I too found notable Eleanor’s semi-conflation of Mrs. Dudley with her mother, or at least her identification of Mrs. D as a kind of matriarch of HH. As though she needs the archetype in order to attempt to understand her?
I also found interesting Eleanor’s observation that Theodora compulsively invokes “Hill House”: “It’s as though she were saying it deliberately, Eleanor thought, telling the house she knows its name, calling the house to tell it where we are; is it bravado?” This followed by Theo repeating “Hill House,” as if in direct response to E’s thoughts. Is Theo the voice in E’s head, or vice versa, or both?
Lastly, another clue that E bears her haunt within: “‘I’ve never been away from anywhere...so I suppose I’ve never been homesick.’” Theodora is capable of “missing,” while E seems to embody an almost spiritual sense of presence: wherever she goes, there she is.
I love this line, too: “‘Everything is worse,’ he said, looking at Eleanor, ‘if you think something is looking at you.’”
It's funny (the repetition of looking is amazing!), but it's also disturbing--the perfect Jackson combo. It reminds me of another favorite line, this one from Dickinson: "We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain." Always upsetting to feel the world looking at us with intention.
“Did you ever think about being homesick? If your home was Hill House would you be homesick for it? Did those two little girls cry for their dark, grim house when they were taken away?”
This exchange is creepy. Eleanor and Theo suddenly become the two young sisters stranded in Hill House, one eventually being jealous or suspicious of the other. I also am intrigued when Eleanor comments the doctor does not call Hill House by name.
These little repetitions, patterns, and comments either thought or spoken under the breath all seem to point to something, but like the characters’ uncertainty about the house, I’m not sure what any of it means yet, so I’m left feeling discomforted which seems the point.
Gothic horror, or any horror, is not a genre I’m typically drawn to, but I’m intrigued by how the external device of the house is drawing out the interior weaknesses or struggles of these characters. I’m also still wondering if Jackson worked heavily with outlines as she planned her stories and novels.
I’m wondering about the repetition of gold in this section. Eleanor’s suggestion of gold paint for Theo’s bodily adornment; an idea that comes to her when ‘hardly thinking’ (another intriguing adverb). Luke’s head resting against the gold frame of an engraving of a ruin and later Theo’s description of the sadistic pretender Black Michael with his gold earring. Naturally it reminds me of the gold-rimmed dishes that the younger sister wanted and Eleanor laughingly says in Chapter 3 she would have stolen.
The haunting in Hill House is not as chilling to me as The Lottery. The barbarism that makes an insignificant dent in the social machine, in fact is meant to make it more healthy, has a basis in what happened in Germany and Eastern Europe, where Jews, socialists, and others were marched out of town and killed within earshot. I recently read The Ravine, an investigation into the slaughter of men, women, and children in the Ukraine. I also learned from The Accountant of Auschwitz that in the war trials, one had to prove that a person murdered someone in order to convict them. But later, the fact that they were complicit in the death of others was enough for a guilty verdict. If you tallied the gold extracted from the teeth of the dead, you had a hand it the murders.
I think Jackson struggled with where to locate the terror. That people have come to a great house with servants doesn’t strike fear. I, too, have been studying Ann Frank, and the mansion pales in comparison to the annex where they might be betrayed, where a passerby might suspect, where they must live like ghosts or become them.
"'The very essence of the tomb, as Theodora points out. The cold spot in Borley Rectory only dropped eleven degrees,' he went on complacently. 'This, I should think, is considerably colder. The heart of the house.'" Like the repetition and inversion in yesterday's reading, the inversion here (the heart is death, the heart is cold) is yet another example of turning reality on its head.
I was really struck by the end of section 5, where Jackson expends narrative time and space to have the whole cast say goodnight, like it’s the closing credits of The Waltons. She’s not one to waste words, so she’s after some effect. Ironic foreshadowing? Reinforcing the air of domesticity? What sort of sick game are you playing, Ms. Jackson?
There is just no getting away from Mother! After my mother's death, I dreamed I gave away her large desk, and the charity shop called me to say it had filled with papers, and could I come in and sort through them? Again! Like the girl in Rumpelstiltskin.
