Jack Torrance

In early 1970 he met Winnifred (Wendy), who was a junior at UHN at the time and finishing her degree in Sociology (in the novel, she had a year and a half to go, but it was stated they met in 1970). They married a year later in 1971 after she finished her degree and while he was still finishing his graduate studies. This would be the same year his mother died (while Wendy was pregnant with Danny toward the end of the year).

His son, Daniel Anthony Torrance, was born around April-May 1972 as Jack was in the final stretch of finishing his Master's Degree. Picking up his Master's, along with a short story he would publish that year, landed him an English teaching position at Stovington Prepratory Academy in Stovington, Vermont.

Drinking and Jack had been mostly under control as he started back in high school. His alcoholism spiraled after getting that short story along with the teaching position at Stovington. Fall 1972 would be when he and Tennis Coach (and alumni) Albert Shockley first met and buddied up. From 1973 onward, he was a full blown alcoholic and with a rich friend of his running side by side. The pair of them became notorious.

It's believed that between 1974 and 1975 when Allasandra Reynolds became Jack's teaching assistant toward the tail end of his alcoholism run.

Jack was born in Berlin, New Hampshire in 1947 where his father, Mark Anthony Torrance, worked as a hospital orderly. He grew up in a middle-class catholic setting on the United States East Coast. Although Jack's father, Mark Torrance, was mentally and physically abusive towards every member of his family throughout Jack's childhood, Jack seemed to have developed a love for the earlier years of their relationship. He saw his father's loud arrivals home as a means to break the silence, and would bond with him in spite of the abuse. However, this affection would end at age 09 after Mark's treatment towards his wife left her concussed and hospitalized. He's the youngest of four children. He had two older brothers, Brett and Mike, along with a slightly older sister who was still at home in 1960. Brett was killed while serving in the Armed Forces prior to 1965.

Jack's siblings despised their father for his abuse. While they also despised the role their mother's devout Catholicism played in convincing her to stay with him, Jack developed a hatred for her specifically for her meek, pitiful appearance. This trait would develop into a deep misogyny as Jack grew older, despising women for appearing weak, while also detesting his wife whenever she would stand up for herself. When he was 7, he got spanked by his neighbor, which grew his hatred of some women.

Growing up, Jack would take his domestic abuse out on his classmates and animals. Jack got good grades in school, but often underwent punishment for lashing out and fighting other kids.

His father died at the age of 13 in 1960. Because Mark was a big believer in insurance and died at the hospital he worked at, the family became flush with the payouts that would allow Jack to go to University of New Hampshire (UNH) starting in Fall 1965 as an undergraduate studying English. He graduated in 1969 and went into graduate studies.