The hall seems a haunted locus, la passage between the living and the dead. I was reminded that the etymology of hill is probably connected to the Sanskrit for skull. As Emily Dickinson wrote:
Brilliant comment! Maybe Eleanor was haunted long before she arrived at HH. Jackson/Dickinson draw our attention to the benignity of the house itself, no matter how peculiar. HH is but a front for its inhabitants peculiarly haunted visitors.
“… they held each other, listening in silence” (96). Eerie sounds abound: “Little pattings … from around the door frame, small seeking sounds, feeling the edges of the door, trying to sneak a way in” (96).
“‘You can’t get in,” Eleanor said wildly … silence, as though the house listened with attention to her words, understanding, cynically agreeing, content to wait” (96).
Sounds (following the silence): “a thin little giggle,” “a little mad rising laugh,” “the smallest whisper of a laugh,” “a little gloating laugh” (96-97). And, "little" returns in all its subtle glory!
“When the real silence came” Theodora seems to regain her consciousness – and control(?) - exclaiming, “We’ve been clutching each other like a couple of lost children” and immediately “untwined her arms from around Eleanor’s neck” (97).
And how everything is about children! Children, as ‘little’ as the sounds. Eleanor and Theo clutching at each other like children. Shirley always goes back to them being the children of the house, the children of dr. Montague even.
I experienced my first palpable chill in this chapter through the “icy little curls of fingers on [Eleanor's] back” (96). This frosty brush with creeping cold, and the seeming dance with the supernatural, contrasts with Eleanor's articulated logic regarding the embodied purpose of one's hands: "no one's hand would touch that knob; it's not the work hands were made for" (96). Is Eleanor channeling her mother's lessons of appropriate "hand work": "... my mother would never let me get up and leave a table looking like this until morning"? (89) or simply attempting to create a sensible reason for not opening the door to "it," which was "waiting to hear their voices ... to identify them, to know how well prepared they were against it, waiting to hear if they were afraid" (95). Eerie indeed!
Thanks for noting its place at the end of a long chapter, just as in the middle of the night would be exhausting and disorienting for them. And how it's been led up to, slowly, with doors closing, Eleanor sideways, cold spot. I'm also noting how they always refer to the house, rather than the ghost of the companion, or Mrs Crain. And to end the chapter with that suggestion of strategic separation, on that clause ridden sentence, makes ME believe Dr. M. Has anyone ever counted how many times Eleanor is told to go home? And yet, we know she doesn't have one.
What jumped out at me in this reading was that Eleanor seems more in charge than she ever has before. She's the one who rushes to Theodora's aid; she challenges the ghost/whatever it is; she grabs the blanket and robe to warm them up. She's never seemed so competent. Is it because Eleanor is used to nighttime interruptions, as implied by her calling to her mother as she wakes up? Or is there more to it? I'll return to this in later parts of the book, but this is what I'm chewing on for now.
The doctor seems less scientific in this midnight adventure, suggesting finally that there is something that has intent; suddenly, here, he becomes more willing to approach something like a definition for the haunting. In yesterday's reading, he had a speech that I found a little bit spooky:
"I think we are all incredibly silly to stay. I think that an atmosphere like this one can find out the flaws and faults and weaknesses in all of us, and break us apart in a matter of days. We have only one defense, and that is running away."
In both parts he sounds ominous, but previously he only talked about the effect of Hill House on a person's mind. In today's reading, he suddenly comments on the supernatural, and he does so with a warning.
The references to unheard sound are very interesting. The doctor says he and Luke are “called outside” and yet the ‘dog’ they followed was described as being seen by the doctor not heard. The doctor and Luke did not hear the hammering sounds: “It was perfectly quiet.” Theo and Eleanor did not hear the men going outside: “Then they are not up here with us at all.” It reminds me of “the watching something unseen” in Chapter 2 but this time auditory rather than visual.
