The Haunting of Hill House
Encyclopedia
For the Richard Matheson
novel, see Hell House
, made into a film titled The Legend of Hell House
.
The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 novel
by author Shirley Jackson
. Finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories
published during the twentieth century, it has been made into two feature films and a play. Jackson's novel relies on terror rather than horror to elicit emotion by the reader, utilizing complex relationships between the mysterious events in the house and the characters’ psyches
.
built by a man named Hugh Crain
. The story concerns four main characters: Dr. John Montague, an investigator of the supernatural; two young women, Eleanor, who is shy and resents having lived as a recluse caring dutifully for her demanding invalid mother for years, and Theodora; and a young man, Luke, the heir to Hill House, who is host to the others.
Doctor Montague hopes to find scientific evidence of the existence of the supernatural. He rents Hill House for a summer and invites several people whom he has chosen because at one time or another they have all experienced paranormal
events to stay there as his guests. Of these, only Eleanor and Theodora accept. Eleanor travels to the house, where she and Theodora will live in isolation with Montague and Luke.
Hill House has two caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley, who refuse to stay near the house at night. The blunt and single-minded Mrs. Dudley is a source of some comic relief. The four overnight visitors begin to form friendships as Doctor Montague explains the building’s history, which encompasses suicide and other violent deaths.
All four of the inhabitants begin to experience strange events while in the house, including sounds and unseen spirits roaming the halls at night, strange writing on the walls and other unexplained events. Eleanor tends to experience phenomena to which the others are oblivious. At the same time, Eleanor may be losing touch with reality, and the narrative implies that at least some of what Eleanor witnesses may be products of her imagination. Another implied possibility is that Eleanor possesses a subconscious telekinetic ability which is itself the cause of many of the disturbances experienced by her and other members of the investigative team (which might indicate there is no ghost in the house at all). This possibility is suggested especially by references early in the novel to Eleanor's childhood memories about episodes of poltergeist-like phenomena that seemed to involve mainly her.
Later in the novel, the bossy and arrogant Mrs. Montague and her companion Arthur Parker, the headmaster of a boys’ school, arrive to spend a weekend at Hill House and to help investigate it. They, too, are interested in the supernatural, including séances and spirit writing. Ironically, and unlike the other four characters, they don't experience anything supernatural, although some of Mrs. Montague’s alleged spirit writings seem to communicate with Eleanor. Mrs. Montague's lack of social skills provides another source of comic relief in the novel.
Many of the hauntings that occur throughout the book are described only vaguely, or else are partly hidden from the characters themselves.
Eleanor and Theodora are in a bedroom with an unseen force trying the door, and Eleanor believes after the fact that the hand she was holding in the darkness was not Theodora’s. In one episode, as Theodora and Eleanor walk outside Hill House at night, Theodora looks behind them and screams in fear for Eleanor to run, though the book never explains what Theodora sees.
By this point in the book it is becoming clear to the characters that the house is beginning to possess
Eleanor. Fearing for her safety, Doctor Montague declares that she must leave. However, Eleanor regards the house as her home, and resists. The others have to practically force her into her car, but she is then killed when her car crashes into a large oak tree on the property. The reader is left uncertain whether Eleanor was simply an emotionally disturbed woman who has committed suicide, or whether her death at Hill House has a supernatural significance.
, in his book Danse Macabre
, a non-fiction review of the horror genre, lists The Haunting of Hill House as one of the finest horror novels of the late 20th century and provides a lengthy review. According to the Wall Street Journal, the book is "now widely regarded as the greatest haunted-house story ever written."
In his review column for F&SF, Damon Knight
selected the novel as one of the 10 best genre books of 1959, declaring it "in a class by itself."
and again in 1999
, both times under the title The Haunting. The 1963 version is a relatively faithful adaptation and received critical praise. The 1999 version, considerably different from the novel and widely panned by critics, is an overt fantasy horror in which all the main characters are terrorized and one is killed by explicitly supernatural means.
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
novel, see Hell House
Hell House (novel)
Hell House is a novel by American novelist Richard Matheson, published in 1971. The novel has significant similarities with the earlier work, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, though rendered with much more violence and sexual imagery.-Plot:The story concerns four people - Dr...
, made into a film titled The Legend of Hell House
The Legend of Hell House
The Legend of Hell House is a 1973 British horror film directed by John Hough and starring Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill, and Gayle Hunnicutt. The screenplay was written by Richard Matheson based on his own novel Hell House.-Plot:...
.
The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by author Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson was an American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years...
. Finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories
Ghost story
A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...
published during the twentieth century, it has been made into two feature films and a play. Jackson's novel relies on terror rather than horror to elicit emotion by the reader, utilizing complex relationships between the mysterious events in the house and the characters’ psyches
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
.
Plot summary
Hill House is an eighty year-old mansionMansion
A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...
built by a man named Hugh Crain
Hugh Crain
Hugh Crain is a backstory character from Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House.-Novel:In Shirley Jackon's novel, The Haunting of Hill House, Hugh Crain built Hill House eighty years ago meant as a country home for his small family: with the initial desire to see his children and...
