In “The Haunting” by Joan Lowery Nixon develops the protagonist and antagonist in the beginning and middle of the novel. Lowery presents the protagonist Lia Starling, and the antagonist Mr. Slade the evil in the Graymoss Plantation. The author gives the readers that Lia’s a typical teenager with a love of literature; but when she’s in the hospital at her great grandmother’s deathbed, her great-grandma thought she was her mom Anna Starling and she was telling her about Graymoss and telling her, “Graymoss is there. It’s waiting.” In The Haunting, Lia finds that Graymoss was being haunted when Placide Blevins died and that’s when the evil thing’s started; Charlotte got scared of her own home, and the evil pushed her cousin on the veranda. At the end of The Haunting, Lia forces Mr. Slade out of Graymoss; she feels the house is safe for her parents’ to complete their dream. Throughout The Haunting, the interactions of Lia and Mr. Slade drive the plot of the novel.
The Haunting, Lia is terrified that her great-grandma was talking about Graymoss and was on the verge of dying; when Sarah died Lia explained to her mother and grandmother what Sarah told her (10). When Lia has Charlotte’s diary she trying to figure out why the Plantation is evil and being haunted. Lia’s and her parents decided to look at the house to see how many rooms it has; so Lia and Jolie went to a voodoo shop to get something to protect herself, and she got gris-gris from the cashier, and she was instructed to keep around neck under her shirt at all times (54). When the readers read all that they get intense, exited, and they don’t want to put the novel down, but readers just can’t stop reading The Haunting.
In the middle of The Haunting, the reader got to read who the antagonist is in Charlotte’s diary and Charlotte describes Mr. Slade’s a cruel, villainy, nasty, thief, coward, and a rotten man (27-28). Readers get the sense what Charlotte had when she first saw Mr. Slade. The