The house finally comes to life: a cold, beating heart, grinning faces and Eleanor’s belief that it act in a “deliberate” way - as though it had a will of its own.
The personae of the women resurfaces. Theodora was the royalty -“Gold paint all over”. Eleanor the courtesan with red toenail polish feeling wicked. But their feet are dirty, the personae are just that - a ruse.
I made a note of that comment too: '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.' Breaking us apart both individually and collectively, raising thoughts about how social bonds both confine an individual personality and also regulate it and keep it safe.
There's something about a haunted nursery, isn't there? Perhaps it's the contrast between innocence and fear, but they tend to show up in a lot of horror stories.
The other thing that interested me today was the fear of doors. There's the cold spot at the door to the nursery, of course, but also Theo's comment that Eleanor wouldn't want to spend time in the kitchen because of all those doors. And the shutting and opening of said doors.
Finally, the parlor ("our parlor," as they call it now) is starting to have the feel of a bunker or safe room. They're ready for a siege!
Jackson's descriptions of the nursery - for the first time I thought I saw a little bit of the work she does 'behind the scenes' to create the effects of Hill House.. I think too much is made of the cold doorway draft, also .."inside the room was dark and the line of nursery animals pointed along the wall seemed somehow not at all jolly" - seemed a bit predictable to me. As does, "An indefinable air of neglect." I thought, why has she stalled here?
Perhaps it was a spot in the narrative where she was trying to find her way back in? Or, who knows. Could just be me. Anyway, I'll be on the lookout for falling tree branches or "random" strikes of lightning ..
Old houses are indeed drafty and you do not need a direct line to the North Pole unfortunately - I live in one such house myself, not large but drafty all right. I shall be looking probably in vain for the word "vents" in the narrative ..
Cuz Hill House has vents.
Vents are very creepy.
The narrative picks up again when Eleanor, bless her, says, "It doesn't seem like impartial cold." Although, continuing my outrageous editing, I think it could have been left at that. I don't need, "I felt it as deliberate.." etc..
I realize I'm on thin ice here.
Very thin.
The wacky Dr. our host comes to the non-rescue with his odd comment about looking.
Did anyone else look up Borley House? the most haunted house in England etc
Jackson must have had some fun throwing in references like that.
I feel so so sad for Eleanor and her inability to leave her mother behind. The Dr. is again wrong when he says the house can't follow anyone. "When we feel ourselves endangered we can just leave as we came." Uh, no.
Theodora noting that Eleanor's feet are dirty made me sad. It's a mortifying comment, even if offhand (and how can it be offhand, like telling someone they have bad breath; there has to be something of disgust in it), and Eleanor's reaction, given her self-consciousness, reflects her mortification. Theo is shocked by it. Eleanor keeps calling it wicked and then the nail polish wicked, until Theodora notes, "You've got foolishness and wickedness somehow mixed up." I feel that (somehow) this gets to the heart of Eleanor.
Later, Eleanor observes Theodora and thinks, "how lovely she is...how thoughtlessly, luckily lovely." Those adverbs get to the heart of both women.
I think the line “Everything is worse if you think something is looking at you,” especially as directed at E, is significant because she is so insecure and self-conscious, and worried about how she appears to everyone else (Did I make a fool of myself? The red nail polish, etc) She has been so completely isolated her entire adult life, that she has no baseline for “normal” behavior. I’m wondering if she has even painted her nails. She has the time now, but does she have places to go, people to see, does she have makeup at all? Does her sister keep her from going out (using the car?) It’s interesting that SJ leaves how all the characters look up to our imaginations. (except for the color of their clothes sometimes) I feel so sad for her.
Also, HH is definitely watching her every move! I feel like she has already been singled out because of how vulnerable she is.
The cold spot in front of the nursery and the nursery itself make me think something really tragic/violent happened here in the past. I wonder if the whole “cold spot in haunted houses” trope was already an established “thing” by this point, or if SJ created it. I love how her word choice in describing it makes it ominous without it being an over-the-top scare fest. It’s just right, in my opinion. Overall, I think she is masterful at building the tension at a slow-burn.
