This Fan Theory About Jack Torrance From The Shining Is Mind Blowing

You might remember Jack Torrance as the father from The Shining - frustrated author who slowly loses his mind and tries to kill his entire family with an axe? You know the one.

Well according to one Redditor who goes by the username Grifter42, there might be a hell of a lot more to Jack Torrance than you previously realised. In fact, Torrance might actually be responsible for writing Stephen King’s Apt Pupil...

Related: 20 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Stephen King

Let Grifter42 explain:

“Now, in the movie, it doesn't delve much into what Jack writes, besides all work and no play.

But in the book, it talks about how he's created a character named Denker.

Now, this name also turns up in Apt Pupil. In fact, Denker is an ex-nazi in hiding.

King has created a lot of authors in that head of his. Who's to say some of them don't take over and type when he's at the ol' printing press?

Now, Apt Pupil is about a monster of a student. Jack, a teacher, feels guilt for beating one of his former students after finding him while the guy slashes his tires. He's fired. He becomes bitter. Or rather, more bitter.

This bitterness leads him to inspiration, an idea of a man who teaches despicable things because it was what he learned. He teaches them to a kid who ought to be normal. He is projecting his hatred onto paper.

Now, what is The Shining about, exactly? Imperialism. White man's burden, my man. White man's burden. And the Nazis, well, they were a firm believer in that sort of thing.

So Jack funnels his hate, his loathing of students, his loathing of what he's become, into this work. Into a novella. A novella called Apt Pupil.

In it, a student is not just a vandal, but a veritable member of the Hitler Youth, almost. He is fascinated by Denker, who Jack mentions several times as a character in his writing, in the book version of the Shining. Denker is Jack's white guilt, anger, and apathy, personified.

Jack wrote that book. Bachman just slapped his name on it.”

Minds blown? 

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