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Story Is A 'Haunting' For The Ages

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By ROGER K. MILLER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 11, 2009

"The Haunting of Hill House," by Shirley Jackson (Penguin Classics, $15 paperback)

In the best ghost stories, often the real haunted entity is not a place or an object, but the central character - haunted, that is, by the character's psyche. Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House," marking its 50th anniversary in 2009 still in print, is one of the best.

Jackson primarily is associated with tales of the supernatural and psychological terror, notably her much-anthologized short story "The Lottery." After that she probably is best known for "The Haunting of Hill House," which was twice made into a movie, excellently in 1963 and execrably in 1999.

Eleanor Vance, 32, is single, unhappy, angry and friendless. She goes to Hill House, a long-unoccupied, supposedly haunted New England mansion, at the request of the psychologist Dr. Montague. He wants to use Eleanor's reputed past involvement with poltergeist manifestations in his research at the house.

Also invited to help with research is a young woman named Theodora, with a reputation for telepathic abilities. Making up a foursome is Luke Sanderson, whose aunt owns the house he stands to inherit.

While driving to Hill House, Eleanor travels in a bubble of fantasy. Fantasies are what Eleanor has in place of a life; among them is that she might find at Hill House the friendship, the family, to replace the family that does not care for her and that she has abandoned.

Yet when she gets there she thinks, "The house was vile. She shivered and thought ... get away from here at once."

Later, as mysterious happenings mount, Montague says, "Hill House ... has been unfit for human habitation for upwards of twenty years." The "ghosts" do appear to be real. The other three experience manifestations along with Eleanor. Could they be caused by her poltergeist? This and other questions readers are left to answer for themselves.

In a concise style using unambiguous language to describe ambiguous occurrences, the author builds a claustrophobic atmosphere of gloom and foreboding. Eleanor falls into a kind of madness, whether induced by specters or by her delusions. "If I could only surrender," she laments.

When Eleanor does surrender to Hill House, she goes through it seeking her dead mother, whom she has resented for the years spent nursing her in illness. "You're here somewhere." It is both a return to the womb and a turning to the grave.

For those who have not yet experienced the frisson of reading "Hill House," it would be unfair to reveal Eleanor's fate beyond saying it is entirely in keeping with the unhappy events leading up to it. Eleanor was a victim, perhaps of Hill House, but certainly of herself.

Roger K. Miller, a novelist and freelance writer and editor, writes the blog graustark.blogspot.com.

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