What Is The Theme Of 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

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

In 1959 Miss Jackson wrote a novel called The Haunting of Hill House. In 1963 it was made into a film called The Haunting, starring Julie Harris and Claire Bloom. In this story a group of researchers gather at an old estate house as part of a psychic investigaqtion to see if the building is haunted. One of the women invited to participate on the project because of her sensitivity to the supernatural becomes obsessed with or possessed by the house.

Correspondingly, Barbra’s character shrieks the stereotype of a hysterical housewife, a helpless, naïve blonde woman. She is weak and reliant on the others, incompetent and oblivious to the concerns at hand. Her lack of prowess when the ghouls infiltrated the farmhouse consequently led to her death. While others were pitching in to devise a plan to combat the slew of ghouls drawing near the farmhouse, Barbra was in a state of bewilderment due to Johnny’s death and was unmindful of the plan to defeat the ghouls; therefore, she became a hindrance to the others. Robert Hass’s film criticism of Carol J. Clover’s work in Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, declares, “Women are usually helpless victims in the horror genre” (Haas 67). This essentially summarized Barbra’s character in such a manner that the viewer would infer that Barbra enacts the stereotypical female role of a horror film.

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.

One of the first problematic representations encountered in Peyton Place is Metalious’ portrayal of women who have never married. While negative portrayals of such women may seem outrageous to readers today, they could not have shocked readers of the postwar era in which over 70% of all men and women married. Women who did not fulfill the rite of marriage were consequently in the minority. Metalious’ depiction of the character of Miss Hester Goodale is the harshest representation of this lonely marginalized group. When she is discussed by Allison and Norman, in spite of Allison’s reassurance that “Miss Hester won’t hurt you,” she lets herself imagine the aging, single woman as sinister and strange (Metalious 63). It is decided that “she is as loony as they come,” (Metalious 65) and possibly even a witch whom neighbors might overhear chanting as she stirs her witch’s brew (Metalious 64). Later in the novel, Allison writes a short story in which Miss Hester is a witch who keeps her dead lover’s bones in her cellar (Metalious 184). Furthermore, not only is the MISS Hester Goodale a crazy witch, but the town says that their broken-hearted neighbor is “only waiting to die” (Metalious 67), clearly without any valid reason

As hardworking women living of the prairie, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters can relate to Mrs. Wright’s situation. They know personally that long days of doing laundry, cooking, and cleaning can become very tiresome (Hedges 91). They realize that living on the prairie can force a woman to be confined to her own house for weeks at a time, and because Mrs. Wright never had children, the grueling loneliness that she suffered must have been excruciating. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters both experience the constant patronization and sexual discrimination that most women in the early twentieth century lived with. They empathize with the difficulties of Mrs. Wright’s life and almost immediately a bond is formed with a woman they do not even know.

In her story, “Old Woman Magoun” she delivered a feminist message more directly than ever. It’s based in turn-of-the-century New England, patriarchy still defined relationships even though the men themselves had degenerated. The story reflects the realities of Freeman’s own life, as her father’s business failed and her mother became the support of the family. However, Freeman’s life was not unique; rural New England is

According to Elizabeth Lowell, “Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.” Sometimes what every situation needs is an outsider to flip the script and create a new outlook on everything. In Shirley Jackson’s novel, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” the speaker, Merricat, is an outsider of society on many levels, such as mental health, gender, and that she is an upper class citizen in a poor area. Although Merricat is mentally unstable, her outsider’s perspective criticizes the social standard for women in the 1960s, indicating that social roles, marriage, and the patriarchy are not necessary aspects in life such as it is not necessary to have the same outlook on life as others.

Domesticity has been portrayed throughout the story; it shows the effects of marginalization towards female characters who do not adhere to the typical socials norms and roles. Mrs. Fullerton, is an individual who does not fit in with her new, younger neighbors. Jane had explained to Mary, “‘I asked her to babysit for me once and she practically spit in my face. She is not exactly a charming old lady, you know’” (Munro 72). Mrs. Fullerton is viewed differently by her neighbors as she is not the typical stereotype. They based her role to her age, therefore, they thought she would be the typically loving, and caring grandma figure for the community that would babysit their kids. They realized that she does not carry herself in that manner, this triggered the community to flip on her and put her in a unimportant perspective by ostracizing as she is useless to them. In general, the suburban women of the community are the ones who organize events, parties, compete with each other based on looks, and gossip (68). Munro illustrates their domesticity when she describes: “most birthday parties were attended by mothers as well as children. Women who saw each other every day met now in earrings, nylons and skirts, with their hair fixed and faces applied” (69). It is seen as meaningless compared to a male’s work/day and, therefore, socially acceptable for a woman. Edith was put in a powerless position compared to her husband, because as “she was surrounded in her kitchen by the ruins of the birthday party — cake and molded jellies and cookies with animal faces” (68). He would be outside “working around their houses” (67). This shows that Edith’s position compared to her husband is unimportant, as she can only work from inside the household, while he works outside maintaining their home. Therefore, being marginalized by her spouse as she is alienated from the hardships of the

William H. Burke suggests that transience in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping is a type of pilgrimage, and that “the rigors and self-denials of the transient life are necessary spiritual conditioning for the valued crossing from the experience of a world of loss and fragmentation to the perception of a world that is whole and complete” (717). The world of reality in Housekeeping is one “fragmented, isolated, and arbitrary as glimpses one has at night through lighted windows” (Robinson 50). Many of the characters that precede Ruth in the narrative rebel against something in this world that is not right. Edmund Foster, her grandfather, escapes by train to the Midwest and his house is

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.

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

I think Mrs. Mallard felt trapped in her marriage, a marriage where communication no longer existed. I believe this caused her to feel very alone and restless in her marriage. In the late nineteenth century, women basically had little or no rights. It was thought that women’s sole purpose in society was to marry, have children, and to care for their family and household. Women of this era were not allowed to satisfy their own wants and desires. Therefore, we can assume that Mrs. Mallard got married at a young age. This fact, along with the crumbling of her marriage caused her to feel lost in a world where she knew not even herself. The fact that she was unable to experience life for herself resulted in her yearning desire for independence. These explanations contributed to Mrs. Mallard’s overwhelming enjoyment of her newfound freedom.

For centuries women have been forced into a role which denied them equal opportunities. Virginia Woolf expresses her frustration on why women were denied privacy in her novel, A Room of One’s Own. Woolf compares the traditional lifestyle tailored made for the opposite sex and the sacrifices that came with it. Women are limited intellectually as to not interfere with their domesticated duties. Even having the same desires for activities and education as men, a women’s place was not allowed in the man’s world.