The presence of Native American-esque imagery in The Shining is
impossible to ignore, showing up in almost every scene inside the Overlook
Hotel, the primary setting of the film. Yet, despite dedicating such a
large visual space to this culture, there are few overt mentions of Native
Americans by any of the characters. Certainly this visual choice was not
purely for set decoration; the director of the film, Stanley Kubrick, is
infamous for his exigent directorial style and his obsessive attention to
detail. His decision to prominently feature this particular aesthetic at
the Overlook was instead part of a larger, more subtle message that
pervades The Shining. Through his use of decor, Kubrick positions
the Overlook as a monstrous embodiment of the genocide of Native Americans
carried out by the United States.
As mentioned previously, the hotel is fully decorated in Native
American-like imagery, creating the undeniable connection between this
culture and the Overlook. This connection is explicitly reinforced when
Wendy, one of the main characters, asks the current hotel’s manager,
Stuart Ullman, if the “Indian designs [are] authentic?” (The Shining
00:20:35 – 00:20:39) In response, Ullman says that they “are based mainly
on Navajo and Apache motifs” (The Shining 00:20:39 – 00:20:45)
letting the viewer know that, in fact, these designs are not Native
American but rather American bastardization of these tribes’ imagery. This
decoration also speaks to a darker past associated with the hotel that
Ullman relates to the Torrence family, saying, “the site is supposed to be
located on an Indian burial ground and I believe they actually had to
repel a few Indian attacks as they were building it” (The Shining
0:23:23 – 0:23:30). Not only is the very ground that the Overlook stands
on stolen land built on the corpses of Native Americans, but the building
has been decorated to reference its relationship to Native Americans
while, simultaneously, ignoring the violence associated with its history.
This reflects the way in which the United States has created narratives,
such as the one surrounding Thanksgiving, of a peaceful, non-violent
relationship between American settlers and Native Americans, to paint over
the atrocities the country has committed towards these indigenous
people.
The hotel becoming monstrous through its embodiment of such a violent
period in American history is consistent with the way monsters are often
understood, according to the monster-theorist Jeffrey Cohen. In his book
“Monster Culture (Seven Theses)”, where he lays out seven different
conclusions for how monsters provide insights into the cultures that
created them, he states that “[t]he monster is born... as an embodiment of
a certain cultural moment – of a time, a feeling, and a place” (Cohen 38).
Whereas Jack Torrence and the ghosts inhabiting the hotel are embodiments
of white rage and violence, the Overlook is a visual symbol of the
atrocities specifically carried out towards Native Americans. As stated by
Ullman, the hotel’s creation encompassed both physical violence against
Native Americans and symbolic violence through desecration of their burial
ground. This violence is an intrinsic part of the hotel’s creation story.
Despite the fact that, to many viewers, the Overlook serves as the setting
for the film, it is a monster in and of itself and should be understood as
such.