The Woman in Room 217

The Woman in Room 217 is the most direct and personal supernatural threat the Overlook Hotel deploys against the Torrance family. She is not a ghost in the traditional sense but a concentrated residue of a violent death—a suicide by barbiturates and alcohol—that the hotel has preserved and weaponized. Her appearance marks a decisive escalation: what Dick Hallorann had described as harmless 'pictures in a book' becomes a physical, murderous assault on Danny, shattering the family's fragile sense of safety and confirming that the hotel is an active, predatory presence.

Origin and Nature

The woman is the lingering manifestation of Mrs. Massey, a guest who died in Room 217 during the previous summer season. According to Watson, the maintenance man, Mrs. Massey was an elderly woman who came to the Overlook with a much younger male companion. She drank heavily—'suckin up singapore slings like they're gonna outlaw em tomorrow'—while the young man made his single beer last. After he abandoned her, she took approximately thirty sleeping pills on top of a substantial amount of alcohol. The county coroner initially ruled it suicide, but Stuart Ullman, the manager, pressured him to change the verdict to accidental death to protect the hotel's reputation. The chambermaid Delores Vickery later discovered the body and claimed to have seen the dead woman 'layin naked in the tub,' her face 'all purple an puffy,' grinning at her. Ullman fired her for talking. Dick Hallorann, who possessed the 'shine,' investigated the room himself and confirmed the presence of the corpse, witnessing it open its eyes and grin at him before it began to rise from the tub. This encounter so terrified him that he never felt safe in the Overlook again.

Danny's Encounter and the Attack

Despite Hallorann's explicit warning to 'steer right clear' of Room 217, Danny is drawn to it by a morbid, Bluebeard-like curiosity. He steals the passkey and enters the room. In the bathroom, he finds the woman in the tub: 'She was bloated and purple, her gas-filled belly rising out of the cold, ice-rimmed water like some fleshy island. Her eyes were fixed on Danny's, glassy and huge, like marbles. She was grinning, her purple lips pulled back in a grimace.' When Danny shrieks, the corpse sits up, her dead palms making 'squittering noises on the porcelain.' She chases him, and when he closes his eyes, trusting Hallorann's assurance that the things in the hotel cannot hurt him, she seizes him. 'The years-damp, bloated, fish-smelling hands closed softly around his throat and he was turned implacably around to stare into that dead and purple face.' She strangles him into unconsciousness, leaving visible, puffy bruises on his neck.

Aftermath and Significance

The attack on Danny has immediate and devastating consequences. Wendy finds Danny catatonic on the stairs, his thumb in his mouth, his eyes blank. She immediately blames Jack, accusing him of throttling their son in a drunken rage, a suspicion that nearly destroys their marriage on the spot. When Danny revives, he screams 'It was her! Her! Her!' and runs to Jack, creating a brief but crucial moment of unity before the hotel's influence reasserts itself. Jack investigates Room 217 and finds the tub empty and dry, but he experiences his own terrifying encounter: the shower curtain is drawn, he hears a 'metallic rattle' as the curtain rings move, and he senses a shape behind the plastic. He flees, locking the door, and lies to Wendy and Danny, claiming there was 'nothing there.' This lie, born of his own terror and his desperate need to preserve the job, severs the last thread of honest communication between them. The Woman in Room 217 thus serves as the catalyst that shatters the family's trust, isolates them from each other, and delivers Jack into the hotel's power by forcing him to deny the reality of the threat to his son.