The Liberating Appeal Of Cars In The Haunting Of Hill House

Young children are often told by their parents to ’not judge a book by its cover’. The Shining Houses by Alice Munro explores the idea that it is unessential to conform to societal standards especially when they stand in the way of equality. The theme responsibility towards our community is prevalent throughout the story and we see that despite the popular opinion of everyone else we have a responsibility towards the wellbeing of our community members. Through the character of Mary, we see the importance of helping one another. Most of the people who lived on Mrs. Fullerton’s street were not fond of her because of the way he home looked however, Mary overlooked this and enjoyed spending time with her. She befriended Mrs. Fullerton because

In Isabel Allende’s novel The House of the Spirits, there are two definitive classes of people that are present throughout the novel. The poor class, including the peasants of Tres Marias and the socialist party members, has continual resentment towards the other class, which is the wealthy aristocratic class. The wealthy division of the novel shows little humanity towards the poor, treats the poor as servants, and control all politics involved in the country. The wealthy’s treatment of the lower class shattered the peace experienced by Chile because the poor and the wealthy maintained a struggle to co-exist with such division between their

The Haunting of Hill House is considered a classic to many people. It has a certain sense of feeling missing from today's novels. The Haunting of Hill House has suspense, horror, a little bit of romance, and an ending that will leave you thinking for days. Shirley Jackson is well known for her twisted work. At the beginning of the book, you our introduced to a character that has a major impact on all of its "guests". Hill House. "Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within." This is just one of the chilling sentences from the opening paragraph. The fear begins to set in. Shortly after, you are introduced to the strong yet cautious Dr. John

The car is one of the most important elements that develops and supports the theme brotherhood. The car is a symbol that is meant to show Lyman and Henry’s close bond, and it holds the key to their definitive separation. The red convertible is also a symbol of success, and a connection to the white world for both Henry and Lyman “ I was

The car that Shiftlet voluntarily fixes is also a symbol for freedom, the moving spirit, but also how material objects can block mankind from God’s grace. Shiftlet first notices the beat up old car and offers to fix things up car when he says he can just sleep in the car like, “the monks of old slept in their coffins!” (O’Connor 678). Shiftlet not only does not care to sleep in the house with human company, but he also compares the car to a coffin. The car is a symbol of much more than freedom, like Shiftlet says when he compares a man’s spirit to an automobile, but also as a symbol of death. When discussing symbolism, Tom Deignan discusses how “Shiftlet responds, eerily linking the car to a symbol of death. Mrs. Crater then says ‘They wasn’t as advanced as we are.’ But Mrs. Crater’s response be ironic. By inserting the image of stoic, noble monks, O’Connor seems to be contrasting their lives of devotion with these two lives of greedy pursuit. The monks, within O’Connor’s value system, are perhaps more ‘advanced.’ Furthermore, Shiftlet’s desire for the car just might lead him to some sort of death” (Deignan 133). Because the theme is about finding what truly matters in life, O’Connor uses symbols to show the reader what does not matter and what does matter. She compares Shiftlet to Jesus Christ, but then at the end of the story sacrifices someone else for his own gain instead of

Henry returns from the war damaged not unlike the car after Lyman tries to destroy it. The relation ship between the brothers will never return to its previous state just as the car will never be the same. The car now comes to signify the change in the brother’s relationship. When Henry drowns himself in the river, Lyman lets the car go with them. Henry knows life will never be the same and neither will his feelings about the car. The car will now only trigger the raw emotions of his brother’s transformation and his death, instead of the carefree life he once had with a close brother. The car comes to symbolize death and the death of the close relationship between the to brothers. When Lyman lets go of the car, he is also letting go of his innocence.

Every haunted house usually has a sad or treacherous past. Lemp Mansion is no exception. Declared as one of the nine most haunted places in America, the Lemp Mansion in St. Louis has its own history of suicides and untimely deaths. The members of the family had wealth and power yet it seemed almost like a curse was on the family, causing misery and grief over the years.

Emotional connections between two people can be fortified with an object in which both people can care for and share with one another. In the story “The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdrich, Lyman and Henry have a special bond. This bond is emphasized in the red convertible because it symbolizes the connection that both brothers have with one another. After Henry goes off to war Lyman takes care of the car. Lyman cares for the car as if he were trying to preserve the bond that he and Henry had. Furthermore, Lyman knows to some extent that the bond between his brother and him is fragile because Henry has been gone away to war. The color of the car which is red has a double meaning which includes emotions such as the love that exists between the brothers, but also disaster like war. The war separated them both emotionally and physically, but despite this, at the end, they were able to relive the old days when their bond was at its strongest.

