Eleanor ‘perceiving’ that she’s lying sideways in bed reminds me of how Luke discovered her leaning back at a dangerous angle when looking at the tower. She is not fully in control of her body as it perhaps moves in sympathy with the off kilter design (and nature?) of the house.
Sounds juxtaposed with silence once again, and “little” returns with a vengeance: “a little laugh, the small gurgling laugh that broke through the babbling”/ “a little painful gasp”/[Eleanor] tried to whisper, and her mouth could not move” [she embodies silence]/ “the voice … babbling, low and steady, a little liquid gloating sound” / “the voice going on and on, never ceasing” / “little gurgling laugh came again and the rising mad sound of it drowned out the voice … suddenly absolute silence” / “a little soft cry” / “a little infinitely sad cry”/ “a little sweet moan of wild sadness”/ “the wild shrieking voice”/ “the little sad crying again”/ “babbling … low and steady … on and on and on”/ “the voice rising a little and falling a little, going on and on.”
A chilling sense of control lost, and Eleanor’s desperate attempt to claim her existence as she proclaims internally (her external voice silenced): “I am a person, I am human, I am a walking reasoning humorous human being.” And the struggling, her haunted quest for belonging and being goes “on and on and on.” My soul feels sad.
Since participating in APS Together’s To the Lighthouse discussion, I’m more attuned to point of view shifts and I noticed one at the beginning of section 2. Jackson pulls back, adopts a sort.of time lapse narration and shifts her tone to idyllic. This first paragraph wouldn’t be out of place in a 19th century pastoral, or an E.M. Forster setting which he’s getting ready to skewer.
Might Eleanor be holding her own hand metaphorically, the hand of the child she once was, even as she literally and physically holds Theodora's hand?
I'm wondering who the 'they' she refers to are - 'they have been hurting a child'. 'They think to scare me. Well, they have.'
Very interesting the temptation to read 'God God' as 'Good God' (can God be good in the world of this novel?) It reminds me of another mind game Jackson plays with the reader in our reading today: 'Nobody's blaming you for anything," the doctor said, and Eleanor felt that she had been reproved'. I as reader wanted to read 'reproved' as 'reprieved'. There is no reprieve though and the irony of Eleanor being told she is not being blamed being a reproof, is part of the crazy world of Hill House.
I have become so fused with Eleanor that I too become angry with Theo when she accuses Eleanor of staging the blood, and again when she and Luke are "joking" in that hideous subtle abuse type of joking that it is SHE who seems to be the center of attention. But when Eleanor's thoughts escalate into violence, then I depart and am alone again, looking at these four silly characters in the book who really just need to GET OUT.
I adore the subtle but devastating Freudian slip of Dr M as he says "Unfortunately" to mention his incoming wife.
Are the laugh and the babbling one voice, or two? Raised my brows at: "the small gurgling laugh that broke through the babbling, and rose as it laughed, on up and up the scale, and then broke off suddenly in a painful little gasp"
Is the house staging a play for Eleanor's sympathy? Could Eleanor be having memory of childhood sexual abuse? Was one of the sisters, likely the elder, abused by Hugh Crain? And in imagining along these lines, I'm reminded of Kate Atkinson's Case Histories. I know Atkinson was influenced by Muriel Spark. I wonder if Jackson was an influence too? (oh, I think I've just answered my own question! They're the JACKSON Brodie mysteries. I'd gotten the J Brodie for Spark homage, but now I think Jackson is def in the mix! Thank you for accompanying me on my ADHD brain journey!)
I am amused by the "whose hand was I holding" when I imagine it in contrast to the Christian footsteps on the beach anecdote.
While the average period couldn't produce enough blood to soak a wardrobe, a uterine hemorrhage could, as with a miscarriage, after a birth, etc. So, not only unclean, but deadly.
I appreciate how the target is Theo's clothing, which Eleanor covets.
Finally, I noted Eleanor's "I am a walking reasoning humorous human being" as interesting for its lack of commas, but also for the "humorous." Why this adjective, among millions, and why one that, to me, does NOT fit our dreamy, romantic, sheltered, angry, clever, lonely, traumatized, Eleanor?
When you mentioned the blood being from mensuration, I couldn't help but think of Stephen King's Carrie whose insanely religious mother abuses her with guilt as a sinner. Poor Carrie gets her period and is horrified and the kids laugh at her, then later on it is blood that is poured on her head that enrages her and makes Carrie into a terrifying, vengeful force. I'm curious what transformation will Eleanor make.
