Reading schedule for this week:
Wednesday: Chs.1-3 (pp.3-92)
Friday: Chs.4-5 (pp.93-163)
NOTE: This book reads quite quickly, so don't be intimidated by the seemingly long reading assignments. A lot of dialogue as well. So try to keep up!
Answer ONE of the following for Friday...
1. How does the opening sentence relate to the rest of the work: "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." How could this statement be a 'theory' to read the entire work--or itself a commentary on Jackson's use of Gothic elements to frame her novel?
2. Though Eleanor is not the narrator of the work, the naration is a limited third person, meaning that we get most of it through Eleanor's thoughts and perspective. Based on this premise, is Eleanor a "reliable narrator"? What does she reveal of herself in the opening chapters, and do we trust or understand why she is coming to Hill House in the first place?
3. Discuss Jackson's use of dialogue in the book, particularly when all four characters are together. When they first meet, they engage in a manic dialogue of back and forth witticisms which may seem out of place in this context. What does each characters' dialogue reveal of them and why does Jackson focus so much on their attempts to be witty to one another?
4. On page 139, Dr. Montague claims that "No ghost in all the long histories of ghosts has ever hurt anyone physically. The only damage is done by the victim to himself..." and Eleanor responds, "I could say...All three of you are in my imagination; none of this is real." Is this book more like Dracula or The Turn of the Screw? Are the events real occurences or internal hauntings? Can we be sure that anything experiened truly occurs--or is the narrator playing with the conventions of the genre?
1. I think it’s interesting how that opening sentence is so radically different from the “I swear I’m not mad” variety that we generally experience with Poe. Instead of a mad person claiming to be sane this work almost insists that it is sane because of its madness. It tells us that we cannot stay in reality without going mad and we must allow ourselves to dream. I think that it gives us a great look into the work, but also a very specific look into Eleanor. She had to spend ten years caring for her sick mother and the mundane rhythm of her life may indeed have made her mad. Even as she drives she is swept into fantasies about meeting lovers and oleander. She keeps talking to herself about how this summer is her escape and I really think maybe she wants to escape reality. This maybe in fact a psychotic summer break for her.
ReplyDeleteOver all I think that this statement really says something about the reader. It’s like a figure pointing and saying I know why you are reading this, because if you don’t then you could go mad too. It’s almost the same message as other gothic works we have read that seductive fear that these crazy people could be anyone, but instead it’s saying that those crazy people and the stories about them keep the rest of us sane. I haven’t read the whole book yet, but I expect to be teased. I really think that the author is having fun with the genre and I expect the ending to be very twistingly unsatisfying. I may be wrong, but that’s where I see it going.
No, I think you're right on the money here...we, too, are like Eleanor, trying to escape reality with Gothic tales and wild romances. However, we tell ourselves 'oh, it's only a book, we can close it when we've had enough.' For Eleanor, however, there is little time for leisure or reading; without a space of her own, she has had to make do with her own internal life. This has become an unwieldy, Gothic structure, which can topple at the slightest breeze. In the House, which twists and turns on all its own, her mind cannot maintain its equilibrium; it is the ultimate space for her to 'write' and create her own version of identity and reality. So it is a "psychotic summer break' for her indeed!
Delete1. I believe that what the author was trying to say is that no one can face reality directly. To do so would mean that a person would have to see things as they really are which is an unpleasant prospect. As a matter of fact, the human mind has a protective mechanism that automatically shields one from disturbing stimuli. If this weren't the case, the mind's ability to operate would be greatly impaired. In other words, we all need some kind of escape from reality from time to time. This taken to an extreme though might be regarded as delusional thinking and/or psychosis. I wonder if Eleanor suffers from any of these mental problems. She seems to freely mix fantasy with reality. For sure she has a very active imagination. Her imagination is significant in this novel because we're not always entirely certain if she's 'dreaming' about something or see something as it actually is. Her imaginative views on things greatly color what's going on in the story therefore so it's important that one reads this work with this fact in mind.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be interesting to image the entire novel as Eleanor's attempt to 'shield' herself from the reality that she never leaves home. She never steals the car. She just makes up this elaborate world and characters. This would explain some of the doubling and uncanny effects. Of course, even if we dismiss this interpretation, the fact remains that Eleanor has developed quite a coping mechanism for her 'normal' life, one that denied her space to think and write...forcing her to write her life instead of, say, a book. The House is the first space she is ever offered, and more than that, it offers her a chance to re-write everything and make a true 'fairy tale' ending for herself.
Delete3) When I read the first 40 pages, the dialogue between the characters were odd, but tolerable. When I started reading more, the dialogue became even weirder. Each character upon meeting each other spoke as if they were completely accepting of each other, despite knowing little or nothing about one another. It reads like a peculiar comedy after everyone gathers around Dr. Montague and they all listen to him speak about the house. On page 42, when discussing spirits, Dr. Montague says in response, "Spirits? Yes, indeed. Of course, none of us..." It's easy to assume or think that the capper to his quip would be "are spirits." Of course nobody even responds to what he said or how off he acts after saying it, similar to the scene earlier in the book where Theodora and Eleanor ignore Mrs. Dudley's warning about how no one would hear them in the night if they were in dire straits and needed help. One thing that is clear is that Eleanor wants to impress the others, especially when she replies to Luke's question about what type of woman she is by saying (on page 44): "At any rate, my affairs are the talk of the cafes." Furthermore, when she thinks to herself 'Dear me,'she realizes what exactly she said and it makes her uncomfortable. I do think though that part of the wittiness between them is because they're nervous and want someone to cling to given the situation they're in. If I was in a "haunted" house, and there was anybody else nearby I would attach myself to them - I certainly wouldn't want to be alone.
ReplyDeleteYes, the effect of the dialogue is surreal--possibly because of the surreality of the place itself. No one acts like themselves...or, perhaps, they act too much like themselves! The House allows them to say what they truly feel, without taboos or other social limitations. Eleanor is too talkative, Theodora too blunt, Dr. Montague too transparent, Luke too rakish. I think what we see most clearly is how desperate people are to fit in and bond with others, especially when divorced from 'realistic' surroundings. They want to feel human by making these connections, and Eleanor, to take this further, even wants the House to accept her. It suggests for all our masks and airs we simply want to be long and be loved.
DeleteSo sorry this is late!
ReplyDeleteThis sentence sounds like one of those that an author spent a lot of time dwelling on, even outside the context of her novel. I imagine that as a woman living in the 40s and 50s, Jackson was obligated to spend a lot of time living in a very “sane” world, still dominated by the perception of the way a woman should act. Even in creating a novel, she was doing the same thing Eleanor does – crafting a world of her own to which she could escape.
She’s saying that the inability to escape from reality leads to insanity, (which is exactly the opposite of the opinion Dr. Seward would probably have had). If we believe that Eleanor was as repressed/oppressed by her mother as she says she was, it’s understandable that Eleanor would have had to learn to create worlds of her own to escape to in order to keep from going insane. The reality that she didn’t have a mother who loved her enough to give her a cup of stars (whether a literal cup or a metaphorical one) would have been enough alone to make her crazy. Compounded with the guilt she apparently feels, it makes sense that Eleanor creates a world where none of this happened to keep herself sane. A compulsive liar, but sane at least.
In a way, all of the characters in the novel seem to be using Hill House to escape from their realities. Theodora runs from her fight with her “friend”, Luke is apparently some sort of thief whose family dislikes him, Dr. Seward has a bizarre wife with whom he doesn’t seem to get along very well, and Eleanor has a whole host of issues she’s running from.
Great response (even if a touch late!). The idea of the enforced "sanity" of Eleanor's existence is important, since it is one Jackson herself would be familiar with. Eleanor is another woman without a 'room of her own,' one that had to retreat further and further into her own mind, a frustrated artist who had to settle for being a dreamer and a liar. This keeps her sane and, unlike Poe's narrators, probably prevents her from killing her mother and sister! But in Hill House, her inner world keeps spilling out and tempting her to act on her impulses and go beyond the taboos that have held her so firmly in check. The question of identity is important: will Eleanor go "home" to her true nature or remain a tenant in her sister's home?
ReplyDelete1. How does the opening sentence relate to the rest of the work: "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." How could this statement be a 'theory' to read the entire work--or itself a commentary on Jackson's use of Gothic elements to frame her novel?
ReplyDeleteIt brings back to unreliability of the narration. However, this is not because of an unreliable narrator. The whole story is odd and there isn’t a truly objective observation of what is really going on. So, from what I see, a theoretical approach to reading the story would be a concept of unreliability. I don’t know what Jackson would try to SAY through her use of unreliability but I can see that she is trying to frame it this way. It can be used as a device to create suspense. For instance the knocking at the doors, the writing on the wall in blood, etc… We never get a straightaway view at what caused these things. What we do get, however, is a lot of conjecture and suspicion. I think she is giving a positive commentary that unreliability didn’t end with Poe or James. It is still, even today with movies like Shutter Island, a viable way to communicate.
True, but I don't think someone would write a sentence like this--or open a book like this--simply to create suspsense. This does indeed work, but I think it questions what we can ever truly know, and which experiences--internal or external--shape our conception of reality. If you think you're an artist and live your life as an artist but don't sell your work or get recognized as an artist, ARE you an artist? Even if a million people deny it, if you see yourself this way and it shapes your vision and decisions, then aren't you an artist? Is sanity listening to yourself or others--or denying yourself in favor of others? This is Eleanor's struggle as she tries to decide which reality to live, and whether or not she can be 'herself' in the House.
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