While discussing our books that we should read as a group, we were all interested in horror. Some because it is their preferred genre, and others because we have never touched it before. We settled on The Haunting of Hill House. We were already familiar with the author, which hopefully would bring ease to those who were new to the genre. In the midst of discussion, we discovered we were all expecting the same outcome, just the typical ghost story. But within the first few chapters, we discovered this novel read more like a character study. Although the narrator is a third person omniscient, there is still a hint of personality study. There are paranormal circumstances that occur to the renters of Hill House, the more interesting detail comes with how each character will react to the scare.
The narrator follows the perspective of Eleanor. Eleanor is a woman, who at the age of 32, is leaving home for the first time. Outwardly, Eleanor is the least interesting character of the bunch, but inwardly, we learn of her dark side. She spent most of her youth caring for her ailing mother, who has recently passed. With her responsibilities six feet under, and no other family than her wildly unpleasant sister, Eleanor jumped at the chance to answer the call of one Dr. Montague. He was calling for participants in an experiment, where the participants would stay the summer in a haunted house and simply record their experience. Eleanor is not a particularly brave women, yet she has decided on a whim to abandon her mundane life, for a haunted house with 3 strangers as roommates.
Within the first five chapters we believe we have experienced the controlling idea, stepping out your comfort zone can lead to adventure. Eleanor herself agrees that the thought of Hill House is the adventure she has been seeking,
During the whole underside of her life, ever since her first memory, Eleanor had been waiting for something like Hill House (Jackson 4).
She has never had excuse to harness her reckless abandon and just go. But maybe her adherence to her boundaries has kept her safe. On her journey to Hill House, Eleanor stumbles upon the small town surrounding the property, Hillsdale. Despite Dr. Montague’s warning against touring the town, she decides to stop at the local diner, “Eleanor, who was afraid of strange dogs, and jeering women, and young hoodlums, went quickly into the diner, clutching her pocketbook and her car keys” (Jackson 16). Everything in Eleanor was telling her to not go into the diner, her boundaries, but she ignored them and put herself in danger.
Eleanor was needed and her routine was vital to her mother’s survival, maybe sticking with the habitual can lead one feeling complacent, and aligning with the familiar can keep you safe. Even when her journey is complete and she has made it to her desired destination, Eleanor has some regrets on leaving the safety of her home, “Why am I here? she thought helplessly and at once, why am I here?” (Jackson 19). She began to question if she was really going to find what she was looking for in the old house, if what she really needed was independence or to just be happy with the less-than pleasant life she already has. As the chapters progress, Eleanor has much less kindness to give her roommates and becomes uncharacteristically bitter. As a reader, I wonder if this coldness comes from her finally experiencing life as an adult, or if the poltergeist activity in the house is starting to have an influence on her naivety.
Tequila Mockingbird 
The Haunting of Hill House pleasantly surprised me in the sense that the story is not just filled with ghosts and supernatural flair, it has a depth to it that makes the reader wonder, “What really is hill house?” Throughout the story, I noticed Eleanor becoming more and more bitter, like stated in this blog. This makes the reader wonder if Eleanor is actually being affected by the dark spirits of Hill House, or if she has become a prisoner in her mind to her own anxieties, which alter her state of mind and well-being. The Haunting of Hill House reminds me of Shirley Jackson’s, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” because of a similar writing style, and how she makes quirky and eerie characters the reader just cannot seem to figure out.
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I consider myself a big fan of horror, but not so much in the literary sense. I don’t know what I was expecting from the beginning of The Haunting of Hill House, but I sure wasn’t expecting so much exposition. I was expecting it to jump right into the action, like horror stories are apt to do. I do find myself, however, appreciating how much they addressed Eleanor’s character before she entered Hill House. I liked watching her early interactions, and I also enjoyed watching her controlling idea unfold, like you said in this post. I wonder if the nature of her past shyness and need to branch out will come into play later. I hope to see her blossom as a character, and I want to see how Hill House affects her.
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Reading farther into the narrative, I would say the controlling value’s purpose falls more in that “staying true to who you are and working towards only what you want leads to the life you desire and individual happiness.” Eleanor even tell the little girl int he beginning to only accept her cup of stars, but then she goes to the house and wants to change the way she is to come off cool to the others. This eventually leads to her death, and really follows that controlling value.
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