Where It All Goes Down
Hill House
In some stories, you might be able to give the setting a passing glance and be done with it. This play is set in an apartment? Great. Frame some family pictures on the wall and move on. But in The Haunting of Hill House, the issue is super important, since the setting—one Hill House by name—is practically a character. So how about we stop gawking at the entrance and we take a look inside? Strap on your proton packs and proceed.
Like Something from a Horror Story
But Hill House is more than something that just looks like it belongs in a horror story. Its features seem to come from every horror story ever written, and its architecture is meant to invoke the long, terrifying history of Gothic literature at first glance.
When Eleanor first drives up to the mansion, she notices the "towers and turrets and buttresses and wooden lace on them, even sometimes Gothic spires and gargoyles" (1.129). Anybody who's familiar with the medieval, decaying architecture of Ann Radcliffe or even the American Gothic of William Faulkner will be right at home here.
But the evil of Hill House runs deeper than just its ability to refer the literature of the past. It seems to personify evil with its features. As Eleanor says:
Almost any house, caught unexpectedly or at an odd angle, can turn a deeply humorous look on a watching person; even a mischievous little chimney, or a dormer like a dimple, can catch up a beholder with a sense of fellowship; but a house arrogant and hating, never off guard, can only be evil. (2.1)
Hill House's features seem to be an embodiment of evil. The house doesn't look the way it does just because of a trick of the light from a full moon, or because of an off-glance coming from just the right angle. No matter how you look at Hill House, the place strikes your primal instinct to run away and never look back. The place just looks plain wrong.
Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You
But looks can be deceiving, right? As we dig deeper into Hill House, a question begins to form, one that isn't answered in the text but is super important for a reader to consider. That question is: is Hill House haunted?
We know. It seems weird. The story is called The Haunting of Hill House, after all (check out our "What's Up with the Title?" section for more on this deceptively simple title), but there are several hints that things might not be as they seem. Here are a few examples:
- Nothing in Hill House's history suggests that a ghost traipses through the halls. Every tragedy that befalls the Crains can be explained by bad luck or bad nature (3.120-138).
- On that note, Dr. Montague explains to Mrs. Montague that Hill House's history shows none of the traditional signs of ghostly origins, like nuns being buried in the walls and such (7.83).
- Skeptical theories are provided to explain Hill House's haunts, such as "subterranean waters, or electric currents, or hallucinations caused by polluted air; atmospheric pressure, sun spots, [and] earth tremors" (3.93).
- The architecture of Hill House could be at fault. Again, Dr. Montague notes that the "[a]ngles which you assume are the right angles are accustomed to, and have every right to expect are true, are actually a fraction of a degree off in one direction or another" (4.89). The off-centeredness of the house's design puts the guests off balance and makes it difficult to for them to find their way throughout the mansion.
It's just possible that there are no ghosts in Hill House at all. Well, no ghosts in the traditional sense, anyway—you know, spirits of the long dead returning to haunt the living, either out of pure malice or to accomplish some goal left unfinished in life. Something is definitely happening in Hill House. The question is what.
Now, that's a question we can't answer. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but the book is mum on the whole what's really happening front. We do have some theories though. Four of them, actually:
Theory 1: Hill House isn't haunted, but the mansion itself is paranormal, alive, and totally evil. We're led to believe this theory because in many passages, the house becomes personified. Take a look at this quote, for instance: "[T]he house steadied and located them, […], and the center of consciousness was somehow the small space where they stood" (3.16). We don't know how the place became sentient or evil, but the idea that it might be alive freaks us out.
Theory 2: It's all in the crazy crania of our beloved ghost hunters. Yep, everything that happens may just be a hallucination. You know, subterranean waters and the like could responsible. What leads us to consider this theory is that sometimes characters will see or hear things the others cannot, and characters like Mrs. Montague and Mrs. Dudley appear to encounter no spectral manifestations. Ah, but how can more than one person have the same delusion? Is it a folie à deux? Guess it would be folie à quatre in this case…
Theory 3: Eleanor herself causes all the manifestations, thanks to some latent telekinetic powers. These powers were mostly dormant before coming to Hill House, but they sprang to life thanks to the guilt Eleanor feels over her mother's death—and thanks to the Hill House's power of suggestion. We do know that the planchette picks up a message for Nell, and Mrs. Montague suggests that Eleanor is perhaps "more receptive psychically than [she] realize[s]" (7.141). Also, Eleanor's history with the rocks pelting her childhood home and her claim that she knows nothing both suggest she's not being completely honest about the incident (3.107).
Theory 4: Eleanor is somehow, maybe even without her own knowledge, deliberately causing at least some of the manifestations, perhaps to keep the others' attention on her at all times. We don't know how she can pull it off, but it's just possible that she's more responsible for things that she claims to be.
And those are our theories. Did you see anything you liked, or have come up with another theory?
Tell Us What You See
By why are there so many possibilities? Why not just come out and say, "Hey, we discovered the cause of Hill House's evil, and it is…"?
Well, we have a theory about that too, but fret not; it's only one theory this time. We think that Hill House is a sort of horrific Rorschach test. A real Rorschach test consists of a series of inkblots psychologists show patients. The patients tell the psychologist what they see in the pictures, and different responses get different diagnoses.
We say the horrors of Hill House are a giant inkblot because the characters all seem to see something different in its manifestations. Eleanor finds a place she can all a home, Theodora a place to have an adventure away from home, and Dr. Montague a place to gain necessary evidence for his research. Mrs. Montague seems to find the mansion a place to live out her Gothic literature fantasies. Even Mrs. Dudley sees something different from what the others see. For her, Hill House is just a place in need of some good tidy housekeeping.
What do you see in the ink?