Preview

A Haunted House: Treasures of Life

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
414 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Haunted House: Treasures of Life
A Haunted House: Treasures of Life

The short story "A Haunted House" is story with meaning, by portraying to us the treasure of life. When two ghosts are searching through their old house, looking for their "Treasure", the treasure or meaning is revealed to us. The joy and love shared between two people is the treasure, the treasure of life.
By using irony and stream of consciousness Virginia Woolf is able to reveal the meaning of the story.

Virginia Woolf uses a style called the "Stream of Consciousness", revealing the lives of her characters by revealing their thoughts and associations. We learn about the ghosts past by seeing what they thoughts and associated with there pasts. For example when they were discussing death she put " "Here we slept," she said. And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking in the morning_"
"Silver between the trees." "Upstairs-" "In the garden-" "When summer came-" "In the winter snowtime-" "( A Haunted House Pg. 321). This quote shows us what places and actions the ghosts associate with there joy and love. Using stream of consciousness gives us a better feeling of what the characters are going through, which in turn gives us a better understanding of the meaning.

We also see the use of irony, using a word or phrase to mean the exact opposite of its literal or normal meaning. The irony is that the story is titled "A Haunted House" which made us think that the house was an evil place.
The house ends up being where every thing good happens. The ghosts did not haunt the people , instead they make them realize the treasure they have. By seeing how much the ghosts valued finding their treasure it makes the people take a harder look at what their treasure is, the love and joy they share. It is very evident when she says " Now they found it, one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for one self"(A Haunted House Pg. 321). The irony draws use in

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Terry Gansz the father of a young girl who was injured when she tripped over a ramp at the Haunted House alleges that there was failure to ensure the safety of the patrons who visited the haunted house. Alton Haunted House had a duty to exercise reasonable care for those who would visit the haunted house. The unforeseen danger of the participants were not averted and the injuries suffered by the young girl is the fault of Alton Haunted House. Alton Haunted House believes the young girls harm was the result of her own negligence. It was not the duty of the young girl to research beforehand the possible dangers of the haunted…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Home to numerous U.S presidents and first ladies, this presidential palace is the world’s most famous residence of unexplainable footsteps, weird knockings, slamming of doors, and even the sensation of cold chills, all reported by many government officials and workers. Abraham Lincoln, who is said to have foreseen his own death, is reported to be the most frequent visitor to the assembly, walking the huge halls and loitering around the Lincoln Bedroom which served as his office during his presidency. During World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill supposedly refused to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom after seeing the dead president one night. One former seamstress worker reported; she heard the laughter and felt the spirit of Andrew Jackson, has he leaned over her while she was hemming a bedspread in his old bedroom. But not only presidents and first ladies roam this building. The ghost of Annie Surratt,…

    • 854 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    With the barrel of her musket propped firmly on the limb of a tree, Charity took steady aim at the deer. The medium-sized buck was grazing at the edge of a thicket of wax myrtles, near where she saw the deer tracks the day before. John and Uriah were squatting in the bushes behind her. She had brought them along to help with the bleeding out of the deer, should she kill one, and to help carry it back to camp. They could then dress it out and help her prepare the meat for making jerky and so forth. She also hoped to can some of the meat so that it would last a lot longer. She was glad that Nancy had shown her how and taught her how to preserve food in glass jars- it was much better than having to dry it all into tough leather strips… Taking careful aim, Charity squeezed the trigger, while saying a quick prayer that the bullet would hit its mark. She was worried that she wasn't close enough to the deer, but if she had tried to get any closer, it would have seen her and ran off into the woods.…

    • 1182 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Bad houses hate our warmth and our human-ness. That blind hate of our humanity is what we mean when we use the word ‘haunted’.” I believe that those who reside in a home make the personality of the home clear. Both the Winchester Mystery House and Rose Red reflect on the widowed owners and their odd tactics of building a thriving home to live…

    • 2023 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    reader starts the story, he or she has to put aside any disbelief he or…

