Wendy Torrance
Winnifred "Wendy" Torrance is a fictional character protagonist of the 1977 horror novel The Shining by the American writer Stephen King. She also appears in the prologue of Doctor Sleep, a 2013 sequel to The Shining.
She is portrayed by Shelley Duvall in the 1980 film adaptation of the novel directed by Stanley Kubrick, played by Rebecca De Mornay in the 1997 television miniseries directed by Mick Garris and portrayed by Alex Essoe in the 2019 film adaptation of Doctor Sleep directed by Mike Flanagan.
Unlike her husband Jack Torrance's case, Wendy's background isn't very much revealed in the novel, but it mentions her having a bad relationship with her emotionally abusive mother. In the film version, the character is much less nuanced than in the book and in the miniseries, where she appears as a "central" character, so much so that some critics have spoken openly about "two different versions of Wendy Torrance". Stephen King has often stated that Wendy's submissiveness is one of the main reasons for his aversion to Kubrick's film. Writer Chelsea Quinn Yarbro also criticized Wendy's "weakness" as portrayed in the novel, attributing it to King's general inability to paint convincing female characters.
Other critics have spoken of the novel's Wendy as a "modern Gothic heroine", although not stereotyped.
