the Mallet

There was a flat snap as the bolt was drawn back. The door shivered open a quarter of an inch. For a moment Jack felt that death itself was outside that door, but the feeling passed. He whispered his thanks to Grady, swearing he would not regret it. There was no answer. All sounds had stopped except for the cold swooping of the wind outside. Jack pushed the pantry door open; the hinges squealed faintly. The kitchen was empty. Grady was gone. Everything was still and frozen beneath the cold white glare of the fluorescent bars. Jack's eyes caught on the large chopping block where the three of them had eaten their meals. Standing on top of it was a martini glass, a fifth of gin, and a plastic dish filled with olives. Leaning against it was one of the roque mallets from the equipment shed. He looked at it for a long time. Then a voice much deeper and much more powerful than Grady's spoke from somewhere, everywhere, from inside him: "Keep your promise, Mr. Torrance." Jack answered, "I will," hearing the fawning servility in his own voice but unable to control it. He walked to the chopping block and put his hand on the handle of the mallet. He hefted it. He swung it. It hissed viciously through the air. Jack Torrance began to smile.

The Transformation

This release is the culmination of the Overlook's long campaign to break Jack's will. The hotel had already worked on him through the scrapbook's revelations, the hallucinated drinks in the Colorado Lounge, the dream of his father's cane, and the isolation of the snowbound winter. Grady's appearance is not a random haunting but a deliberate intervention by the hotel's collective consciousness, using the ghost of the previous caretaker—who himself murdered his family—as a persuasive agent. Grady's language echoes Jack's own father's words: the demand for "correction," the dismissal of the wife and son as obstacles, the promise of a position of responsibility. Jack's agreement to kill his family is framed as a promotion, a reward for loyalty. The gin and the martini glass on the chopping block are the hotel's final bribe, the drink Jack has craved for nineteen months, now offered openly as a sacrament of his new allegiance. The roque mallet, which Jack had earlier used to disable the snowmobile and which he had seen in his nightmare as the weapon of the pursuing monster, becomes the tool of his damnation. When he picks it up and swings it, he is no longer Jack Torrance the failed writer and recovering alcoholic; he is the Overlook's instrument, the caretaker who will now "correct" his family as Grady corrected his.

Consequences and Aftermath

The immediate consequence of Jack's release is the brutal attack on Wendy in the Colorado Lounge, where he beats her with the mallet and she stabs him in the back with a kitchen knife. Despite the wound, Jack continues to pursue her and Danny through the hotel, his strength seemingly sustained by the Overlook itself. He corners Danny on the third floor, but the boy's defiance and his revelation that the boiler has been forgotten—that the hotel itself is about to be destroyed—breaks the spell. Jack's final act is to rush to the basement to save the Overlook, spinning the red-hot valve open before the boiler explodes, killing him and destroying the hotel. His release from the pantry thus sets in motion the final, violent act of the novel, leading to the deaths of Jack and the Overlook, and the survival of Wendy, Danny, and Dick Hallorann.