A Haunting Message

In the IPP#1, we were asked to explain what we thought was the function of the ghost story. Most people talked about facing our fear of death, confirming the afterlife, facing universal fears like the fear of the dark or things that go bump in the night, but I said (and so did Scott, but I didn’t read his until after I had written mine… so I didn’t steal the idea) that there is a deeper social function of the ghost story. In my doctoral studies at OSU, this is exactly what I am doing my dissertation on – the function of genre fiction in popular culture – so it’s interesting that this should come up now, and it’s what I want to look at in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

Fiction has a symbiotic relationship with society. It is at once a reflection of society and a creator of society. It reflects our currently held values and mores, while embedding new scripts in our minds. One of the reasons the ghost story persists as a fiction form is because of its fluidity, its ability to adapt to any topic.

In the case of The Haunting of Hill House, I believe Jackson is using the ghost story to question the issue of personal and public identities of women in the 1950s. Although Jackson is not necessarily recognized as a feminist writer per se, it is true that her two most famous stories (Hill House and “The Lottery”) employ a female protagonist being dominated by a force she cannot control. I think it would be naïve to think that Jackson was not making some sort of commentary on the place of women in American society in the 1950s. Speaking in literary terms, this was not the greatest moment in history for women. It was the Beat Generation, and the Beats were known for being fairly misogynistic in their portrayal of women. Women were often flat background characters that were seen only in the traditional “housewife” role. I believe Jackson’s book make be a response to that literary trend.

Eleanor Vance is a woman without identity. Like many women of this time period, she has never had any control over her own life. Although she is never dominated by men in the novel, someone always has control over her. First it was her mother as Eleanor catered to her every need. Then it was her sister who, because she was married, was able to escape the horrors of life with their mother. Finally, it was the house. Recent developments in feminist literary theory mention see the house as a symbol of the societal control of women. It is the place where they were held captive. I think this line of thinking is very obvious in Hill House. First, Eleanor is drawn to the house by, presumably, the house itself. Then, she faces closing doors, locked doors, windows that cannot be opened, and maze-like hallways that have her lost and confused. Her head is filled with thoughts that are not her own, until she can no longer differentiate between her own thinking and the house’s. This continues until, as she tries to leave, the house pulls her back, dealing the final blow to any personal identity she may have and ultimately destroying her.

I think the juxtaposition of the two female characters is yet a further reflection of Jackson’s views of gender roles of the time. Theo (a male name, it might be noted) is a strong, beautiful, graceful and charismatic. Eleanor is weak, plain, awkward and shy. It is obvious that the message to women is “be a Theo, not an Eleanor” because being an Eleanor will kill you in the end.

I find all of this very interesting and pertinent to my own writing because Hill House is one of those great novels that manages to blur the genre/literary lines, which is something I am trying to do in my own writing. I think I can learn from Jackson’s bold subtleties. By that, I mean that Jackson’s message is bold, but it is wrapped in such a delicate layer of intricacies in the novel, that you don’t really see it until you reflect on it later. That is something I can learn from her.