Who Is Eleanor In The Haunting Of Hill House

In The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson tells the story of four people coming to stay in an old house know as Hill House. The four people Dr. Montague who is a doctor of philosophy and with his new study he is going to document everything that happens in hill house, Luke who is in the future supposed to inherit Hill House, Eleanor whose mother just died and now she wants to live life and what better way than going to stay at a house and Theodora who gladly accepted the invitation, all play an important part in coming to Hill House. As the story progresses you can see the house is not haunted and that it is all Eleanor’s imagination. In the story Shirley Jackson gives us several clues that it is all Eleanor’s imagination and Hill House is not haunted. Eleanor’s drive to hill house has to be one of the most important parts in the story because it shows lot about her character. Her character has great …show more content…
Because of her mother’s death Eleanor has exchanged her mother for her sister, brother-in-law and her 5 year old niece who she does not like. “She could not remember ever being truly happy in her adult life; her years with her mother had been built up devotedly around small guilt and small reproaches, constant weariness, and unending despair.” (Jackson 3) Most of the events that happen revolve around the sense that Eleanor has been isolated and imprisoned from the world outside and it shows that she is longing for a place to be loved and belong to. Eleanor thinks that coming to Hill House she will find a home, a place where she belongs because has never belonged anywhere before. And when Eleanor hears the Hill House song at the end of the story, she feels that she herself is special and Hill House wants her. And only she can satisfy the house. “None of them heard it, she thought with joy; nobody heard it but me.”(Jackson