A literary analysis on shirley jacksons the haunting of hill house

Shirley is able to capture humanity’s most primitive impulses, desire and feat. The author’s biographical influence can be seen clearly. The disturbances in her personal life are the reason for her creation of a house that becomes an independent entity. The author writes the book in such a way that it resonates with the reader through the tension that it creates through death and dying alone. The “Haunting of Hill House” also shows images of incest that are disturbing and also presents signals of homosexuality. To Dr. Montague, the supernatural powers has become more really than what he intended to study (Jackson 2013). The writer gives us a chance in this novel to think about the paranormal, psychological diseases and supernatural powers.

There is an all- consuming maternal force in this novel. Eleanor's life was not fulfilling thus, led to her escape from her sister's house to Hill House was lonely. Eleanor spend the whole decade looking and taking care of her mother. This life was so boring and lonely because as a young adult, she was denied a chance to socialize with her age mates. She lacks experience of many life experiences and wishes to get to know about reality. This keeping to herself for long has affected her psychologically as she has weird dreams and excessively possessed on things. She thought going to the Hill House would be a solution to her problems (Jackson 2013). Montague worries about the young people being thrown together; Luke, Theodora and Eleanor.

To her she saw them in terms of young people who were ready to explore sex and end up messing themselves. She is worried and even warns Eleanor about the dangers in the Hill House immediately she arrived. Moreover, we find Hugh Crain marries religion with a wicked fascination about his daughter's passage into sexual maturity. Eleanor has clearly internalized these views because she frets that the red nail polish she wears on her toes is "wicked. She was however suffocate by her spirits that led to others fearing her. When she couldn't surrender much to the supernatural powers of her mother's call to reunion, “Eleanor come home” she decided to take away her life through suicide. Furthermore, Theodora on the other side accepted to work with Dr.

Montague for personal reasons. She needed freedom from her room-mates stubbornness. Hugh Crain, was a perverse patriarchal father whose wives kept on dying. They all left their daughter's motherless. Eleanor's mother was never caring to her daughter. She made her hate home as she subjected her to cruelty. This led to Eleanor purposefully leaving her die so as she could find peace on her own. The ideas about home and family were very different to Eleanor. She never wanted to stay with her sister as she felt unaccepted. In her dreams, she dreamt of an ideal home where she will feel appreciated and more so loved by someone. Her call for Eleanor to come home made her surrender to it as she would feel comfortable to somewhere she calls home.

This is depicted in our society in a way the nuclear families plays a role in naturing or denaturing its members. The cup of stars symbolizes freedom, the universe, the heavens, and the attainment of desire. When Eleanor hears the little girl ask for her cup of stars, she starts imagining herself asking for it as well. She tells Theodora she once had one and wants one again. Theodora due to insensitivity mocks Eleanor about the cup. Eleanor tells herself that she doesn't have a cup and she will never have one in her life. On the way she keeps looking and surveying everything she comes across. This shows her urge to learn new things and find a different life. However, the road ends in the Hill House.