Both Erdrich’s, “The Red Convertible”, and O'Brien's, “The Things They Carried” reflect the effects of psychological trauma left by war; specifically, the Vietnam War. In Erdrich’s piece, she uses the red convertible as a metaphor for Henry. The fact that the two brothers purchased the convertible together is a serves to symbolize their bond. Yet, when Henry returns from his tenure as a soldier, his mental health has deteriorated into an apparently depressive state. I believe that Lyman’s act of wrecking the car represents how the war has devastated Henry’s emotional state. In Henry’s attempt to restore the car, he is indirectly trying to mend himself. Indeed we see that in his effort to do so, he exhibits signs indicative of his previous

The protagonist in the book The Haunting of Hill House is Eleanor Vance. Eleanor “was thirty-two years old when she came to Hill House” (Jackson 7). When her mother passed away, Eleanor was relieved. She did not have a good relationship with her mother, and in fact, she didn’t have a good relationship with anyone; she had no friends. Eleanor took the role of the “mother” and was always taking care of her mother; she could never escape and find the person so was going to be; she was stuck. She was a very unhappy woman who was searching for freedom.

In “The Haunting of Hill House”, Jackson uses a third person point of view in order to create an ambiguous feeling during the supernatural experiences which leads to confusion of whether the novel falls under the sub-genre female gothic, or not. Jackson starts the novel with a very powerful quote: “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.” (1). That famously known quote is very ambiguous and evokes suspense. The sub-genre female gothic conventions consist of an old haunted house, mystery and suspense, supernatural experiences, women distress during a transition to adulthood or motherhood, repressed emotions, an aspect of feminism, heroic male figure, dark, and horror. The Haunting of Hill House consists of some of the female gothic conventions but lacks others. Viewing the supernatural experiences from a third person point of view allows the reader to have an insight of the situations.

After riding along a little further, the family is involved in a car accident. The main reason that the family is involved in the car accident is due to the grandmother. The grandmother remembers a mansion that she visits as a young girl. She is eager to go, because she wants the children to see how she grew up. This further states how the grandmother social class, because she lived in a mansion. During the time of the grandmother’s life, only plantation owners and their family lived in mansions. This also stressed the social class of the grandmother, because you can tell from this that the

Shirley Jackson’s novel, The Haunting of Hill House, explores the cultural anxieties in the mid 20th century. Specifically, men use womanhood (societal norms) as purposely infantilizing women in order to confine the female mind. Jackson utilizes symbolism, metaphor, and anaphora in her novel in order to convey the message for men to stop infantilizing women. Moreover, Jackson spreads awareness that women are being confined by a system that men developed: womanhood. Hence, in effect, the novel serves as an informal protest against male repression through a medium that can be read by a wider audience —more importantly an indirect challenge to male readers. According to Krolokke, Second Wave Feminism became prominent due to cultural discontent with patriarchy during the mid 20th century. Moreover, Krolokke informs the readers that Second Wave Feminism influenced women to challenge traditional family roles and male ideologies about women not belonging in the workplace (11-12). Mid 20th century is also when Jackson published The Haunting of Hill House. So, with these historical and cultural contexts in mind, Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House ends the novel with Eleanor killing herself because she wants women to challenge the ideas of patriarchy into effect. Hence, Second Wave Feminism has a connection to Eleanor having a childlike personality (can not think for herself) because she wants women (especially young and single women) to explore their rights (their choices) and

As she walked along she noticed that the road leading to her house had been poorly widened too. The narrator states that as she approached the old stones that allowed a walkway to the house “her heart began to beat” (359). As if to say she felt a little life in her or that her heart was not beating before. She noticed that a lot of her surroundings were not as she remembered. The pine tree was no longer there, nor was the summerhouse. However, exactly as she remembered, the clove tree remained. She noticed that the house had been added to and painted over with white. Then she noticed something rather odd. There was an automobile in front of the house (359).

The people of Richland specifically enjoyed their cars. Cars have been a status symbol since their inception and Richland residents unsurprisingly owned plenty of them. Brown even goes as far to sarcastically remark on their car ownership: “In Richland, a car helped to span the long distances between sprawling lawns and wide streets under a hot sun or sharp wind.” Brown may be poking fun at the Richland residents, but she raises a valid point that the cars may have been bought out of excess. In an ideal suburban landscape, the car was used as another layer of keeping the image of a perfect life possible. Cars were a part of the lives of Richland residents that they had control over. While they could not pursue the American Dream of owning a home, they could approximate it by owning a car and driving it around their confined town. The idea of driving a car around a suburban landscape may seem silly today, but the car helped ground the Richland residents and give them a false sense of agency in their lives. The sense of agency might have helped them cope with the fact they worked with highly toxic plutonium and lived in a strange cookie-cutter