Review: The Haunting of Hill House

Is this really the same Shirley Jackson who wrote “The Lottery”? The slowly-building style is there, but where’s all the richness? The symbolism? Maybe I need to give the book another read to find it, and at 246 pages I could probably squeeze that in, but I think I expected more—though the humor and the witty banter lent a charm I wasn’t expecting.

I’ve made it sound like I disliked The Haunting of Hill House, but I didn’t. I loved it. It just wasn’t what I expected. I love Shirley Jackson’s slow-building exposition, setting up the situation and the selection of the cast of characters. On page 6, when Shirley Jackson explains the various reasons others didn't join the group, she says simply of those who did: “The other two came.” 

Maybe it's my imagination, maybe I was already keyed up for a scary story, but I read that line as the action by which they damned themselves. To me, it was too straightforward to be anything but foreboding. And when a little old lady quickly changes her “Damn you” attitude to “I’ll be praying for you,” I have to wonder if the protagonist Eleanor is going to be needing all the divine intervention she can get.

Jackson set up Eleanor’s nothing-to-lose situation through her unhappy relationship with her mother, her bullying sister, and her interest in just about anything—from an empty field, to a secluded cottage near a depressing town—so long as it is away from home. She’s so awkward and sad that standing up to her sister and taking the car counts as her "save the cat" moment.

I don’t know that Shirley Jackson does anything by accident. I wonder if the two sisters, squabbling over the car was intentionally set up to mirror the situation of the two Crain sisters who squabble over Hill House. The latter’s disastrous consequences set up the result for the other, so I needn’t have been surprised when it added badly. Lesson learned from Professor Shirley Jackson: Don’t fight with your sister.

When Theodora is introduced, she brings life and banter and joy to the character set. Eleanor becomes wittier after her arrival, and their cheerfulness is  a welcome change to the stern and foreboding backdrop of the house. But then, Luke’s wit sounds a lot like Theodora’s too, so maybe all of the characters are written with the same voice—Shirley Jackson’s. Nevertheless, I needed those moments of levity between dark scenes of oppressive fear, but I wonder if Jackson relaxed the tension too much in those moments. It seems everyone is safe so long as the sun is up, and not every night is eventful, so at times I think I relaxed too much.

Still, I could learn a thing or two from Jackson’s ability to build an anxiety-filled scene. In the four pages from Eleanor’s arrival in the blue room until the sound of Theodora’s car door, Jackson had me terrified, and I think it’ because Eleanor, too, is terrified by then. After looking out the window she’s “afraid to go back across the room.” But even before that the descriptions are all qualified with negativity—“unbelievably faulty design,” “pressing silence,” and “the sunlight came only palely through.” Still, I’m not sure what exactly is wrong with the room, but I’m afraid every time she’s in it.

At the end of chapter 4, after the first nighttime fright with the banging on doors and trying the knobs, Dr. Montague says, “Doesn’t it begin to seem that the intention is, somehow, to separate us?” That’s a turning point in the book, because at that point we know the house’s game. But it waits. No more overt separations. Instead, it lets them separate themselves when they react to stress and confinement, judging each other's actions, motives, and characters and assuming the worst. The house sets them on a course, but it’s their reactions to paranormal occurrences that drive wedges between them, not some persistent phantom dog. And Eleanor’s attitude toward the spirit of the house turns from fear to acceptance, and she begins to relish being the one who can hear the chattering song—being special in some way—which she is because the house is singling her out, ostensibly because she’s experienced poltergeists before. Speaking of which, isn’t Theodora supposed to be special too? Isn’t she telepathic? Why hasn’t that come up after page 8? Is she a fake?

As for the symbolism I was looking for, should I read more into the oleanders? The “Journeys end in lovers meeting” refrain? Should I try to read more into Dr. Montague’s name—like Romeo, he’s fated to want what’s forbidden? Seems a stretch. Maybe her symbols went over my head this time, but the absence of meaningful symbols and motifs in The Haunting of Hill House makes me think those overly-eager high school lit. teachers may have been reading too much into “The Lottery.”