The Haunting of Hill House: A Subtle Sense of Wrongness

If you aren’t in my class and you weren’t following my blog a year ago, you might be surprised at the number of ghost stories I discuss here over the next few months. The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson, is the first book assigned for my Readings in the Genre: The Haunted class.

My thoughts on these stories might also get a little weird, because a friend and I have been talking about the similarities between ghost stories and survival horror games, and how the tropes of a ghost story translate to the mechanics of a survival horror game. Fair warning.

Now, let’s get right into The Haunting of Hill House.

I’d intended to read this book for a while, so it was already on my wish list when I learned I’d need it for this class. I was excited for it, although I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew it’s considered to be a classic horror/ghost novel, but nothing more.

The opening hooked me right away. Dr. Montague’s decision to study a “haunted house,” his letters to people he thought might be able to help him, and the decision of two of those people to come–those things all appealed to me not only because of the plot premise, but also because I know I’d want to go if I received such a letter. When I reviewed Scratches, I said I’d love a creepy old house to write it. I’d love a creepy old house that may or may not be haunted, too. I don’t exactly believe in ghosts and I’ve never been haunted, but part of my always hopes to be proven wrong.

Anyway, as the book continued, one thing that really caught my attention was Hill House itself. Hill House “had an unbelievably faulty design which left it chillingly wrong in all its dimensions, so that the walls seemed always in one direction a fraction longer than the eye could endure, and in another direction a fraction less than the barest possible tolerable length” (Jackson 29).

The strange wrongness about the house isn’t Eleanor’s imagination, and it isn’t the result of supernatural forces, either. Instead, as Montague explains, “every angle is slightly wrong. Hugh Crain must have detested other people and their sensible squared-away houses, because he made his house to suit his mind. Angles which you assume are the right angles you are accustomed to, and have every right to expect are true, are actually a fraction of a degree off in one direction or another” (77).

I found that fascinating. The house is distorted by design, which makes it the perfect setting for a horror story. Besides just sounding like something out of Lovecraft (or maybe an Escher painting), it disturbs and disorients anyone who sets foot into it, which makes it very easy for our characters to get lost. Of course, since I warned I might bring up survival horror, I can’t leave this go without mentioning Silent Hill, a town that shifts and changes, a setting that is itself hostile toward the player. Resident Evil, too, features a strange mansion–not one warped and twisted like Hill House, but still designed by a madman.

The setting ties in to one of the most interesting parts of The Haunting of Hill House for me. The story disturbed and unsettled me, but most of the horror was unseen.

Of course, there were hauntings, actions of some supernatural force, but the force is never encountered head on and only manifests itself in a select few scenes. Instead, the haunting and horror are conveyed in very subtle ways, not unlike how the subtle differences in Hill House’s angles build on one another to make the house unnatural.

One of the more unsettling sections for me had nothing to do with ghosts after all. Dr. Montague is discussing the eventual arrival of his wife, and the others express joking (we assume) surprise that an outside world still exists:

“‘Unfortunately–‘ the doctor said, and then stopped. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he went on. ‘I meant only to say that word will be reaching us from outside, and of course it is not unfortunate at all. Mrs. Montague–my wife, that is–will be here on Saturday.’

“‘But when is Saturday?’ Luke asked. ‘Delighted to see Mrs. Montague, of course.’

“‘Day after tomorrow.’ The doctor thought. ‘Yes,’ he said after a minute, ‘I believe that the day after tomorrow is Saturday.'” (111)

When Mrs. Montague does arrive, she proves to be quite annoying, so in retrospect that might be why the doctor considered it unfortunate. When I read it, however, I couldn’t help but think of an earlier part of the book, where Dr. Montague brought up the idea of the house claiming them, or of one of them siding with the house against the others. Little by little, I got the sense that the characters were beginning to accept Hill House, like it, and think of nothing else.

It created a build-up of tension (with a few humorous breaks to keep it from becoming too much) that lasted all the way up until the end, but I won’t spoil the ending here in my post, for those of you who haven’t read it.

I enjoyed the Haunting of Hill House and thought it presented its horror in an interesting way–not with noise and frightening imagery, but with its subtle sense of wrongness, both in the house’s design and in the character’s interactions, little things that build upon one another until it is too late.

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Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. New York: Penguin, 1959.