Wendy Torrance

Winifred "Wendy" Torrance is a fictional character in the Stephen King novel "The Shining".

The novel

At the beginning of the novel, Wendy moves to Colorado with her husband Jack and five-year-old son Danny; Jack has recently been hired as the winter caretaker for the Overlook Hotel, and the family must live there in virtually total isolation until the spring.

The novel reveals that Wendy had an unhappy childhood: her mother was cold and unloving, while her younger sister, Aileen, was killed in a car accident when Wendy was 10.

Wendy's marriage had nearly ended three years before when Jack, an alcoholic, had broken Danny's arm in a drunken rage. The couple eventually reconciled when Jack agreed to stop drinking, and she gradually learned to trust him again. Nevertheless, she never completely loses the fear that Jack will fall off the wagon, which becomes a source of building resentment between the two.

She is also troubled by Danny's frequent, unexplained trances, apparentability to see into the future, and communication with spectral, demonic entities that haunt the hotel.

As the months pass, her life and that of her family unravels as Jack falls victim to the forces controlling the hotel (and his own personal flaws). Danny, meanwhile, predicts to her that Jack will harm them. This prophecy comes true; Jack eventually loses all contact with reality, and tries to kill them and himself by setting the hotel on fire. At the last moment, however, his love for his family wins out, and he sacrifices himself to allow them to escape. The novel ends with Wendy and Danny awaiting rescue.

In other media

Wendy is portrayed by Shelley Duvall in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film adaptation, and by Rebecca De Mornay in the 1997 miniseries.