I too found notable Eleanor’s semi-conflation of Mrs. Dudley with her mother, or at least her identification of Mrs. D as a kind of matriarch of HH. As though she needs the archetype in order to attempt to understand her?
I also found interesting Eleanor’s observation that Theodora compulsively invokes “Hill House”: “It’s as though she were saying it deliberately, Eleanor thought, telling the house she knows its name, calling the house to tell it where we are; is it bravado?” This followed by Theo repeating “Hill House,” as if in direct response to E’s thoughts. Is Theo the voice in E’s head, or vice versa, or both?
Lastly, another clue that E bears her haunt within: “‘I’ve never been away from anywhere...so I suppose I’ve never been homesick.’” Theodora is capable of “missing,” while E seems to embody an almost spiritual sense of presence: wherever she goes, there she is.
I love this line, too: “‘Everything is worse,’ he said, looking at Eleanor, ‘if you think something is looking at you.’”
It's funny (the repetition of looking is amazing!), but it's also disturbing--the perfect Jackson combo. It reminds me of another favorite line, this one from Dickinson: "We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain." Always upsetting to feel the world looking at us with intention.
“Did you ever think about being homesick? If your home was Hill House would you be homesick for it? Did those two little girls cry for their dark, grim house when they were taken away?”
This exchange is creepy. Eleanor and Theo suddenly become the two young sisters stranded in Hill House, one eventually being jealous or suspicious of the other. I also am intrigued when Eleanor comments the doctor does not call Hill House by name.
These little repetitions, patterns, and comments either thought or spoken under the breath all seem to point to something, but like the characters’ uncertainty about the house, I’m not sure what any of it means yet, so I’m left feeling discomforted which seems the point.
Gothic horror, or any horror, is not a genre I’m typically drawn to, but I’m intrigued by how the external device of the house is drawing out the interior weaknesses or struggles of these characters. I’m also still wondering if Jackson worked heavily with outlines as she planned her stories and novels.
I’m wondering about the repetition of gold in this section. Eleanor’s suggestion of gold paint for Theo’s bodily adornment; an idea that comes to her when ‘hardly thinking’ (another intriguing adverb). Luke’s head resting against the gold frame of an engraving of a ruin and later Theo’s description of the sadistic pretender Black Michael with his gold earring. Naturally it reminds me of the gold-rimmed dishes that the younger sister wanted and Eleanor laughingly says in Chapter 3 she would have stolen.
The haunting in Hill House is not as chilling to me as The Lottery. The barbarism that makes an insignificant dent in the social machine, in fact is meant to make it more healthy, has a basis in what happened in Germany and Eastern Europe, where Jews, socialists, and others were marched out of town and killed within earshot. I recently read The Ravine, an investigation into the slaughter of men, women, and children in the Ukraine. I also learned from The Accountant of Auschwitz that in the war trials, one had to prove that a person murdered someone in order to convict them. But later, the fact that they were complicit in the death of others was enough for a guilty verdict. If you tallied the gold extracted from the teeth of the dead, you had a hand it the murders.
I think Jackson struggled with where to locate the terror. That people have come to a great house with servants doesn’t strike fear. I, too, have been studying Ann Frank, and the mansion pales in comparison to the annex where they might be betrayed, where a passerby might suspect, where they must live like ghosts or become them.
"'The very essence of the tomb, as Theodora points out. The cold spot in Borley Rectory only dropped eleven degrees,' he went on complacently. 'This, I should think, is considerably colder. The heart of the house.'" Like the repetition and inversion in yesterday's reading, the inversion here (the heart is death, the heart is cold) is yet another example of turning reality on its head.
I was really struck by the end of section 5, where Jackson expends narrative time and space to have the whole cast say goodnight, like it’s the closing credits of The Waltons. She’s not one to waste words, so she’s after some effect. Ironic foreshadowing? Reinforcing the air of domesticity? What sort of sick game are you playing, Ms. Jackson?
There is just no getting away from Mother! After my mother's death, I dreamed I gave away her large desk, and the charity shop called me to say it had filled with papers, and could I come in and sort through them? Again! Like the girl in Rumpelstiltskin.
