2. The Shining Introduction: Allusions to Genocide on Jack's Drive Up Going-to-the-Sun Road (the Sidewinder)

Adventures in Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining."

Abstract Themes of Genocide in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) stands as a multilayered narrative whose horror extends beyond its surface depiction of a haunted hotel to deeper examinations of human history and atrocity. Among its many interpretations, the film reflects the genocide of Native Americans and the Holocaust, two monumental tragedies that signify humanity's capacity for violence and domination. Kubrick weaves these themes through subtle yet deliberate symbols, narrative choices, and setting. The opening sequence, featuring Jack Torrance’s drive up Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana in a Volkswagen Beetle, serves as an abstract introduction to these themes, embedding historical weight into the landscape and machinery of the story.

The American Indian Genocide: Montana and Going-to-the-Sun Road

Kubrick’s choice to open the film with a scenic drive through Montana’s Going-to-the-Sun Road ties the narrative to the geography of the American Indian genocide. This iconic route, named for a sacred mountain in Native American lore, situates the audience within a landscape deeply tied to Native American history and loss. Montana itself is symbolic, as it was the site of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, where Colonel George Custer and his battalion suffered a historic defeat against the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes. Though this victory was short-lived for the tribes, the event catalyzed the U.S. government’s intensified campaign to dominate and displace Native American populations in the Western United States.

The Overlook Hotel’s décor, particularly its Native American motifs such as the Navajo-inspired patterns on carpets and wall art, underscores this historical subtext. Rather than being an homage to Native culture, these artifacts serve as appropriations, stripped of context and integrated into a monument to colonial domination. In this sense, the Overlook becomes a microcosm of America’s violent expansion, where the spectral echoes of a massacred past persist, haunting the present.

The Holocaust: The Volkswagen Beetle as a Symbol

Jack Torrance’s vehicle, a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, introduces another theme: the Holocaust. The Volkswagen Beetle’s origin is inseparably tied to Nazi Germany. Commissioned by Adolf Hitler as a “people’s car” (Volkswagen translates directly to "people's car" in German), the Beetle was a product of the regime’s vision for technological innovation and control over labor. Hitler’s close involvement in the car’s design, as well as its production using forced labor during World War II, lends the vehicle an ominous historical shadow.

Kubrick’s decision to feature the Beetle in The Shining may seem innocuous at first glance, but it reflects his penchant for embedding subtle references to historical atrocities. The car, a seemingly mundane object, becomes a symbol of systemic violence and the capacity for institutions to turn tools of progress into instruments of oppression. The association with the Holocaust also resonates within the Overlook Hotel’s recurring allusions to historical mass death and its assertion of power over individuals, much like the Nazi regime’s dehumanizing ideologies.

The Overlook Hotel: A Convergence of Violence

The Overlook Hotel itself embodies a convergence of these themes of genocide. Built on what is suggested to be Native American burial grounds, the hotel signifies the erasure and commodification of Native American culture and history for the benefit of leisure and wealth. Its historical narrative, detailed by Stuart Ullman in the film’s opening scenes, is littered with violence, including the horrific tale of Charles Grady, a previous caretaker who murdered his family. These violent histories are not contained but perpetuated, as Jack Torrance becomes ensnared in a cycle of madness and bloodshed.

The hotel’s imposing architecture and labyrinthine structure serve as physical metaphors for institutional systems of power that obscure their brutal origins. The gold room, with its opulent grandeur, recalls the excesses of colonial conquest and industrialized exploitation, aligning the narrative of the Overlook with the broader histories of the American West and Nazi Germany.

Kubrick’s Historical Allegory

Kubrick’s filmmaking is renowned for its visual and symbolic density, and The Shining is no exception. By situating the narrative within a broader historical and cultural framework, Kubrick interrogates the ways in which violence is perpetuated across time and space. The scenic drive up Going-to-the-Sun Road and the presence of the Volkswagen Beetle are not mere aesthetic choices; they are deliberate signposts that point to the atrocities of genocide and the mechanisms of historical erasure.

As Jack Torrance descends into madness, he becomes a vessel for these cycles of violence, embodying the destructive forces that have shaped history. His transformation is not just a personal tragedy but an allegory for the ways in which individuals become complicit in larger systems of domination and oppression.

Conclusion

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining masterfully integrates the themes of the American Indian genocide and the Holocaust into its narrative and mise-en-scène, using subtle symbols and historical references to layer its horror with historical resonance. From the evocative opening drive to the Overlook Hotel’s unsettling appropriation of Native American culture, the film critiques the ways in which violence is normalized and institutionalized. Kubrick’s genius lies in his ability to make the Overlook Hotel a haunting reflection of humanity’s darkest legacies, ensuring that its horrors are both timeless and deeply rooted in the specific atrocities of history.