Exposing traumas in Stephen King’s The Shining and Doctor Sleep

Abstract

This article aims at casting an innovative light on Stephen King’s The Shining (1977) and its sequel, Doctor Sleep (2013) by showing how theories of trauma apply to the mainstream American writer’s work. On the stage set up for his readers, King unveils a journey of traumas but he also lifts the curtain on the ways to cope with the consequences of these traumas. Both narratives follow the flawed hero, Danny Torrance, and reveal the shattering experiences lived by the latter as a five-year-old child in The Shining and the ensuing post-traumatic disorders in Doctor Sleep. The texts not only offer a coalescence of traumas, representing a journey of repression and haunting but they equally open the way to the possibility of healing.