Now There Be Ghosties: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Last term there were beasties. Now there be... well, ghost-ies.

When I saw Shirley Jackson on the reading list this term, I was excited. The only thing of hers I’d read until now was The Lottery, the granddaddy of dystopian short stories and what I sense was a major influence behind The Hunger Games. I’d heard of The Haunting of Hill House, but hadn’t had a chance to read it until this class. I’m a fan of The Lottery. It’s one of those stories that made me stop in my tracks, so I had high hopes for The Haunting of Hill House.

Yet while I didn’t hate it, Hill House didn’t fill me up with the same dread I was expecting thanks to The Lottery. Yet what happens to protagonist Eleanor Vance comes close.

The spirits of Hill House have a special interest in Eleanor. After receiving the invitation to Hill House as an assistant in an experiment to prove the existence of ghosts, Eleanor leaves the reluctant charity of her disapproving sister and steals the car in an attempt to go on her first real adventure. Not only is Eleanor intent on seeking an escape from her quiet and dull life, but she is also socially stunted and seeks the companionship she’s never truly had.

Of those who are visiting the house during this experiement, Eleanor is the weakest and the most easily influenced out of the group—the most susceptible to believe that the house is haunted, whether she realizes it or not. She sees manifestations that others don’t, and she receives personal messages from those long gone who still haunt Hill House’s halls. Through this attention, Eleanor begins to feel a kinship with the house unlike anything she'd felt with another person. It’s forgotten and unwanted, like her, and she opens herself up to the house so much the spirits override her senses and drive her to the roof where she can jump to her death to be morbidly united with the house forever.  Even when she is forced to leave, Eleanor finds her way to remain at Hill House and drives into a tree, killing herself.

Eleanor is whoI found to be the most interesting aspect of The Haunting of Hill House. She is not a strong protagonist. If anything, most of the action happens to her rather than her seeking out the action. She becomes puppet-like—consumed by the energy of the house so much that it controls her.

This loss of control I find to be the most chilling aspect of Jackson’s novel. While it’s the dark moodiness of the setting that helps contribute to the Victorian Gothic feel of the novel as a whole, it’s how the spirits warp Eleanor’s senses so completely she’s deluded into believing she must die in order to remain at Hill House that takes the novel beyond Gothic into horror. Because there is nothing particularly special about Eleanor as a heroine, she easily slips into the role of the every-man. This reminds the reader while their disbelief is suspended that they too could be susceptible to supernatural influence.

What happens to Eleanor also represents a loss of control that most people fear. When she arrived at Hill House, she sought only an adventure, and before she was possessed wanted to seek out her own life separate from her family. Yet she loses control over her actions and her thoughts to seek death as a means of remaining at Hill House. This loss of power to an unseen supernatural entity is the recurring fear that drives forward all ghost stories I’ve either read or seen, and while this fear is presented more quietly than some, it delivers.

While it might not have been my favorite story read to date, The Haunting of Hill House has rightfully earned its place among the ranks of ghost story heavy-hitters. Just because a protagonist might be conventionally weak doesn’t mean that their story can’t send chills down readers’ spines.