Salim Adamu

Eng 3407-O628 Lec(53013)

12/04/2020

Eleanor’s Hill House

Is the supernatural real or is it something that was made up from our fears and is just a figment of our imagination. I do not know if we can ever get a solid answer to if it’s real ornery but many people have attempted from past to present. This thing called supernatural investigation was displayed greatly in a novel called The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson . This novel had a great concept about a lot of gothic theories that could surround the supernatural and for this novel the theory being the fantastic and uncanny, it showed great representation of gothic spaces in Hill House. In the house a double seemed to be from or a sort of connection which was Eleanor and the Hill House itself which opposed each other at some point but also connected or seem they are made for each other a real pair towards the end. This in all is what the novel was covering and what intriguing reactions popped out the most to me.

The double pairings Eleanor and the Hill House did not have many great times together. The house wore Eleanor down mentally throughout and made her really unstable with her actions and emotion. Even before she got to the house itself the gate already gave her a little feeling of what the house was like itself and that gate and the area around it made that a great gothic space. Eleanor herself stated that “The gate was tall and ominous and heavy, set strongly into a stone wall which went off through the trees”(Jackson, pg 11) and those are the feelings which are gothic and what gothic space should make you feel dark and ominous. when shoes get there what she experiences and feels is much worse than just an ominous feeling . For Eleanor and Hill house the interaction wasn’t always pleasant but not to say that didn’t have some good parts. Like when Eleanor first came to the house and was finally able to relax unlike before shows that she liked that about the house and got something out of being in the house that time. It was even stated that ” It was a surprise to find that she had slept until after eight, and she thought that it was ironic that the first good night’s sleep she had had in years had come to her in Hill House”(Jackson, chpt 4) and there it proved that a positive connection between the house and Eleanor was made because of what the house did for Eleanor.

The parts where the house mentally strained Eleanor was deep and even caused a strain in the relationships with the members of her team. For example when they came out and saw writing on the wall which talked about Eleanor specifically it stated in the novel “”Can you read it?” Luke asked softly, and the doctor, moving his flashlight, read slowly: HELP ELEANOR COME HOME.”(Jackson, chpt 5) and from there it caused Eleanor a shock and caused her to not have the same relationship with Theodora after . What caused that to happen was when Eleanor said “Did you write it?” Eleanor turned to Theodora. “Please tell me—I won’t be angry or anything, just so I can know that—maybe it was only a joke”(Jackson, chpt5) all that showed a sense of distrust between them and no wonder one would leave the side of someone due to that. This event had the properties of a gothic theory since the novel itself is gothic and focuses on gothic theories throughout and it embodied the theory of the uncanny. In this case because it was never shown if a member of the team wrote it or if it was the Haunted Hill House so the event acted as an interaction between the house and Eleanor because it could have been the house which committed the act. That idea was on Eleanor’s mind as well which would count this as one of the parts where the double of the Hill House and Eleanor was not positive and affected her mentally. Even though all that showed a great connection, the greatest one between the Hill House and Eleanor was the ending of the story. Where she didn’t want to leave the Hill House it was shown when she said herself that “The house wants me to stay”(Jackson, chpt9) this could also be seen as the fantastic because we never know if she really hears the Hill House or if it’s just all in her head. Not only that but it confirmed that the house and Eleanor are a real pair true doubles which attract each other in the end.

That was what this doubles pair of the Hill House and Eleanor went through together. It still isn’t made clear if the Hill House was really alive or supernatural in the end and that was what made this story truly a great example of the uncanny and fantastic depicted by Todorov. All that mattered was that to Eleanor it was alive and a place where she belonged the only place she can be at since she had nowhere else to go to or call home. The whole story covered a lot about them, the Hill House and the others but the one it affected themes and meant the most to was Eleanor and that is why they are best double shown in the story. They attract one another not always in a fond way but to Elenor after being damaged psychologically in the house which would count as the times they opposed each other, but all that didn’t matter after all in the ending of the novel. That place became her home and she could only perceive it as something good for her and similar to her. That attracted her to it and they became truly connected as one after all the good and bad presented at Hill House, to Eleanor the house was meant for her.

Works Cited

Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959)

The-Fantastic_Todorov_gothicLiterature