Polythene Pam – Round 3

Right at the switch between songs, the focus cuts back to Wendy. Also, backward Ullman has left the gruesome bits behind. Here he’s saying “Good employment record.” And as we just heard, Pam works in a shop and never stops. She’s a go-getter.
What’s also cool is there’s a piece of bog oak behind Wendy in the last song that has disappeared now. Almost as if signalling the song change, from Mustard to Pam.

“Oh you should see Polythene Pam” – On “Pam” (first image below) Grady ghost appears. On “see” (second image below) Wendy is spinning around shrieking at the idea of seeing Grady. But what’s interesting is that Wendy was given no reason to think there would be someone behind her, and she’s looking away for too long to have seen him out of the corner of her eye. So Wendy spins shrieking at no trigger. I’ve interpreted this as being part of Wendy’s low-key shine power (we learn in the novel that she has a trace of the shining). But it’s interesting that it happens here on the word “see”. Recall how in round 2 Polythene Pam played completely over the secret Jack and Grady tryst, with no trace of Wendy in the mirrorform. So perhaps the seeing of Pam is a bit like an invitation to see the Gradyness in things. In round 1, Wendy’s finding the All Work papers while she and Danny are out in the hedge maze.

“You should see her in drag” – I have a thought that the Overlook has a feminine core to its being. So, although I think this ghost is an accurate projection of Charles Grady, as I think all the ghosts are accurate projections of who they’re meant to be, it’s a feminine force pushing them into being. So, when it projects male ghosts, this would be the hotel “in drag” so to speak. That’s not an important theory, I don’t think. But it’s worth pointing out.
What’s more interesting is that it’s on this line that round 2 Jack says, “So what do they call you around here, Jeevesy?” To which Grady replies, “Grady, sir. Delbert Grady.” This all happens during “Great party! Isn’t it!?”

As I think I’ve mentioned before, the instrumental here connects three interesting moments through the rounds. In round 1, Jack is crossing the lobby to study the labyrinth, and he does so by charting a course that goes from the skeleton by the reception desk, to the skeleton by the model labyrinth. In round 2, this section of music covers Jack putting it together that Delbert Grady is the Grady he remembers form the newspapers (“Yeah she’s the kind of a girl who make The News of the World”). And that Grady looks just like the skeletons, here, all Jeeves’d up.

OTHER MAIN PAGES FOR SHINING ANALYSIS