‘Journeys end with lovers meeting’
I suppose that there has always been a fascination with ghost stories, as they stem from folklore. People have always wanted to be made to feel scared. The haunting of Hill house is about a woman named Eleanor who is invited to spend the summer at Hill House, by a man named Doctor Montague. She, along with two other people, end up dwelling deep into their biggest nightmares.
While the book is at times rather chilling, perhaps bordering on scary, it does rely entirely on fear, suspense, the creepiness of the standard semiotic of a haunted house, and terror. Some aspects of the book, for example the mysterious writing on the wall, and supernatural voices, have been recycled and used for cheap effect in both horror film and literature. Most of the suspected haunting so far have been told by someone, bringing back the good old fashioned thing of telling ghost stories by the fire. Jackson allows us to use our imagination throughout reading the story, allowing us to have our own interpretation to what (ghost stories) have since been overused and over told by many authors since the book was published. I am aware that The haunting of Hill House has been made into two adaptations, though I have seen neither of them. I think Shirley Jackson was known as the ‘Queen of American Gothic’, sparing the creepiness of her stories to the last page.
I think what contributes to the terror in the book is the fact that the supernatural forces are never drawn attention to. They are there in the background, which perhaps makes it more eerie than if they were perhaps the main characters. By the last line of the entire book, you are made to feel that you are not in the house alone, and it still stands by the end of it too.
Overall, a gripping tale that relies on the readers fear and imagination to guide the story, rather than, say, an ongoing plot.
4/5
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