The Haunting Hill House Character Analysis

The Haunting Hill House is a novel written by Shirley Jackson. In this novel, Jackson writes about Hill House which was believed to be a haunted place in which Dr. John Montague with his invited guests, Eleanor Vance, Theodora and Luke Sanderson stay at for a while with the purpose of helping Dr. Montague to write his book. Jackson writes the novel in away Hill House is the physical manifestation of the mind and during Eleanor’s stay in Hill House, the house becomes a reflection of her own mind. Furthermore, Hill House as a representation of Eleanor mind, reflects Eleanor’s true desire, which is to return the loving arms of her mother , a fairytale which leads Eleanor into a situation where she is unable to differentiate between what is real and what is unreal.

After the death of
While Eleanor lived with her mother, she was manipulated and always did whatever her mother demanded. When Eleanor’s mother was sick, Eleanor was faced to take care of her mother all the time and Eleanor was unable to make use of her own life. Hill House forces Eleanor to confront her mother in chapter five, where Eleanor manages to stand up by telling the voice that sounded familiar in her nightmares to go away (120). Her demanding for the voice to go away, was her rejecting to her mother’s authority of which the voice she heard outside her door; was the voice she was accustomed to when her mother was alive. Eleanor’s mother frequently called Eleanor to give her, her medicine in real life and it was a constant nightmare to Eleanor. Similarly, Eleanor faces the same situation with Theodora and finds herself taking care of Theodora the same way she took care of her mother when Theodora clothes are ruined her. In other words, the situation Eleanor was in with Theodora at that point of time, was the same situation she was trying to escape from her