Isn't it a bit strange how they all recover from such a night so quickly? Is it still about not showing their fear to one another? E. and T. do show their fear to one another; the word that came to mind while I was reading this section was mirror. Something that primary caregivers can do for infants, and E. seems to do it with T. "I must look the same way" she thinks when she sees T. that night. And, "the oddest part was .. that Theodora should be having it too."
One of the most interesting things is how Jackson weaves Eleanor's past experience with her present. "That is not the table falling, she thought; my mother is knocking on the wall." And how the past becomes for a moment more present than the present! Becomes the reality.
Then E. corrects again. This constant correction.
I think it must be true, both what Dr. and Luke say they saw, and that the house is trying to separate them. I'm sure I'm not the only one to arrive at that thought a second or two before the Dr. says it.
Scary!
This part stood out for me as well, that Eleanor thinks she is "not more frightened, certainly, than she had believed in her worst dreams she could be."
I do agree that the house is trying to separate them, but I wonder whether its goal is to separate all of them, or if it was only trying to get Eleanor and Theo (maybe just Eleanor?) alone. Not to diss the guy's experience, but searching for a dog that doesn't exist doesn't sound nearly as terrifying as being trapped while something pounds on the walls trying to get into your room. Does it have to do with their relationship to the house? Or the way Eleanor seems to be more tuned in than any of the others?
Can we talk about this line: "...and Eleanor though that the oddest part of this indescribable experience was that Theodora should be having it too." What does E mean by odd? Is she experiencing some perverse pleasure in the terror because it brings her closer to T? Or is she astounded that the supernatural has brought the two of them together like this? I think either are possible, but I think the latter gives credence to the idea that yes, the supernatural are trying to separate them, but separate them along gender lines.
Yes, that was my interpretation as well. That it's one thing for the episode to be in Eleanor's imagination, much as the way she's just imagined her mother calling (and it's interesting that she's more scared of *that* than of a ghost). But another thing completely to have the events confirmed by another person.
Eleanor seemed jealous earlier when Theo called the house by its name Hill House. Is it possible that having them both experience the terror together makes Eleanor feel that Theo doesn’t have a special relationship with the house and that they are equal?
I don't know why, but the creepiest part for me was the combination of childish giggles with the fact that the knocking was very high up on the door. Maybe a child standing on the shoulders of another? Or something else entirely?
I find it intriguing that the house wants/needs to separate them. Their defence is their community/togetherness. Alone they might be picked off and would be more vulnerable. It's a bit like ghost stories round the campfire or on a sleepover. As long as you're awake together it's fine, when you go to sleep or are on your own, that's when bad things can happen.
I've been interested in my reaction to the novel so far. I was very excited to re-read it, as it's a trip down memory lane. I read it when I was in high school and found it creepy and absorbing. So far I'm less impressed though am enjoying it in a way. On the brink of the supernatural happenings, I'm unsure whether this is something I want to read but am potentially on the edge of my chair regarding the possible psychological dimension which would have completely passed me by in my youth. I'm glad it's not anything like a Stephen King novel, I wouldn't be here now if it were!
I love how the use of repeating and echoing words created a sense of urgency in this chapter. Things are said twice, three times, desperate for a response.
The repetition of “Like something alive.” in the description of the cold chills particularly got me. As if Eleanor only thought it felt like something alive as a passing thought, but then something else confirms, “Yes. Like something alive.”
This parenthetical got my attention: "(did it move back and forth across the hall? did it go on feet along the carpet? did it lift a hand to the door?)" In other words, does IT have a physical form? Luke and the Doctor don't hear the ruckus; the door is undamaged; it would seem that nothing physical happened, and yet sound has to be physically created. I guess this is the essence of haunting. I may be thinking about the door knob being fondled in the middle of the night (though I can't actually shut my bedroom door in my old house).
The fact that people have different auditory (and other) experiences in the house is bizarre indeed. It can decide which psyches it will perform for? (More of this to come.)
The battle of what we know by reason and by intuition lives on.