This is the one scene in the novel that freaked me out the first time I read it so many years ago. Such a great buildup of tension and an outcome that warrants it.
I've noticed this in other places - like when people talk about The Shining - but it seems bizarre to me that critics want to debate over whether or not the ghosts in the story are real. Of course they're not real; it's fiction. You can debate over whether the ghosts in the Winchester Mystery Mansion are real, for example, but when we're talking about a work of fiction, this debate strikes me as completely irrelevant. It's as though people are using this argument to talk about whether a work of fiction is respectable and worthy of study: Is it *literature* or is it *genre fiction*?
When I was getting my creative writing degree, we were forbidden to write any kind of "genre fiction" (fantasy, horror, etc) under the presumption that you can't learn to tell a good story with that kind of writing. We were allowed to write stories that weren't strictly "realistic," without ever discussing what that meant, but our creativity was restricted by this expectation that we were supposed to be serious writers. I didn't read any of Shirley Jackson's work, aside from The Lottery, until years after I graduated.
Ruth, your description of the psychological interpretation is what brought this to mind. The idea that the blood in the room could somehow be menstrual blood is so absurd that it sounds like a parody of this hyper-materialistic "rational" thinking. Rather than wondering what's "real" in a work of fiction, it would be so much more productive to ask, what is the effect of the ghosts on the reader? What is their place in the story?
In this scene, it seems to be setting up a contrast between Eleanor and Theodora. Both have had their respective freak-outs, but Theodora's seems more emotionally extreme, sobbing and kicking the furniture and wrecking Eleanor's pillow, but people seem to be more tolerant of her emotionality than Eleanor's. She also seems able and willing to manipulate, turning sweet as soon as Luke is watching; I don't want to shame her for this, since I imagine it would be an important survival skill for a queer woman in the 1950s, or really for any woman living today. But Eleanor lacks that kind of social skill, having no apparent awareness of what would be deemed an acceptable womanly expression of emotion and what would be shut down quickly. What Eleanor did was talk, which requires someone to listen. Theo's tantrum can be easily ignored, allowing the doctor to continue his study as soon as Theo's out of the room.
In the final section, why does Eleanor cling so tightly to "Theodora's" hand after spending so much time hating her and thinking about stoning her? Earlier, Theo touched Eleanor's hand and she quickly pulled away, and when Eleanor washed Theo's face she hates touching her. Why the sudden change in the dark? Is it simply a case of "any port in a storm"? Or is it something else?
Either way, the ending of this chapter is such a punch in the gut. There's a feeling of commonality, of sharing an experience and receiving some comfort from another person, that's ripped away as Eleanor asks whose hand she was holding. Whose hand could she hold? What person could give her any real comfort?
I'm starting to wonder whether Eleanor really is aware of the things she says and does. There seems to be dissociation going on (the part where she describes fear and how it changes how she sees herself and her surroundings) and there's the unsettling scene at the end of part 3 where she thinks she may have said something odd but isn't sure. It's where Luke says "She's done this before" and the doctor agrees. That last part left me wondering!
"I hate seeing myself dissolve and slip and separate so that I'm living in one half, my mind, and I see the other half of me helpless and frantic and driven and I can't stop it..." Is this the mind of someone who has suffered abuse? Or is it the mind of anyone who has survived the trauma of childhood?
your comment about menstruation, brought to mind your earlier comment about the Hebrew Bible's injunction around "defiling mold" mold that needs to be purged. Menstrual blood (and semen for that matter) must also be lenses under the same sections of Leviticus
The break between the Eleanors internal and external world is complete (for now):
“When I am afraid, I can see perfectly, the sensible, beautiful, not afraid side of the world I can see chairs, and tables and windows staying the same, not affected in the least, and I can see things like the careful woven texture of the carpet not even moving. But when I am afraid, I no longer exist in relation to any of these things. I suppose because things are not afraid”. 117 and "I'm living in 1/2 my mind and I see the other half of the helpless in frantic and driven and I can't stop it"
I am fascinated by the writing, the pacing, the evocations of mood. I find Eleanor to be an extremely unpleasant character, have so since day one, so in some ways it frees me to invest more attention in language, but I’m interested in the fact that she’s supposedly a sympathetic character. The descriptions of the house have made me hyper-conscious of the rooms in my own house, the transitions between them, and the shifting of sunlight on the walls. Spooky!
