The Haunting of Hill House

“Home” Throughout many stories, ideas about what makes a home and family are communicated to audiences because of the direct relatability to everyone, no matter what their background. Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson, is a novel about a group of people who are called to a supposedly haunted house to partake in a study of its paranormal activity. Eleanor Vance, the protagonist, is exceptionally susceptible to the haunting and feels oddly drawn to the house, with her life ultimately ending in suicide after she was ordered to leave. Modern Times, by Charlie Chaplin, is set in the 1930s during the time of a depression and follows the story of Charlie (as himself) and his precarious…

Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House depicts the tale of four strangers in a dark secluded house called Hill House. One important character is Eleanor Vance, the improbable protagonist of this novel. Throughout the novel we see instances of her deteriorating mental stability through her childish behavior, her insecurities, her over active imagination, and her “connection” to the house, all of which lead to her unfortunate death. From the very start we see Eleanor as childish. We…

Between the three books I read, The Haunting of Hill House, The Exorcist, and The Shining, they all gave me very different feelings. Some books may have been able to describe the horrors in ways that actually got into my head, while others had trouble of pulling the reader in. Overall, I had very different opinions of all the books. The first book I read was Shirley Jackson's, The Haunting of Hill House. The story is a psychological horror that brought four people together to explore a house…

Haunting is the appearing of a ghost or spirit. In “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson, there is a possibility that the characters in the book are experiencing unknown activity in the house. A haunting can happen to a variety of people. Whether you are a believer or not can play a role if you see or hear them. Some types of hauntings that are less terrifying to bone chilling are residual, intelligent, and demonic hauntings. The first kind is a residual haunting, which is one of the…

Like all sensible ghost stories, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House sets a lure for its protagonist. within the classic version of the shape, as established by British author M.R. James, the hero may be a gentleman of gently inquiring bent: a scholar, a collector or antiquarian. What lures him into the neighborhood of the ghost is commonly intellectual curiosity and infrequently greed; what attracts the ghost's wrath or malevolence is that the hero's tendency to intervene, to open the…

These novels all tell a bone-shuddering story and leave readers cautiously checking under their bed and sleeping with a few lights on. Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House does this as well as making readers question their own mental strength. A good expression for a variety of emotions and characters, this novel leaves the audience hanging onto every word. Jackson utilizes foreshadowing, symbolism, and irony in The Haunting of Hill House. Jackson uses foreshadowing to predict…

There are many differences between the book The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and the 1999 film, The Haunting, directed by Jan de Bont. The main characters in the film are, Lili Taylor as the timid Eleanor Vance, Catherine Zeta-Jones as the beautiful, frisky Theodora, Owen Wilson as the deceiving Luke Sanderson, and last but not least, Liam Neeson as Dr. Marrow (Montague in the book). Many argue that this movie barely follows with the book at all. Lisa Schwarzbaum, writer for…

Shakespeare). While originally describing the suspicions of an imprisoned king, the meaning of this quote has adapted and can be applied to many situations in storytelling today. In The Haunting of Hill House, Eleanor’s mind is heavy with the guilt of her past, and leads her to suspicion and paranoia. Eleanor is a broken woman, brought up in a dysfunctional family and forced to take care of her ailing mother, a woman who she hated. She is constantly berated by her sister, a woman who she hates…

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…

well-established hallmark of gothic literary canon. Shirley Jackson’s classic novel, The Haunting of Hill House is definitely no exception, yet the novel roots its terrors within the perceptions of its audience and characters, rather than through explicit depictions of the supernatural. With that in mind, any attempt at a “definitive” film adaptation should adhere as strictly to this concept as possible. The evil of Hill House should be subtle and internal rather than showy and overt. The…