“The intelligent thing to do, perhaps, was to walk over and open the door; that, perhaps, would belong with the doctor's views of pure scientific inquiry. Eleanor knew that, even if her feet would take her as far as the door, her hand would not lift to the doorknob; impartially, remotely, she told herself that no one's hand would touch that knob; it's not the work hands were made for. “96
Ruth, thanks for writing about “That’s all,” as she would rather the pounding of the supernatural than her mother. The mother is one of the major aspects I’m tracking this read and that response shook me.
I have never felt this book to be slow paced. In fact, I usually read it in one to three sittings so it has been luxurious to spread it out like this and mine it. There’s so much there, but it’s such a page turner I have missed so much in the past!
This is my favorite scene in Robert Wise’s 1963 film adaptation. Julie Harris and Claire Bloom really show their classical acting chops (both played Nora in A Doll House by Ibsen, for instance) during the haunting, but they really pump up the juxtaposition of the situation when the boys return from the dog hunt and their laughter is so honest, it does track as to why they would be able to move on from this event.
I do think the house is trying to separate them, and that there is something about the hallway being a conduit. I remember when they first arrived, and they could see the upstairs as just a row of doors along a straight hallway. (I actually had images of both the hotel hallways in The Shining and also how prisons are usually designed).
I was probably the most unnerved by how E and T were giggling throughout the banging on the door “as children.” And Jackson also writes that the knocking at first sounds like children knocking. I do know some people who giggle when they get extremely nervous or afraid, but not when they are terrified. E and T just kept on giggling to the point that it became creepy to me, almost as if they were possessed.
The “dog” was obviously a decoy used to get the men away from the women.
The hall seems a haunted locus, la passage between the living and the dead. I was reminded that the etymology of hill is probably connected to the Sanskrit for skull. As Emily Dickinson wrote:
One need not be a chamber—to be haunted—
One need not be a House—
The Brain—has Corridors surpassing
Material Place—
Far safer, of a Midnight—meeting
External Ghost—
Than an Interior—confronting—
That cooler—Host—
Far safer, through an Abbey—gallop—
The Stones a’chase—
Than moonless—One’s A’self encounter—
In lonesome place—
Ourself—behind Ourself—Concealed—
Should startle—most—
Assassin—hid in Our Apartment—
Be Horror’s least—
The Prudent—carries a Revolver—
He bolts the Door,
O’erlooking a Superior Spectre
More near—
Brilliant comment! Maybe Eleanor was haunted long before she arrived at HH. Jackson/Dickinson draw our attention to the benignity of the house itself, no matter how peculiar. HH is but a front for its inhabitants peculiarly haunted visitors.
I am intrigued by sounds juxtaposed with silence:
“… they held each other, listening in silence” (96). Eerie sounds abound: “Little pattings … from around the door frame, small seeking sounds, feeling the edges of the door, trying to sneak a way in” (96).
“‘You can’t get in,” Eleanor said wildly … silence, as though the house listened with attention to her words, understanding, cynically agreeing, content to wait” (96).
Sounds (following the silence): “a thin little giggle,” “a little mad rising laugh,” “the smallest whisper of a laugh,” “a little gloating laugh” (96-97). And, "little" returns in all its subtle glory!
“When the real silence came” Theodora seems to regain her consciousness – and control(?) - exclaiming, “We’ve been clutching each other like a couple of lost children” and immediately “untwined her arms from around Eleanor’s neck” (97).
And how everything is about children! Children, as ‘little’ as the sounds. Eleanor and Theo clutching at each other like children. Shirley always goes back to them being the children of the house, the children of dr. Montague even.
I experienced my first palpable chill in this chapter through the “icy little curls of fingers on [Eleanor's] back” (96). This frosty brush with creeping cold, and the seeming dance with the supernatural, contrasts with Eleanor's articulated logic regarding the embodied purpose of one's hands: "no one's hand would touch that knob; it's not the work hands were made for" (96). Is Eleanor channeling her mother's lessons of appropriate "hand work": "... my mother would never let me get up and leave a table looking like this until morning"? (89) or simply attempting to create a sensible reason for not opening the door to "it," which was "waiting to hear their voices ... to identify them, to know how well prepared they were against it, waiting to hear if they were afraid" (95). Eerie indeed!