If Eleanor's very personal dream/haunting is anything to go by, it does seem like the house (or whatever you want to call it), has begun to open up and share it's trauma with her. Or it's Eleanor's own trauma energizing and overlapping with whatever is currently going on. The line "I hate to see myself dissolve and slip and separate" speaks of someone who's very familiar with trauma and knows how it works: "so that I live in one half, my mind, and I see the other me helpless and frantic and driven and I can't stop it." I wish they hadn't stopped her when she used the word surrender. What was she going to say to finish her thought?
Her heartbreak and anger over a child being abused stood out to me. There's something very personal there, something in her that won't stand for anymore.
I was confused by Luke's line to the doctor: "She has done this before." Done what before? This reminded me that most of the POV is through Eleanor's lens and she's a very nervous person and not at all impartial. What the other characters do and say and note about her is way to figure out what she's left out, ignored, blocked out, or doesn't notice. But then again, they aren't impartial either! (though I'm sure the professor would love to be)
"If this, as Jackson wrote in her notes on one of the drafts, is the “key line” of the novel, what does it mean?" i'm not thinking well enough to answer this question today (i hope to come back tomorrow, but who's to say if i'll remember). But I want to say I love that she wrote it was the key line, because it's one of two lines that I always think of when I think of this novel. (The other one, if you're curious, is "journeys end in lovers meeting." Which certainly makes for a pair!)
In these chapters Eleanor becomes disgusted with Theo. Hard to tell if it's the blood all over Theo 's room or Theo accusing her of writing her own name on chalk out in the hall or in blood on Theo's room. Eleanor can no longer stand Theo's touch. Theo will need to move into Eleanor's room room until hers can be cleaned. They will be like twins, Theo will need to wear her clothes. Eleanor is put off by this. She especially hates seeing Theo in her red sweater, a throw back to the painted red toes! Later in bed Eleanor hears a child crying and clings to Theo's hand. Is it Theo's hand? Clearly it's not her own hand which she holds in both her hands "god, god, whose hand was I holding. " it had to have been Theo's, and this disgusted Eleanor because she's turned against Theo. She seems to be having a crisis about her own love of Theo. What is that poem she keeps repeating, "journeys end in lovers meeting)? Is she unable to accept her love for Theo?
Eleanor ‘perceiving’ that she’s lying sideways in bed reminds me of how Luke discovered her leaning back at a dangerous angle when looking at the tower. She is not fully in control of her body as it perhaps moves in sympathy with the off kilter design (and nature?) of the house.
Sounds juxtaposed with silence once again, and “little” returns with a vengeance: “a little laugh, the small gurgling laugh that broke through the babbling”/ “a little painful gasp”/[Eleanor] tried to whisper, and her mouth could not move” [she embodies silence]/ “the voice … babbling, low and steady, a little liquid gloating sound” / “the voice going on and on, never ceasing” / “little gurgling laugh came again and the rising mad sound of it drowned out the voice … suddenly absolute silence” / “a little soft cry” / “a little infinitely sad cry”/ “a little sweet moan of wild sadness”/ “the wild shrieking voice”/ “the little sad crying again”/ “babbling … low and steady … on and on and on”/ “the voice rising a little and falling a little, going on and on.”
A chilling sense of control lost, and Eleanor’s desperate attempt to claim her existence as she proclaims internally (her external voice silenced): “I am a person, I am human, I am a walking reasoning humorous human being.” And the struggling, her haunted quest for belonging and being goes “on and on and on.” My soul feels sad.
Since participating in APS Together’s To the Lighthouse discussion, I’m more attuned to point of view shifts and I noticed one at the beginning of section 2. Jackson pulls back, adopts a sort.of time lapse narration and shifts her tone to idyllic. This first paragraph wouldn’t be out of place in a 19th century pastoral, or an E.M. Forster setting which he’s getting ready to skewer.
Might Eleanor be holding her own hand metaphorically, the hand of the child she once was, even as she literally and physically holds Theodora's hand?
I'm wondering who the 'they' she refers to are - 'they have been hurting a child'. 'They think to scare me. Well, they have.'
Very interesting the temptation to read 'God God' as 'Good God' (can God be good in the world of this novel?) It reminds me of another mind game Jackson plays with the reader in our reading today: 'Nobody's blaming you for anything," the doctor said, and Eleanor felt that she had been reproved'. I as reader wanted to read 'reproved' as 'reprieved'. There is no reprieve though and the irony of Eleanor being told she is not being blamed being a reproof, is part of the crazy world of Hill House.
I have become so fused with Eleanor that I too become angry with Theo when she accuses Eleanor of staging the blood, and again when she and Luke are "joking" in that hideous subtle abuse type of joking that it is SHE who seems to be the center of attention. But when Eleanor's thoughts escalate into violence, then I depart and am alone again, looking at these four silly characters in the book who really just need to GET OUT.
I adore the subtle but devastating Freudian slip of Dr M as he says "Unfortunately" to mention his incoming wife.
Are the laugh and the babbling one voice, or two? Raised my brows at: "the small gurgling laugh that broke through the babbling, and rose as it laughed, on up and up the scale, and then broke off suddenly in a painful little gasp"
Is the house staging a play for Eleanor's sympathy? Could Eleanor be having memory of childhood sexual abuse? Was one of the sisters, likely the elder, abused by Hugh Crain? And in imagining along these lines, I'm reminded of Kate Atkinson's Case Histories. I know Atkinson was influenced by Muriel Spark. I wonder if Jackson was an influence too? (oh, I think I've just answered my own question! They're the JACKSON Brodie mysteries. I'd gotten the J Brodie for Spark homage, but now I think Jackson is def in the mix! Thank you for accompanying me on my ADHD brain journey!)
I am amused by the "whose hand was I holding" when I imagine it in contrast to the Christian footsteps on the beach anecdote.
While the average period couldn't produce enough blood to soak a wardrobe, a uterine hemorrhage could, as with a miscarriage, after a birth, etc. So, not only unclean, but deadly.
I appreciate how the target is Theo's clothing, which Eleanor covets.
Finally, I noted Eleanor's "I am a walking reasoning humorous human being" as interesting for its lack of commas, but also for the "humorous." Why this adjective, among millions, and why one that, to me, does NOT fit our dreamy, romantic, sheltered, angry, clever, lonely, traumatized, Eleanor?
When you mentioned the blood being from mensuration, I couldn't help but think of Stephen King's Carrie whose insanely religious mother abuses her with guilt as a sinner. Poor Carrie gets her period and is horrified and the kids laugh at her, then later on it is blood that is poured on her head that enrages her and makes Carrie into a terrifying, vengeful force. I'm curious what transformation will Eleanor make.
This is the one scene in the novel that freaked me out the first time I read it so many years ago. Such a great buildup of tension and an outcome that warrants it.
I've noticed this in other places - like when people talk about The Shining - but it seems bizarre to me that critics want to debate over whether or not the ghosts in the story are real. Of course they're not real; it's fiction. You can debate over whether the ghosts in the Winchester Mystery Mansion are real, for example, but when we're talking about a work of fiction, this debate strikes me as completely irrelevant. It's as though people are using this argument to talk about whether a work of fiction is respectable and worthy of study: Is it *literature* or is it *genre fiction*?
When I was getting my creative writing degree, we were forbidden to write any kind of "genre fiction" (fantasy, horror, etc) under the presumption that you can't learn to tell a good story with that kind of writing. We were allowed to write stories that weren't strictly "realistic," without ever discussing what that meant, but our creativity was restricted by this expectation that we were supposed to be serious writers. I didn't read any of Shirley Jackson's work, aside from The Lottery, until years after I graduated.
Ruth, your description of the psychological interpretation is what brought this to mind. The idea that the blood in the room could somehow be menstrual blood is so absurd that it sounds like a parody of this hyper-materialistic "rational" thinking. Rather than wondering what's "real" in a work of fiction, it would be so much more productive to ask, what is the effect of the ghosts on the reader? What is their place in the story?
In this scene, it seems to be setting up a contrast between Eleanor and Theodora. Both have had their respective freak-outs, but Theodora's seems more emotionally extreme, sobbing and kicking the furniture and wrecking Eleanor's pillow, but people seem to be more tolerant of her emotionality than Eleanor's. She also seems able and willing to manipulate, turning sweet as soon as Luke is watching; I don't want to shame her for this, since I imagine it would be an important survival skill for a queer woman in the 1950s, or really for any woman living today. But Eleanor lacks that kind of social skill, having no apparent awareness of what would be deemed an acceptable womanly expression of emotion and what would be shut down quickly. What Eleanor did was talk, which requires someone to listen. Theo's tantrum can be easily ignored, allowing the doctor to continue his study as soon as Theo's out of the room.
In the final section, why does Eleanor cling so tightly to "Theodora's" hand after spending so much time hating her and thinking about stoning her? Earlier, Theo touched Eleanor's hand and she quickly pulled away, and when Eleanor washed Theo's face she hates touching her. Why the sudden change in the dark? Is it simply a case of "any port in a storm"? Or is it something else?
Either way, the ending of this chapter is such a punch in the gut. There's a feeling of commonality, of sharing an experience and receiving some comfort from another person, that's ripped away as Eleanor asks whose hand she was holding. Whose hand could she hold? What person could give her any real comfort?
I'm starting to wonder whether Eleanor really is aware of the things she says and does. There seems to be dissociation going on (the part where she describes fear and how it changes how she sees herself and her surroundings) and there's the unsettling scene at the end of part 3 where she thinks she may have said something odd but isn't sure. It's where Luke says "She's done this before" and the doctor agrees. That last part left me wondering!
"I hate seeing myself dissolve and slip and separate so that I'm living in one half, my mind, and I see the other half of me helpless and frantic and driven and I can't stop it..." Is this the mind of someone who has suffered abuse? Or is it the mind of anyone who has survived the trauma of childhood?
your comment about menstruation, brought to mind your earlier comment about the Hebrew Bible's injunction around "defiling mold" mold that needs to be purged. Menstrual blood (and semen for that matter) must also be lenses under the same sections of Leviticus
The break between the Eleanors internal and external world is complete (for now):
“When I am afraid, I can see perfectly, the sensible, beautiful, not afraid side of the world I can see chairs, and tables and windows staying the same, not affected in the least, and I can see things like the careful woven texture of the carpet not even moving. But when I am afraid, I no longer exist in relation to any of these things. I suppose because things are not afraid”. 117 and "I'm living in 1/2 my mind and I see the other half of the helpless in frantic and driven and I can't stop it"
I am fascinated by the writing, the pacing, the evocations of mood. I find Eleanor to be an extremely unpleasant character, have so since day one, so in some ways it frees me to invest more attention in language, but I’m interested in the fact that she’s supposedly a sympathetic character. The descriptions of the house have made me hyper-conscious of the rooms in my own house, the transitions between them, and the shifting of sunlight on the walls. Spooky!
If Eleanor's very personal dream/haunting is anything to go by, it does seem like the house (or whatever you want to call it), has begun to open up and share it's trauma with her. Or it's Eleanor's own trauma energizing and overlapping with whatever is currently going on. The line "I hate to see myself dissolve and slip and separate" speaks of someone who's very familiar with trauma and knows how it works: "so that I live in one half, my mind, and I see the other me helpless and frantic and driven and I can't stop it." I wish they hadn't stopped her when she used the word surrender. What was she going to say to finish her thought?
Her heartbreak and anger over a child being abused stood out to me. There's something very personal there, something in her that won't stand for anymore.
I was confused by Luke's line to the doctor: "She has done this before." Done what before? This reminded me that most of the POV is through Eleanor's lens and she's a very nervous person and not at all impartial. What the other characters do and say and note about her is way to figure out what she's left out, ignored, blocked out, or doesn't notice. But then again, they aren't impartial either! (though I'm sure the professor would love to be)
"If this, as Jackson wrote in her notes on one of the drafts, is the “key line” of the novel, what does it mean?" i'm not thinking well enough to answer this question today (i hope to come back tomorrow, but who's to say if i'll remember). But I want to say I love that she wrote it was the key line, because it's one of two lines that I always think of when I think of this novel. (The other one, if you're curious, is "journeys end in lovers meeting." Which certainly makes for a pair!)
In these chapters Eleanor becomes disgusted with Theo. Hard to tell if it's the blood all over Theo 's room or Theo accusing her of writing her own name on chalk out in the hall or in blood on Theo's room. Eleanor can no longer stand Theo's touch. Theo will need to move into Eleanor's room room until hers can be cleaned. They will be like twins, Theo will need to wear her clothes. Eleanor is put off by this. She especially hates seeing Theo in her red sweater, a throw back to the painted red toes! Later in bed Eleanor hears a child crying and clings to Theo's hand. Is it Theo's hand? Clearly it's not her own hand which she holds in both her hands "god, god, whose hand was I holding. " it had to have been Theo's, and this disgusted Eleanor because she's turned against Theo. She seems to be having a crisis about her own love of Theo. What is that poem she keeps repeating, "journeys end in lovers meeting)? Is she unable to accept her love for Theo?