An Analysis of the "Haunting of the Hill House"

An Analysis of the Haunting of the Hill House
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An Analysis of the Haunting of the Hill House
In her famous novel “The Haunting of the Hill House,” Shirley Jackson introduces the nineteenth century’s notion of horror in literature. However, she deliberately produces psychological elements in the story, evoking concerns about the role of emotions in getting horrified by the supernatural. She also weaves a thematic thread connecting isolation and the search for a home to the fear of the unknown. The whole story is interpretable by one of Emily Dickenson’s poems in “Time and Eternity,” with similar themes of isolation, psychology, and the supernatural. Thus, it is relatable to demonstrate the play's setting in communicating the themes through her poem. Emily Dickenson’s poem “Time and Eternity” explains how the setting of Hill House functions to covey the themes of psychological vs. supernatural, isolation, and the quest for home through the symbol of Hill House.
The novel's setting in a house with rumours of haunting sets a war between psychology and the reality of spirits, which is interpretable by “Time and Eternity” by Dickenson. The group of four people comes to the house with a notorious history about the house. Although they are unsure about the truth of the hill house, they fear it has already made its place unconscious. According to the Freudian model, unconscious thoughts stay right before the conscious mind and wait to be attracted by it (Curtis, 2015). Likewise, Dickenson mentions in her poem, “ourself, behind ourself concealed should startle more” (Dickinson, 1994). It happens to the novel's characters, who are already horrified in their unconscious mind due to the rumors combined with the spooky appearance of the hill house. The opening paragraph defines the house as “not sane,” with the darkness inside and steady silence in and around an eighty-year-old building (Jackson, 2018, p.1). Besides, the house’s caretakers paint it as an unwelcoming sphere, emphasizing “in the dark” in place of “in the night” to stay away from it (Jackson, 2018, p.9). All this sketches a gloomy, uncanny, and mysterious building, too impactful to leave the group without ghostly thoughts in the unconscious. Also, everybody has discovered the truth of the hill house, which also supplies nutrition to their unconscious fear even when they have not entered the building. The same battle between human psychology and the supernatural is traceable in “Time and Eternity” by Dickenson when she talks about concealed self. The unconscious mind is the ‘concealed self,’ which already possesses ghostly fear (Dickinson, 1994). When a character from the novel confronts this ‘concealed self,’ they are startled. Finally, the supernatural wins by overshadowing the wit of all characters, tragically ending the life of Eleanor.
The setting of the novel “The Haunting of the Hill House” invites the reader to comprehend the role of isolation, which is the most horrible spirit in the wo...