Women's Classic Literature Enthusiasts discussion

Please discuss chapters 4-6 here.

Can negative emotions haunt a house.
Someone was once very lonely a frightened here (the little companion?) and met a tragic end.
I'm wondering how reliable Eleanor's emotions are currently; she likes her companions then feels a bitter dislike towards them. Is something else feeling for her?
The writing on the walls, the noise and the hand have me riveted.

Chapter 4 certainly introduces the horror. I pictured myself listening to the knocking and I would be absolutely terrified, especially if the knocking stopped after I spoke and then resumed with rigor on my door. I don't understand how all the inhabitants seem invigorated the next morning after such a frightening night.

Does anyone know if you can build a house like Hill House with all the measurements just a little bit off? If the house is a little bit off, can it make people become a little bit off?

Chapter four was the part of the book that scared me, lol.

It sounds like a house from an MC Escher painting. No idea if it's possible.
The last piece of chapter 6 got me- whose hand had she been holding!

I don't get this kind of novel. What is wrong with everyone? Are the others playing a joke on Eleanor? Why do they stare at her? Is Eleanor just having a nightmare?

Horror isn't my genre, so I am finding all this confusing. What does the freezing cold section of the house mean? Is there some kind of history in ghost stories that relates to the cold?

I thought they weren't really staring at her, I thought she was imagining it. She worries a lot about appearing foolish. maybe it is a trait she inherited from her mother?

Cold places imply ghostly activity.
I'm not convinced that the others are staring at Eleanor, she also wasn't like that in the beginning. I think something (whatever haunts the house) is changing her thoughts and feelings. Making her want to be less a part of their world and more a part of its world.

☯Emily wrote: "I don't get this kind of novel. What is wrong with everyone? Are the others playing a joke on Eleanor? Why do they stare at her? Is Eleanor just having a nightmare?

Horror isn't my genre, so I ..."

I think that's the point. It's supposed to be confusing.

Anastasia wrote: "☯Emily wrote: "I don't get this kind of novel. What is wrong with everyone? Are the others playing a joke on Eleanor? Why do they stare at her? Is Eleanor just having a nightmare?

Horror isn't..."

I guess that is one of many reasons why I don't like horror. It makes absolutely no sense.

☯Emily wrote: "Horror isn't my genre, so I ..."

This is the first horror novel that I have ever read too. It's very different from what I usually read.

First Paragraph of Chapter 5 p 100 of the Penguin Classics Edition...

Looking at herself in the mirror, with the bright morning sunlight freshening even the blue room of Hill House, Eleanor thought, It is my second morning in Hill House, and I am unbelievably happy. Journeys end in lovers meeting; I have spent an all but sleepless night, I have told lies and made a fool of myself, and the very air tastes like wine. I have been frightened half out of my foolish wits, but I have somehow earned this joy; I have been waiting for it for so long. Abandoning a lifelong belief that to name happiness is to dissipate it, she smiled at herself in the mirror and told herself silently, You are happy Eleanor, you have finally been given a part of your measure of happiness. Looking away from her own face in the mirror, she thought blindly, Journeys end in lovers meeting, in lovers meeting.

I read this paragraph and rethought my perceptions of what I believe is going on that I have read so far because I think for someone to have these thoughts after pending a day/night or two in a house with 3 strangers, no matter how agreeable they seem, is well...weird, especially after the "alleged" paranormal activity of the night before.

This story is being told largely from Eleanor's point of view or through her feelings. Because of these weird thoughts that she is having in that paragraph, I no longer trust her point of view or perceptions of reality (at best).

For example, we the readers are lead by Eleanor herself to think that the car she used is owned jointly Eleanor and her sister. Her sister did say "my car" when they were arguing about Eleanor using it for most of the summer. Now I wonder if the car really does belong to her sister and Eleanor has in fact stolen it.

I know this idea may be "out there," but what if Eleanor wrote her own name in the hall downstairs in chalk and also in Theodora's room? What if Eleanor and caused damage to Theodora's clothing as well? Eleanor has had some brief or fleeting negative thoughts about Theodora.

I've been disturbed by these seeming "harmless" lies that Eleanor has told (about her apartment and her age).

However, with Eleanor's background of spending 11 years as a maid-of-all work to her sickly unpleasant mother and missing out on the social interactions and rites of passage that 20-somethings all go through, it would not be farfetched for her to be a "a little off" in how she perceives.

I believe Theodora accused Eleanor of writing her name on the wall and Eleanor's reaction led me to believe it wasn't her.

I thought the damage to Theodora's clothing was a figment of their imagination?

Anastasia wrote: "I believe Theodora accused Eleanor of writing her name on the wall and Eleanor's reaction led me to believe it wasn't her.

I thought the damage to Theodora's clothing was a figment of their imagin..."

Since Eleanor is so spacey, I no longer know what is real and what is not.

I believed that they both owned the car. I assumed they inherited it from the mother (it doesn't say that anywhere, that was just my assumption). The sister didn't seem very nice, nor the brother in law (nor the mother for that matter). I got the feeling that Eleanor had spent most of her life around people that were hostile toward her so she is overly happy about these new friends. Her happiness has a quality of desperation about it, like someone starved.

@Theresa

I agree that her sister and bro in law were not nice. I get the feeling that her mother was pretty odious.

She does seem desperate. Maybe that is why she lied about her "apartment" and her age.

What is the significance of this recurring phrase: "Journeys end in lovers meeting?"

☯Emily wrote: "What is the significance of this recurring phrase: "Journeys end in lovers meeting?""

That's what I want to know. Maybe Eleanor and the House are "lovers"?

I agree with the comments that this is all becoming increasingly confusing and unreliable, all very much the effect that I think Jackson was aiming for! We can't quite trust what we read, the same way they can't quite trust what they see and hear. I thought it was quite seamless, the way she shifted from an omniscient narrator to an exclusively Eleanor point of view, and we're slowly left with the sense that Eleanor is not to be relied upon. It's almost as if there are two "voices" speaking as Eleanor. The first Eleanor is delighted to have escaped from her family, delighted with her new friends and ?perhaps the one who is having fun in spite of the horror. But then there is the other one, who suddenly hates Theo with no apparent awareness of the disconnect from her previous opinions. But then Theo's behavior seems to possibly be shifting too. So is the house changing them, taking them over, or is there something else going on? I have one theory, which I'll keep to myself, because if it turned out to be correct then it would count as a spoiler - but I think that falling stones episode from Eleanor's childhood has to be somehow relevant.

Alexa wrote: " I have one theory, which I'll keep to myself, because if it turned out to be correct then it would count as a spoiler - but I think that falling stones episode from Eleanor's childhood has to be somehow relevant."

Tell us in Week 3 cuz I want to hear it!

I found it helpful to not overthink the book and just go with it. Maybe that's why I enjoyed it so much.

Has anyone here ever been in a haunted house or experienced a supernatural event in other places?

I stayed in a house once that everyone I spoke to who had stayed there claimed was haunted. It was a perfectly nice house, well kept, very clean bed and breakfast, not to big or small, but the woman who owned, lived in, and ran the business was a nervous sort of person. I slept just fine all through the night, if something strange happened I barely noticed or didn't put it down to anything frightening. I was asked the next day, by someone who knew about the rumours, and I said there might have been a few cold drafts here and there but I didn't make anything of them. The woman was a nervous sort but so am I so she didn't make me anymore nervous than otherwise. Anyway, I was only there one or two nights and I was tired, so I slept like a log. Maybe if I had stayed there longer and was expecting something to happen it would have.

Come to think of it, she did have serious issues and fetishes about things that "belonged" on particular shelves and cupboards.

I wonder how much the housekeepers fear of Hill House has to do with its reputation?

I have no experience with anything (houses etc.) rumored to haunted.

I don't believe that houses are haunted which might be why I am finding this book hard to comprehend and difficult to finish.