The opening paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is considered to be one of the most poignant, meaningful and undoubtedly greatest openings most famous in the horror genre, if not in all fiction. To consume is to destroy or spend through use. Most people associate consumingSay no with plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayFemale Gothic: “Claire Kahane identifies the characteristics of traditional Gothic narratives, including “an imposing structure” within which the protagonist, “usually a young woman whose mother has died is forced to search for the center of the mystery, while vague and usually sexual threats against her person from a powerful male figure hover at the periphery of her consciousness. Dissociation/Depersonalization: The act or mental state of not connecting with oneself or not feeling real. Maybe more later. Horror has been one of my favorite genres for years and The Haunting Of Hill House is one of the most well-known and influential works in the horror genre. The idea of ​​a house that was evil from its conception and was not haunted by an outside force is incredibly intriguing and fascinating to me. Hill House hates humanity and wants to hurt, frighten, and consume its inhabitants. Eleanor's fragile mental health and psyche also represent important elements of the horror that are almost always present, albeit in more subtle ways. Psychological horror is much more terrifying and insidious to me than a ghost, ghoul, or vampire could ever be, and it's something that has held my attention for years. Shirley Jackson uses the idea of ​​a sentient, malevolent house that is desperate to consume and will do anything to achieve her goals of depicting haunted houses and their effects on the human psyche in The Haunting of Hill House. All quotes are temporarily blue and italicized. Something that has fascinated readers for decades is the way Shirley Jackson depicts haunted houses in a way that is different from many other authors before and after her. Jackson chose to have Hill House itself be the evil entity in the story rather than haunted by something evil. A question that often arises from those who are drawn to this story is: why did Jackson choose Hill House to be alive? The only known answers are just speculation, but regardless, it has sparked a lot of discussion on this topic, even if it is not the main topic of those who have read this novel. The primary focus for readers of The Haunting of Hill House is the fascination of Hill House's desire to consume and devour. as well as the question of why Hill House is so evil. Throughout the novel we learn the history of Hill House and how it was built, but we never learn how it reached its current state. It is possible to argue that it does not matter who built Hill House or when they did it, and all that matters is that Hill House is a powerful force; something that cannot be changed or destroyed, and which would clear away evil as long as it existed or was remembered by anyone: “Exorcism cannot alter the appearance of a house; Hill House would remain as it was until it was destroyed. » and that no one or anything can do to change it. The question arises whether or not Hill House became bad because of all the misfortunes of its inhabitants, or whether all the misfortune happened todue to the malicious nature of the house. Whether her personality was shaped by the people who lived here, or by the things they did, or if she was bad from the start are all questions I can't answer. It is revealed that Hill House was built 80 years ago and yet, in that relatively short time, it has inexplicably become extremely powerful and insatiable. Hill House is depicted as a living creature, sentient, hungry and wanting to consume. and devour its inhabitants: “I am like a little creature swallowed whole by a monster,” she thought, “and the monster feels my tiny movements inside. “No,” she said out loud, and the single word resonated. ", which are weak and just something for the House to play with and then eat. Many readers wonder whether or not Hill House feeds on misery. This is a debatable question as it is unclear whether or not the House House only feeds on misery and suffering or whether it requires an influx of people to stay alive. Additionally, the question has arisen whether Hill House truly needs to consume its victims or s. he simply enjoys playing and toying with his victims, for a sick, malicious form of joy. The House seems to need to devour people in order to survive and thrive, but it takes pleasure in attracting more and more victims, in arousing them. they misery and to cruelly play with them to get what she wants can isolate the unfortunate coincidence of line and place that suggests evil on the face of a house, and yet, somehow. another, a manic juxtaposition, a wrong angle, a chance meeting of roof and sky, transformed Hill House into a more frightening place of despair. because the face of Hill House seemed awake, with watchfulness from the blind windows, and a touch of joy in the brow of a cornice. "It is curious why Hill House wants some people and not others, but one reason The proposition is that Hill House preys on the vulnerable and weak, finds the most fragile people and seeks to destroy them for its own benefit The house was waiting now, she thought, and it was waiting for him; no one else could satisfy him. Some people who pass through the walls of Hill House are just the sort of people Hill doesn't like. House: those who are over-willed, or self-confident, or ignorant; but most are victims in one way or another or are useful in furthering the House's agenda. people of the things they want or that might attract them in some way “All stood silently for a moment and watched HELP ELEANOR COME HOME ELEANOR written in trembling red letters on the wallpaper above. from Schuyler's bed. ", although the writing frightened and upset Eleanor, it was proof that a desire of Eleanor's was being fulfilled: the desire to be wanted and to have a place to belong. Hill House preys on people who are already vulnerable and focuses on them because it knows it will be easier to wear them down and claim them as victims. Although Hill House is a force of evil, it is still a house and cannot kill its prey. through typical violent means, Hill House does not kill people, but forces and coerces them to commit suicide. “In the interminable second of collision before the car crashed into the tree, she clearly thought: Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why don't they stop me? Eleanor also feels a certain form of pride in the fact that she commits suicide "by herself", which is really just the influence of Hill Houses on her whichis stronger than ever. However, just before Eleanor commits suicide, House relinquishes its control and influence over her mind to torment her with the fact that Hill House has won and it is too