The house finally comes to life: a cold, beating heart, grinning faces and Eleanor’s belief that it act in a “deliberate” way - as though it had a will of its own.
The personae of the women resurfaces. Theodora was the royalty -“Gold paint all over”. Eleanor the courtesan with red toenail polish feeling wicked. But their feet are dirty, the personae are just that - a ruse.
I made a note of that comment too: '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.' Breaking us apart both individually and collectively, raising thoughts about how social bonds both confine an individual personality and also regulate it and keep it safe.
There's something about a haunted nursery, isn't there? Perhaps it's the contrast between innocence and fear, but they tend to show up in a lot of horror stories.
The other thing that interested me today was the fear of doors. There's the cold spot at the door to the nursery, of course, but also Theo's comment that Eleanor wouldn't want to spend time in the kitchen because of all those doors. And the shutting and opening of said doors.
Finally, the parlor ("our parlor," as they call it now) is starting to have the feel of a bunker or safe room. They're ready for a siege!
Jackson's descriptions of the nursery - for the first time I thought I saw a little bit of the work she does 'behind the scenes' to create the effects of Hill House.. I think too much is made of the cold doorway draft, also .."inside the room was dark and the line of nursery animals pointed along the wall seemed somehow not at all jolly" - seemed a bit predictable to me. As does, "An indefinable air of neglect." I thought, why has she stalled here?
Perhaps it was a spot in the narrative where she was trying to find her way back in? Or, who knows. Could just be me. Anyway, I'll be on the lookout for falling tree branches or "random" strikes of lightning ..
Old houses are indeed drafty and you do not need a direct line to the North Pole unfortunately - I live in one such house myself, not large but drafty all right. I shall be looking probably in vain for the word "vents" in the narrative ..
Cuz Hill House has vents.
Vents are very creepy.
The narrative picks up again when Eleanor, bless her, says, "It doesn't seem like impartial cold." Although, continuing my outrageous editing, I think it could have been left at that. I don't need, "I felt it as deliberate.." etc..
I realize I'm on thin ice here.
Very thin.
The wacky Dr. our host comes to the non-rescue with his odd comment about looking.
Did anyone else look up Borley House? the most haunted house in England etc
Jackson must have had some fun throwing in references like that.
I feel so so sad for Eleanor and her inability to leave her mother behind. The Dr. is again wrong when he says the house can't follow anyone. "When we feel ourselves endangered we can just leave as we came." Uh, no.
Theodora noting that Eleanor's feet are dirty made me sad. It's a mortifying comment, even if offhand (and how can it be offhand, like telling someone they have bad breath; there has to be something of disgust in it), and Eleanor's reaction, given her self-consciousness, reflects her mortification. Theo is shocked by it. Eleanor keeps calling it wicked and then the nail polish wicked, until Theodora notes, "You've got foolishness and wickedness somehow mixed up." I feel that (somehow) this gets to the heart of Eleanor.
Later, Eleanor observes Theodora and thinks, "how lovely she is...how thoughtlessly, luckily lovely." Those adverbs get to the heart of both women.
"Telling the house that she knows its name ; calling the house to tell it where we are, is that bravado?" (90) Answer? apparently yes!
I think the line “Everything is worse if you think something is looking at you,” especially as directed at E, is significant because she is so insecure and self-conscious, and worried about how she appears to everyone else (Did I make a fool of myself? The red nail polish, etc) She has been so completely isolated her entire adult life, that she has no baseline for “normal” behavior. I’m wondering if she has even painted her nails. She has the time now, but does she have places to go, people to see, does she have makeup at all? Does her sister keep her from going out (using the car?) It’s interesting that SJ leaves how all the characters look up to our imaginations. (except for the color of their clothes sometimes) I feel so sad for her.
Also, HH is definitely watching her every move! I feel like she has already been singled out because of how vulnerable she is.
The cold spot in front of the nursery and the nursery itself make me think something really tragic/violent happened here in the past. I wonder if the whole “cold spot in haunted houses” trope was already an established “thing” by this point, or if SJ created it. I love how her word choice in describing it makes it ominous without it being an over-the-top scare fest. It’s just right, in my opinion. Overall, I think she is masterful at building the tension at a slow-burn.