Overlook Hotel boiler explosion

The Overlook Hotel boiler explosion is the novel's decisive climax, the physical event that simultaneously destroys the building and the malevolent supernatural force that had taken possession of Jack Torrance. The explosion is the direct consequence of a mechanical failure that had been foreshadowed from the very first day of Jack's employment, and it is triggered by Danny Torrance's desperate act of psychological cunning, turning the hotel's own neglected machinery into its instrument of annihilation.

Causes and Background

The boiler that explodes is an ancient, copper-jacketed, and heavily patched machine, described by the maintenance man Watson as an "old baby" with "more patches on her than a pair of welfare overalls." Watson explicitly warned Jack that the boiler's pressure gauge "creeps" and that if he forgot to "dump her off" twice a day and once at night, "you an your fambly'll wake up on the fuckin moon." The boiler was rated for two hundred and fifty pounds per square inch, but Watson admitted it would blow long before that—he would not stand next to it when the dial reached one hundred and eighty. Jack himself, during a moment of temptation in the basement, had imagined the explosion in vivid detail: a double thunderclap that would rip the heart from the place, raining hot and burning shrapnel, igniting the piles of old papers, and turning the hotel into a broiler. The explosion is thus not a random accident but the inevitable consequence of the hotel's systemic decay, a decay that the manager Stuart Ullman had refused to address by replacing the boiler, preferring to save money.

What Happens

After Danny confronts the hotel-possessed Jack on the third floor, the boy suddenly screams that the boiler has not been dumped since morning and is about to explode. The entity, which had been moments away from killing Danny, is seized by a grotesque terror at the thought of the hotel's destruction. It drops the roque mallet, shrieks "No! That can't be allowed!" and rushes to the elevator, descending to the basement. There, it stumbles across the floor to the boiler, which is glowing a dull red and hissing steam from a hundred places, its pressure needle at the far end of the dial. The thing lays its hands on the red-hot valve, searing its flesh, and spins it wide open. A giant roar of escaping steam bellows out, and the needle begins to swing back. The entity screams "I WIN!" and caper obscenely in the hot mist, but its triumph is cut short as the boiler explodes with a shattering roar. The explosion is a flat, all-pervasive note that throws Hallorann, Wendy, and Danny from the porch on a wave of warm air. The hotel's windows shatter; the dome over the mantelpiece clock cracks and falls; the bathtub in Room 217 splits in two; the wallpaper in the Presidential Suite bursts into flames; the piles of old papers in the basement catch fire with a blowtorch hiss; the furnace explodes, shattering the basement's roofbeams; and a gas-fed pylon of flame rises through the riven floor of the lobby. The roof caves in, first the west wing, then the east, then the central section, sending a huge spiraling gout of sparks and flaming debris into the winter night.

Consequences and Aftermath

The explosion kills the entity that had possessed Jack Torrance, dissolving its consciousness into "emptiness, notness, crumbling." It also destroys the Overlook Hotel entirely, burning it to a flaming pyre. The hedge animals, which had been animated by the hotel's power, are left denuded, blackened, and dead, their branches a stark interlacing network in the fireglow. The explosion allows the Torrances and Hallorann to escape; they are rescued on the road by a party led by Dr. Edmonds. In the epilogue, set the following summer at the Red Arrow Lodge in Maine, the physical and psychological scars remain: Wendy wears a back brace from a shattered vertebra, and Danny still suffers nightmares of the explosions and the hedges. The hotel's destruction, however, is final. The entity that had tried to absorb Danny's power is gone, and the family is able to begin the slow process of healing, with Hallorann serving as a continuing friend and confidant. The explosion thus serves as both a literal and symbolic purging of the Overlook's accumulated evil, ending the cycle of violence that had defined the hotel's history.