Hell House

As I understand it, the purpose of the Genre Readings class is to make sure we are familiar with the conventions of the genre. Because of this, and because of the incredible number of similarities between Hell House and The Haunting of Hill House, I thought it might be interesting to look at the common features. In fact, I think I may do this with all the novels we read and then use that information to do a genre analysis for our final paper. Although I have not had time to sit down and do a full plot comparison of the two stories (I will do that for the final paper), there were a number of similarities that immediately stuck out to me regarding the characters, setting, and plot.

Setting

The similarities in settings may be obvious, but they are still striking. I suppose the most obvious is the name. I personally think Jackson used the name “Hill House” intentionally because “hill” is a near-homonym with the word “hell.” Matheson takes it that extra step and actually uses the name “Hell House.” I have to think that Matheson may actually have been paying a bit of homage to Jackson in the title of his book, since I have trouble believing he did not see the similarities in their stories.

As for the actual setting, there are several similarities I want to mention. In both cases, the houses are mansions built as sad, materialistic attempts to fill an empty life. Both are set in remote locations with nearby bodies of water that seem to draw the characters. Both have debauchery and death associated with them, as well as some sort of taboo. Both have been empty since the death of the owner.

Plot

As I said in the opening paragraph, I have not had time to sit down and do a moves analysis of the stories (a moves analysis, as developed by genre theorist John Swales, is a systematic look at all the major sections [moves] of a piece of writing and the steps that make up those moves), but even on casual inspection there are some similarities. There’s: life before the house, the arrival, the history, the “innocent” scare, the first main event, the threat, the disbelief, the near escape, and the death. I am sure there are more, but I am going to have to study the stories again to discern them. It will also help to compare them to the other books we are reading to see if all them have similar patterns. From what I remember off the top of my head, many of them have similar moves.

Characters

Perhaps the most striking similarities involve the characters. In both stories, there are four people who are locked into a reputedly haunted house in order to “test” the house. Both had two men and two women, with at least one of the women in a vulnerable, impressionable state. Also, in both cases, the “leader” or “organizer” of the group is a scientist attempting to prove or disprove the existence of the supernatural or paranormal. In addition, both had elderly caretakers who themselves seemed to move through the house like ghosts and who would not stay at the house after dark.

Main Characters

Personally, I feel the most interesting similarities are with the characters of Nell and Florence. Both characters are women who are too open to be safe in the house, allowing the house or the spirits to possess them. They are both unreliable characters because of the spiritual influence over them, which leads to the other characters accusing them of making up their experiences. Additionally, both have lesbian tendencies and end up committing suicide under the influence of the spirits.

I will be interested to see if the remaining books have similar patterns. Although I have read most of them already, I can't remember all of the nuances and look forward to analyzing them.