. The story concerns four main characters: Dr. John Montague, an investigator of the supernatural; two young women, Eleanor, who is shy and resents having lived as a recluse caring dutifully for her demanding invalid mother for years, and Theodora; and a young man, Luke, the heir to Hill House, who is host to the others.
Doctor Montague hopes to find scientific evidence of the existence of the supernatural. He rents Hill House for a summer and invites several people whom he has chosen because at one time or another they have all experienced paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
events to stay there as his guests. Of these, only Eleanor and Theodora accept. Eleanor travels to the house, where she and Theodora will live in isolation with Montague and Luke.
Hill House has two caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley, who refuse to stay near the house at night. The blunt and single-minded Mrs. Dudley is a source of some comic relief. The four overnight visitors begin to form friendships as Doctor Montague explains the building’s history, which encompasses suicide and other violent deaths.
All four of the inhabitants begin to experience strange events while in the house, including sounds and unseen spirits roaming the halls at night, strange writing on the walls and other unexplained events. Eleanor tends to experience phenomena to which the others are oblivious. At the same time, Eleanor may be losing touch with reality, and the narrative implies that at least some of what Eleanor witnesses may be products of her imagination. Another implied possibility is that Eleanor possesses a subconscious telekinetic ability which is itself the cause of many of the disturbances experienced by her and other members of the investigative team (which might indicate there is no ghost in the house at all). This possibility is suggested especially by references early in the novel to Eleanor's childhood memories about episodes of poltergeist-like phenomena that seemed to involve mainly her.
Later in the novel, the bossy and arrogant Mrs. Montague and her companion Arthur Parker, the headmaster of a boys’ school, arrive to spend a weekend at Hill House and to help investigate it. They, too, are interested in the supernatural, including séances and spirit writing. Ironically, and unlike the other four characters, they don't experience anything supernatural, although some of Mrs. Montague’s alleged spirit writings seem to communicate with Eleanor. Mrs. Montague's lack of social skills provides another source of comic relief in the novel.
Many of the hauntings that occur throughout the book are described only vaguely, or else are partly hidden from the characters themselves.
Eleanor and Theodora are in a bedroom with an unseen force trying the door, and Eleanor believes after the fact that the hand she was holding in the darkness was not Theodora’s. In one episode, as Theodora and Eleanor walk outside Hill House at night, Theodora looks behind them and screams in fear for Eleanor to run, though the book never explains what Theodora sees.
By this point in the book it is becoming clear to the characters that the house is beginning to possess
Spiritual possession
Spirit possession is a paranormal or supernatural event in which it is said that spirits, gods, demons, animas, extraterrestrials, or other disincarnate or extraterrestrial entities take control of a human body, resulting in noticeable changes in health and behaviour...
Eleanor. Fearing for her safety, Doctor Montague declares that she must leave. However, Eleanor regards the house as her home, and resists. The others have to practically force her into her car, but she is then killed when her car crashes into a large oak tree on the property. The reader is left uncertain whether Eleanor was simply an emotionally disturbed woman who has committed suicide, or whether her death at Hill House has a supernatural significance.
Reception
Stephen KingStephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
, in his book Danse Macabre
Danse Macabre (book)
Danse Macabre is a non-fiction book by Stephen King, about horror fiction in print, radio, film and comics, and the genre's influence on United States popular culture...
, a non-fiction review of the horror genre, lists The Haunting of Hill House as one of the finest horror novels of the late 20th century and provides a lengthy review. According to the Wall Street Journal, the book is "now widely regarded as the greatest haunted-house story ever written."
In his review column for F&SF, Damon Knight
Damon Knight
Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
selected the novel as one of the 10 best genre books of 1959, declaring it "in a class by itself."
Adaptations
The book has been adapted to film twice, in 1963The Haunting (1963 film)
The Haunting is a 1963 British psychological horror film by American director Robert Wise and adapted by Nelson Gidding from the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn. The film centers around the conflict between...
and again in 1999
The Haunting (1999 film)
The Haunting is a 1999 remake of the 1963 horror film of the same name. Both films are based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, published in 1959. The Haunting was directed by Jan de Bont and stars Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson and Lili Taylor...
, both times under the title The Haunting. The 1963 version is a relatively faithful adaptation and received critical praise. The 1999 version, considerably different from the novel and widely panned by critics, is an overt fantasy horror in which all the main characters are terrorized and one is killed by explicitly supernatural means.
See also
- The HauntingThe Haunting (1963 film)The Haunting is a 1963 British psychological horror film by American director Robert Wise and adapted by Nelson Gidding from the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn. The film centers around the conflict between...
(19631963 in filmThe year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City....
), the first film adaptation. - The HauntingThe Haunting (1999 film)The Haunting is a 1999 remake of the 1963 horror film of the same name. Both films are based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, published in 1959. The Haunting was directed by Jan de Bont and stars Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson and Lili Taylor...
(19991999 in filmThe year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep...
), the second adaptation.