When the lights come on, Theodora is nowhere near, leaving the already-fragile Eleanor to wonder tremulously aloud: "God! Whose hand was I holding?" In one famous scene, Eleanor and fellow investigator Theodora are in bed in the darkness, holding hands for comfort, as crashes and bangs intensify in the night. One intriguing aspect of Hill House is its ambiguity, especially whether the protagonist, Eleanor Vance, really experiences – or just imagines – the horrors that unfold within the mansion: disturbing messages written across hall walls, mysterious knocks on doors, distant, ghostly singing. Published in 1959 and filmed in 1963 as The Haunting, it is a masterpiece of edgy tension and creeping terror, telling the story of a paranormal investigator and his carefully picked guests, who stay in the titular property in a bid to prove the existence of the supernatural. Her best-known novel, The Haunting of Hill House, is the quintessential haunted-house story. It often seemed that her husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, was more respected than Jackson during her lifetime. Indeed, Jackson was expected to undertake the role of a 1950s housewife even when she was at her peak – ferrying her four children to and from school and doing the laundry, before finding a few moments here and there to bash away at her Royal.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |