Devilry

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under the conditions of absolute reality; even Larks and Katydids are supposed by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. “ So opens Shirley Jacksons monumental work The Haunting of Hill House, a phantasmic look into the horrors that lurk both within the stone and wood of ancient habitation, as well as those that lurk within our own mind. In it, the house becomes a metaphor for the main protagonist’s life. Trapped by circumstance, the house represents to Eleanor both an escape from her tragic life, as well as a trap from which she is unwilling to be released. We are left wondering by books end, is what she see’s there all a part of