Thanks for noting its place at the end of a long chapter, just as in the middle of the night would be exhausting and disorienting for them. And how it's been led up to, slowly, with doors closing, Eleanor sideways, cold spot. I'm also noting how they always refer to the house, rather than the ghost of the companion, or Mrs Crain. And to end the chapter with that suggestion of strategic separation, on that clause ridden sentence, makes ME believe Dr. M. Has anyone ever counted how many times Eleanor is told to go home? And yet, we know she doesn't have one.
What jumped out at me in this reading was that Eleanor seems more in charge than she ever has before. She's the one who rushes to Theodora's aid; she challenges the ghost/whatever it is; she grabs the blanket and robe to warm them up. She's never seemed so competent. Is it because Eleanor is used to nighttime interruptions, as implied by her calling to her mother as she wakes up? Or is there more to it? I'll return to this in later parts of the book, but this is what I'm chewing on for now.
The doctor seems less scientific in this midnight adventure, suggesting finally that there is something that has intent; suddenly, here, he becomes more willing to approach something like a definition for the haunting. In yesterday's reading, he had a speech that I found a little bit spooky:
"I think we are all incredibly silly to stay. I think that an atmosphere like this one can find out the flaws and faults and weaknesses in all of us, and break us apart in a matter of days. We have only one defense, and that is running away."
In both parts he sounds ominous, but previously he only talked about the effect of Hill House on a person's mind. In today's reading, he suddenly comments on the supernatural, and he does so with a warning.
The references to unheard sound are very interesting. The doctor says he and Luke are “called outside” and yet the ‘dog’ they followed was described as being seen by the doctor not heard. The doctor and Luke did not hear the hammering sounds: “It was perfectly quiet.” Theo and Eleanor did not hear the men going outside: “Then they are not up here with us at all.” It reminds me of “the watching something unseen” in Chapter 2 but this time auditory rather than visual.
Isn't it a bit strange how they all recover from such a night so quickly? Is it still about not showing their fear to one another? E. and T. do show their fear to one another; the word that came to mind while I was reading this section was mirror. Something that primary caregivers can do for infants, and E. seems to do it with T. "I must look the same way" she thinks when she sees T. that night. And, "the oddest part was .. that Theodora should be having it too."
One of the most interesting things is how Jackson weaves Eleanor's past experience with her present. "That is not the table falling, she thought; my mother is knocking on the wall." And how the past becomes for a moment more present than the present! Becomes the reality.
Then E. corrects again. This constant correction.
I think it must be true, both what Dr. and Luke say they saw, and that the house is trying to separate them. I'm sure I'm not the only one to arrive at that thought a second or two before the Dr. says it.
Scary!
This part stood out for me as well, that Eleanor thinks she is "not more frightened, certainly, than she had believed in her worst dreams she could be."
I do agree that the house is trying to separate them, but I wonder whether its goal is to separate all of them, or if it was only trying to get Eleanor and Theo (maybe just Eleanor?) alone. Not to diss the guy's experience, but searching for a dog that doesn't exist doesn't sound nearly as terrifying as being trapped while something pounds on the walls trying to get into your room. Does it have to do with their relationship to the house? Or the way Eleanor seems to be more tuned in than any of the others?
Can we talk about this line: "...and Eleanor though that the oddest part of this indescribable experience was that Theodora should be having it too." What does E mean by odd? Is she experiencing some perverse pleasure in the terror because it brings her closer to T? Or is she astounded that the supernatural has brought the two of them together like this? I think either are possible, but I think the latter gives credence to the idea that yes, the supernatural are trying to separate them, but separate them along gender lines.
I think what Eleanor means is that if Theo also experiences the cold and noise it's not just her own paranoia, it's real.