    • 1083 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The shinning takes place in a haunted hotel in colorado. The story behind the hotel is that some of the guests were killed, a former caretaker (jack) takes his family there to live after he takes the position as a caretaker. Jack, his wife, and their little boy all moved into this hotel. Jack hopes that the isolation of the hotel will help him reconnect with his family. After a couple months of living in the hotel Danny, (the little boy) starts possessing telepathic abilities, all without his parents knowing. He is able to read minds and see what others are thinking. Eventually the chief of the hotel senses Danny’s abilities, and starts to explain them to him. This started quite a bit of a relationship between the two of them. They start to have a special connection. As the family starts to settle in, Danny starts seeing scary visions and ghosts. Danny does not tell his parents about the visions because he feels that the care-taking job is very important to his parents and the familys’ future. As the story progresses jacks wife Wendy threatens to leave him, and Danny refuses to go along. Danny feels that his father will he happier with them there next to him. Danny soon realizes that his presence in the hotel is doing nothing but disturbing the ghost’s, making them angry. His presence is making the activity of them a lot stronger. Because of dannys’ relationship with the spirits and the activity, it has a very hard…

    • 646 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Each year people from the tri-state area travel to different haunted houses to experience some of the scariest moments of their lives. The scariest haunted house of the state is located in Tuxedo Park, New York, called The Forest of Fear. This event is more extreme than ever this year, containing five attractions for one admission price between $20 and $30. The five attractions are Uncle Jimmie’s Place, Das Kamp, Blind Panic, The Graveyard, and the Slaughterhouse. This haunted house is not recommended to children under the age of 12 due to the gory, disturbing characters walking throughout the forest. Sara Abouaf, a junior at LHS, is going to the Forest of Fear with the Lady Lions Soccer Team for team bonding the weekend of the 23rd. Sara stated,…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Author Shirley Jackson doesn’t require her characters to investigate and discover the real identity or psychological problems of a ghostly manifestation in order to escape Hill House. The narrative does not progress with terrified inhabitants metaphorically yanking on a door handle, trying to move an unmovable door. Instead, The Haunting of Hill House…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One example is when the kidnappers first take the child and no one reacts to him being stolen. One kidnapper knows something is wrong and that he is getting into a problem. So he soon implies, “it has not yet been discovered that the wolves have borne away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help the wolves! Says i and i went down the mountain for breakfast. (Henry 3)” This creates humor because readers would think that the kidnappers would not be in trouble but even the kidnappers know they are. Another example of verbal irony is when one kidnapper explains, “Me? Says I. ‘Oh, i got a kind of pain in my shoulder. I thought sitting up would rest it’ ‘You’re a liar! (Henry 3)” The reader would think that there is an actual pain in his shoulder instead of nothing. When the other kidnapper says he is lying, it reveals that the other kidnapper was lying and his shoulder did not hurt at all. This creates a humorous tone because the kidnapper proves the other kidnapper…

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A haunted house should be a place where visitors feel excitement, fear and relief. Excitement begins in line towards the entrance of the haunted house because one is experimenting this with a group of friends. Fear rushes throughout the body, legs begin to shake, and palms begin to sweat because one is mentally preparing for what is coming up. After going through the 20 minutes haunted house toward the end, which felt like hours one begins to feel a relief because it is finally over. In the…

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Irony

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Irony: the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning (Merriam Webster Dictionary)…

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shirley Jacksons The Haunting of Hill House tells the story of Dr. Montague, a professor studying the supernatural. After inviting Eleanor, Theodora, and Luke to stay at Hill House and participate in his study, weird occurrences begin to happen. Loud noises are heard at night, sections of the house are deathly cold, and strange writing is found on one of the walls. The house appears to come alive, slowly devouring those that inhabit it until it eventually claims one of their lives in a climatic ending.…

    • 855 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    John Wilson

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Irony: The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Virginia Woolf

    • 432 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This paper has given me the chance to learn more about Virginia Woolf, more or less about herself, but of her writing…

    • 432 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hamlet - Ghost

    • 1063 Words
    • 5 Pages

    This statement not only reveals the culprit; it eludes to the manner in which the king was assassinated. Upon hearing this Hamlet and the audience realize who the murderer is and how the plot of vengeance will unfold. Without the…

    • 1063 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays