Laura’s Favourite Book #6: The Haunting of Hill House

Am I walking toward something I should be running away from? – Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Why The Haunting of Hill House?

There’s grief, madness, and loss steeped into it. And of course, the first truly malevolent haunted house in pop culture. In my opinion, what makes The Haunting of Hill House truly powerful is its narrative ambiguity – how much is happening in Eleanor’s head? How much is the house to blame? We never really get answers, which, like in all good ghost stories, leaves us with a lingering dread.

Story

We follow Eleanor Vance, a thirty-two-year-old who’s dedicated most of her adult life to caring for her recently deceased mother. When she’s contacted by a parapsychologist to join an experiment in a supposedly haunted house, she jumps at the chance. After all, why not? She doesn’t really have friends, there’s a disconnect between her and her sister, and there’s no job on the horizon.

She goes to Hill House ostensibly for this fresh start, but once she’s there with the rest of the group, the strangeness begins. The Dudleys, the only staff left, refuse to be on the premises after dark; there are sinister stories attached to the house’s origins; there are cold spots and inexplicable noises.

At first, these seem like the usual ghost story clichés, but Jackson masters some incredible set-pieces (‘come home’ and ‘whose hand was I holding?’ immediately come to mind) that, as I said, exist in that liminal-inexplicable space.

And like that frog that doesn’t know it’s in slowly boiling water, no-one realises in time that the house is preying on Eleanor’s anxieties. I won’t spoil the end, but Eleanor’s final reported thought is chilling:

“Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why won’t they stop me?”

Character

Eleanor is, of course, our tragic protagonist. However, the first time we see her is in ‘the real world’, where we see her sister, brother-in-law, and niece infantilise and criticise her. They’re portrayed as materialistic, insensitive, and inconsiderate, refusing to let Eleanor use the shared car ‘just in case’. This immediately positions Eleanor as the underdog, which is a clever move by Jackson – we want Eleanor to take the car, we want her to escape, we, along with her, believe that Hill House represents the freedom that she longs for and that, after years of putting other people first, deserves. That’s what makes the realisation that the house has ensnared her so much more chilling. It was meant to be a sanctuary. Instead, it devours her.

The rest of the group in the house consists of Theo, another young woman, who has also shown some sort of psychic sensitivity; Luke Sanderson, a playboy representing the family who currently own the house; and Dr Montague, who is desperate to definitively and scientifically prove that the paranormal exists. There’s an easy chemistry between them, which I’d argue contributes partly to their downfall: they’re so comfortable with each other from the get-go, that despite their occasional reminders to each other, their guards are down. After all, how can they be in danger when they’re having fun in the drawing room or going on picnics?

Eleanor is particularly drawn to Theo and they have an instant, intimate, impulsive connection that intensifies the tension both outside and between them. Their rooms are the adjoining ones, they are the ones who half-convince themselves that they must be related, it’s Theo’s clothes that are ruined and it’s Eleanor whom she accuses. They are the characters who tend to be placed in the most terror and most often see Hill House for what it really is: a malignant force.

Setting

Here’s the opening description of Hill House:

“Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

Jackson warns us, quite clearly, that this house is a wrong’un from the start and yet, as I said, we’re willing Eleanor to go off and have her adventure. The house itself is secluded and away from the nearest town, in which it evidently has a reputation. Even if you ignore the overtly scary stuff, there is something wrong with this house. The interior design is overbearing, there are those aforementioned cold spots and funny angles, not to mention the labyrinthine floor plan. The house is disorientating. Voices seem to come from the wrong place, windows don’t seem to match inside and out, and doors just happen to close by themselves. Regardless of the house’s history, its construction alone tells us that there’s something not quite right, in much the same way that Eleanor’s impulsive behaviours and overt fantasies hint at the mental instability the house will later exploit.

Coldharbour: The Haunting of 1 St Augustine’s

So the haunted house in Coldharbour isn’t necessarily malevolent – in fact, the ghosts themselves are mostly harmless. But just as in The Haunting of Hill House and so many other Gothic works, the protagonist Alex struggles with her mental health – and unfortunately, there are always nefarious forces around looking to take advantage:

Shaz was shaking her head.

“What now?” Alex snapped.

“I’m just … This is how it started last time.”

“Last time?” Alex scoffed.

“Shutting down,” Shaz explained, “not talking to anyone about what’s going on—”

“I just said I don’t know when our uncle’s in, it doesn’t mean I’m …”

“Ill?” Shaz suggested.

“I’m not ill,” Alex said, “just …”

Exhausted. To the bone. Beyond the bone. It had slowly slid its claws into her when she wasn’t looking, it had crept into her bed, it had caressed its way through her skin, until one day, she woke up and that had just been that.

Just her life. And she couldn’t even remember who’d bought Maddie’s new school shoes anymore.

“Tired,” she insisted, “and I was tired then but I’m fine, I’m a good mum, I don’t need everyone treating me like I can’t even keep a Tamagotchi alive.”

Find out the whole story – you can now buy Coldharbour here.