Yes, that was my interpretation as well. That it's one thing for the episode to be in Eleanor's imagination, much as the way she's just imagined her mother calling (and it's interesting that she's more scared of *that* than of a ghost). But another thing completely to have the events confirmed by another person.
Eleanor seemed jealous earlier when Theo called the house by its name Hill House. Is it possible that having them both experience the terror together makes Eleanor feel that Theo doesn’t have a special relationship with the house and that they are equal?
I don't know why, but the creepiest part for me was the combination of childish giggles with the fact that the knocking was very high up on the door. Maybe a child standing on the shoulders of another? Or something else entirely?
I find it intriguing that the house wants/needs to separate them. Their defence is their community/togetherness. Alone they might be picked off and would be more vulnerable. It's a bit like ghost stories round the campfire or on a sleepover. As long as you're awake together it's fine, when you go to sleep or are on your own, that's when bad things can happen.
I've been interested in my reaction to the novel so far. I was very excited to re-read it, as it's a trip down memory lane. I read it when I was in high school and found it creepy and absorbing. So far I'm less impressed though am enjoying it in a way. On the brink of the supernatural happenings, I'm unsure whether this is something I want to read but am potentially on the edge of my chair regarding the possible psychological dimension which would have completely passed me by in my youth. I'm glad it's not anything like a Stephen King novel, I wouldn't be here now if it were!
I love how the use of repeating and echoing words created a sense of urgency in this chapter. Things are said twice, three times, desperate for a response.
The repetition of “Like something alive.” in the description of the cold chills particularly got me. As if Eleanor only thought it felt like something alive as a passing thought, but then something else confirms, “Yes. Like something alive.”
This parenthetical got my attention: "(did it move back and forth across the hall? did it go on feet along the carpet? did it lift a hand to the door?)" In other words, does IT have a physical form? Luke and the Doctor don't hear the ruckus; the door is undamaged; it would seem that nothing physical happened, and yet sound has to be physically created. I guess this is the essence of haunting. I may be thinking about the door knob being fondled in the middle of the night (though I can't actually shut my bedroom door in my old house).
The fact that people have different auditory (and other) experiences in the house is bizarre indeed. It can decide which psyches it will perform for? (More of this to come.)
The battle of what we know by reason and by intuition lives on.
“The intelligent thing to do, perhaps, was to walk over and open the door; that, perhaps, would belong with the doctor's views of pure scientific inquiry. Eleanor knew that, even if her feet would take her as far as the door, her hand would not lift to the doorknob; impartially, remotely, she told herself that no one's hand would touch that knob; it's not the work hands were made for. “96
Ruth, thanks for writing about “That’s all,” as she would rather the pounding of the supernatural than her mother. The mother is one of the major aspects I’m tracking this read and that response shook me.
I have never felt this book to be slow paced. In fact, I usually read it in one to three sittings so it has been luxurious to spread it out like this and mine it. There’s so much there, but it’s such a page turner I have missed so much in the past!
This is my favorite scene in Robert Wise’s 1963 film adaptation. Julie Harris and Claire Bloom really show their classical acting chops (both played Nora in A Doll House by Ibsen, for instance) during the haunting, but they really pump up the juxtaposition of the situation when the boys return from the dog hunt and their laughter is so honest, it does track as to why they would be able to move on from this event.
I do think the house is trying to separate them, and that there is something about the hallway being a conduit. I remember when they first arrived, and they could see the upstairs as just a row of doors along a straight hallway. (I actually had images of both the hotel hallways in The Shining and also how prisons are usually designed).
I was probably the most unnerved by how E and T were giggling throughout the banging on the door “as children.” And Jackson also writes that the knocking at first sounds like children knocking. I do know some people who giggle when they get extremely nervous or afraid, but not when they are terrified. E and T just kept on giggling to the point that it became creepy to me, almost as if they were possessed.
The “dog” was obviously a decoy used to get the men away from the women.