late for her or anyone else to save her. Hill House is capable of infiltration. the minds of its victims and change their perception of reality and what they value: “I will abandon the possession of my self, I will abdicate, I will voluntarily abandon what I never wanted at all; whatever he wants from me, he can have it. Hill House plays with its victims and makes them want to stay, an example of this circumstance is when Eleanor loses sight of reality when the others try to make her leave and start talking about being walled up alive and wanting to stay in the House. He is also able to convince his victims that events occurring outside the Chamber are inconsequential and make them seem unimportant and imaginary: "We're on a desert island," Luke said. "I can't imagine any world except Hill House," Eleanor said. "Even if it means they forget the people who were once important to them. Towards the end of the novel, the influence of the House truly takes hold of Eleanor and makes her lose sight of reality because she no longer remembers who the other characters are, nor what they represent to her, nor how they met. Eleanor has always been imaginative and had a slightly loose grip on reality, but the House makes her much more tenuous and tense, and truly warps Eleanor's mind so that she has difficulty differentiating fantasy from reality . It even gets to the point where the House has infiltrated Eleanor's mind so deeply and completely that she believes that by dying and staying at home, she will have finally "earned" the happiness she had desired all her life. life but which had escaped him. Eléonore laughs. “But I can't leave,” she said, wondering where to find the words to explain. “The effect that haunted houses have on the human psyche is quite fascinating. In real life and in fiction, when people enter a haunted house (or what they perceive to be a haunted house), their fight or flight response is invoked, primarily due to lack of knowledge and understanding of their situation, which usually fills people with emotion. fear. The instinctive and very human response of desperately trying to survive, by any means necessary, is particularly relevant in this novel. “Fear,” said the doctor, “is the abandonment of logic, the voluntary abandonment of reasonable patterns. We give in to it or we fight it, but we can't meet it halfway. Hill House is capable of using its victims' fear against them and turning it into a weapon. Hill House's effect on EleanorHill House distorts and corrupts the emotions and minds of everyone who inhabits it, the house is capable of changing people's perceptions of life. and how they should act; it amplifies certain thoughts and emotions to manipulate its inhabitants into giving it what it wants. Eleanor is the weaker and more vulnerable character and Hill House easily distorts and amplifies her emotions, turning her into a more unstable and fragile person, closer to her breaking point. One such example is Eleanor's angry, "Nell?" Theodora looked at her and smiled. “I’m really sorry, you know,” she said. I would like to see her die, Eleanor thought, and she smiled back and said, "Don't be stupid.", the house makes Eleanor cruel and petty, even to Schuyler, to whom she has become very close and causes her to act like a bad caricature of herself. Eleanor's obsession also manifests itself quitestrongly because Eleanor is truly filled with an obsession, a desire, a need to be wanted and to have a place to belong and to escape the mundane and provincial life she had led in the past , which is something that Hill House benefits from, to the point where Eleanor believes, for the first time in her life, that she can be happy and that Hill House is where that will happen, while slowly becoming a victim more docile and more consenting. the House. Eleanor begins to consider others as family and imagines the life they could have together, especially with Schuyler. » Eleanor smiled placidly. “I was never wanted anywhere,” she said. Another aspect of Eleanor that Hill House is able to manipulate is her fear. Eleanor is afraid of not having a place to belong, of people who want her, but most of all of herself. Before reaching Hill House, Eleanor has a tenuous idea of ​​who she is, but as the novel progresses and Hill House's hold on her strengthens, she completely and utterly loses her sense of herself, which she likes at first, because she didn't really do it. like the one she was, but she comes to appreciate it and becomes upset at losing herself: "There's only one of me, and that's all I have." I hate to see myself dissolving and slipping and falling apart, so that I live in one half, my mind, and I see the other half of me, helpless and frantic and driven and I can't stop it." . Eleanor also feels that she has reached the point where her name is the only thing in her life that belongs to her and is her only connection to who she is, and that she cannot stand the fact that it is being abused. lovers meet, she thought; it was my own choice to come. » “I would never have suspected it myself,” thought Eleanor, still laughing; everything is different, I'm a new person, very far from home.'Eleanor is full of guilt over her mother's death and the role she played in it, which is another thing the House uses to her advantage, as Eleanor hears knocks on the wall. and assumes it's her sick mother calling before she remembers she's at Hill House and her mother is dead, which she says is her fault for ignoring her mother when she called him in the middle of the night before. she is dead. Eleanor's desire to escape is something that drives her to Hill House and makes her a particularly vulnerable target, as she has no one who cares about her enough to worry about her and she doesn't There's no one she cares about. She's so desperate to escape that she accepts a strange invitation to go to an equally strange place without many questions. When Eleanor decided to go to Hill House and drove away, she felt and cherished her sense of freedom and the fact that no one knew where she was going or why. Eleanor also liked the idea that no one could catch her, even though she hadn't done anything to warrant anyone trying to catch her. Hill House was also able to use and manipulate the fact that Eleanor had always felt like an outsider her whole life and that she had some sort of destiny bigger than her normal, mundane life waiting for her, and managed to convince her. that Hill House was her destiny and that it was the place she had always waited for. “No one would ever find me there either, behind all those roses, and just to be sure I would plant oleanders by the side of the road. » Another aspect of Eleanor's mind that Hill House is able to control is what she says as well as the motivations for speaking, such as when the characters share information about themselves, Eleanor tells them that she lives alone when she lives with her ;.