Book Review - The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

The Haunting of Hill House

Stephen King wrote a section devoted to The Haunting of Hill House in his non-fiction book Danse Macabre, detailing the innovative and spooky qualities that Shirley Jackson uses right from the beginning of the novel to show just how evil the house really looks. Of course it's not so surprising that King would highlight Jackson's novel as inspirational material; his screenplay and TV movie Rose Red, along with certain sections of The Shining, all seem heavily derived from material that Jackson uses in Hill House.

I think it's not too farfetched to say that Hill House is a successful ghost story, but in a review it's helpful to highlight just what Jackson does right for the horror genre. The first thing that comes to mind is that Hill House is not a blatant ghost story - items don't fly off the shelves in front of everyone's eyes, nor do ghosts necessarily materialize out of thin air to scare the reader externally. Instead, Jackson is much more aware of the need for minimal knowledge; she plants the seed of the hauntings without dwelling on them.

This is the case through much of the novel, as Jackson is more inclined to explore relationships with characters, especially Eleanor, and their take on the extremities of Hill House. For the first twenty pages or so, Eleanor has not even reached Hill House. Still, Eleanor does enough wondering about Hill House to set the reader up for the shock of the place once we get there. The four major characters of the group that stays in Hill House are uniquely different, and juxtapose very nicely from the uncomfortable Eleanor.

For Eleanor, as we soon learn, is quite a weak girl, broken in part from her household and looking to get away from the life she knows in favor of a less self-conscious woman. Throughout the novel, Eleanor lies, trying to create a life for herself where she feels wanted. It's saddening, but it can also get a tad annoying, especially when Eleanor is so inclined to abuse herself mentally. However, it is necessary for the plot, as Jackson explores Eleanor's psyche so well that at times the reader is very conflicted about the events that actually "happen" in the story.

This is the real meat and potatoes of Jackson's novel. Almost all of the supernatural events are frightening as they happen, and in the heat of the moment the reader accepts (and is not forced) to believe what Eleanor is describing. It is only after that Jackson, in fantastic prose, makes us suspicious of Eleanor's reality. As the story progresses, the reader is forced to question Eleanor's thoughts more and more, as each instance becomes ever more suspect to Eleanor's unraveling mental stability. By the end, we're left wondering what actually happened, the same mystery that the story prefaces us with in the beginning: "whatever walked [in Hill House], walked alone."

It's suspenseful stuff, really. One cannot say that the house did not have something to do with it; perhaps its architecture is simply maddening; maybe Eleanor was pushed to the edge after a series of real supernatural phenomena; maybe Eleanor was just crazy. Whatever the actual answer is will never be answered, and that is the success of the book; it makes haunted houses scarier than the dead, because just maybe they can corrupt the living.