The Haunting of Hill House

The Haunting, ©MGM 1963

by Shirley Jackson

In Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Eleanor Vance, the protagonist, exhibits the emotional fragility of early adolescence. When I first read the book as a thirteen-year-old, I empathized with her. I felt every excruciating nuance of her humiliation in the presence of Luke, Dr. Montague, and Theodora. I could relate to her alienation and isolation. Now, reading as an older woman, I find it startling that my perspective has changed to such a degree that I am impatient with her. I see Eleanor's fragmented personality as the cause of the haunting.

One of the hallmarks of girlhood adolescence is the view of oneself as different from everyone else. There is an individualistic pride in that stance. However, there is still a simultaneous (and contrary) yearning to be part of the group rather than an outsider. The individuation process can lead to feelings of inferiority, as in, "what's wrong with me? Why am I different?"

Externally, Eleanor displays such anomie, asking, "What did I do; did I make a fool of myself? Were they laughing at me?" Similar to a young teen, her identity is unformed. She must take special pains to affirm who she is: "…what a complete and separate thing I am, she thought, going from my red toes to the top of my head, individually an I, possessed of attributes belonging only to me. I have red shoes, she thought–that goes with being Eleanor; I dislike lobster and sleep on my left side…" 

Obviously, in this train of thought, Eleanor has a tenuous grasp of her own selfhood. She is barely anchored to reality: "I am holding a brandy glass which is mine because I am here and I am using it and I have a place in this room. I have red shoes and tomorrow I will wake up and I will still be here." One senses that she could fly apart at any moment. The repetition of "I" in this series of rapid thoughts makes them almost manic.

But this is only one part of the story: Eleanor's "A" personality. The "B" side is darker. It begins with small irritations: "Does she think I wouldn't bathe unless she left a full tub for me?" she wonders, then feels ashamed. "I came here to stop thinking things like that," she tells herself, indicating that these angry thoughts are nothing new. She tosses subtle insults at Theodora as Theo talks of getting lost within the house and not finding a way out. "And nothing to eat," Eleanor says, throwing back in Theo's face the woman's admission that she has an urgent need to eat whenever she's hungry.

Eleanor's hostility toward Theo escalates as the group finds blood in Theo's room and clothes. She refers to Theo as wicked, beastly, soiled, and dirty. Her loathing is "uncontrollable." Shockingly, she fantasizes about hitting Theo with a stick, battering her with rocks, even wanting her to die. Mere jealousy of the other woman's good looks and social ease would not explain these violent fantasies, which undoubtedly come from a deeper place. She never questions these extreme thoughts or explores their causes. 

A split exists within Eleanor between the mousy, humiliated girl-child and the resentful, hidden monster lusting after violence. From Eleanor's history, we know she had a poltergeist in her childhood. Such activity is sometimes thought to be caused by the powerful emotions that are unleashed during adolescence. Is it possible that Eleanor's murderous resentments have combined to form the house's explosive paranormal activity? 

More than once, the house taunts Eleanor by calling out to her the way her mother once did. "Come home," the house teases. "Mother, mother!" it reminds her via the planchette. Hill House literally calls forth Eleanor's demons: her resentment at a wasted youth and servitude to someone she detested. Likely, the blood on Theo's clothes and hands triggered the violent thoughts Eleanor held toward her sick and dying mother. Or perhaps the house, á la Norman Bates, created a poltergeist identity in her mother's form and flung the blood around.

Eleanor lacks the insight and self-awareness to resolve these two sides of her personality. The meek, hurt child is at odds with the more monstrous and hate-filled parts of herself. She could have used her experiences in Hill House to integrate these two halves in a healthy way, by taking some responsibility for her thinking and alienation. But Eleanor leaves it to the house, and the price Hill House exacts is disintegration. Eleanor's individuality, weak at best, is destroyed. 

 Carl Jung says in his Collected Works, "…if a union is to take place between opposites like spirit and matter, conscious and unconscious, bright and dark, and so on, it will happen in a third thing, which represents not a compromise but something new…"

 In The Haunting of Hill House, the "something new" is Eleanor's death and her merging with the house.

Works cited:

Jackson, Shirley, The Haunting of Hill House. The Viking Press, 1959. Print.

Jung, C. G.. Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 14 (p. 536). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.