No Particular Way But Our Own: An Essay Proposal On Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House10/9/2017 Werewolves, vampires, ghosts, aliens. These are all beings that are found in horror stories. But why? What do they all have in common? They are hybrids. Werewolves and vampires are both sub-humans. They have human characteristics, but don’t act like humans. Ghosts and aliens aren’t really humans either, but they act with autonomy and show emotion, meaning this still carry human characteristics. In his essay, “Monster Culture, (Seven Theses)” Jeffrey Jerome Cohen writes, “And so the monster is dangerous, a form suspended between forms that threatens to smash distinctions” (6). Because these characters are not confined to a specific category, they are terrifying and defy laws of nature. This is seen in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House as the distinctions between the parent and the child become harder to distinguish, meaning rather than being the parent or the child, someone can become the parent and the child. Being both/and at the same time creates a dynamic shift in the organization of the home, uprooting our perception of morality and individuality. Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, consistently redefines the roles of parents. As the story is mostly told through Eleanor’s experience and relationship with Hill House, we see a skewed perspective of motherhood. Eleanor travels to Hill House as her perspective of motherhood became damaged. Since she took care of her mother, her role as daughter became a hybrid as she also took on the role to nurse her mother. Once she arrives to the house, it becomes a womb to rebirth her as an individual woman. However, she simultaneously becomes the child and the mother. Eleanor not only wants to create a family in the house and be a daughter or sister within that family, she also wants to find love and take on the role of mother. This fight between being a child and a parent reflects a dynamic shift in roles. This shift, however, is highly reflective of the time. Cohen argues, “the monster is born only at this metamorphic crossroads, as an embodiment of a certain cultural moment… it is always a displacement, always inhabits the gap between the time of upheaval that created it and the moment into which it is received, to be born again” (4). The idea that time creates a rebirth within the monster is prominent in The Haunting of Hill House as the 1950s, which is when the book was published, was a turning point for families in America. As the idea of nuclear families was promoted through media, the role inside the household was changing. During World War II, women had to take on the paternal role as young men were drafted into war. The dynamic of the female sphere changed as domesticity morphed and individualism and agency became more prominent. Eleanor’s simultaneous search for freedom from the household and search for her own home reflects the clash of roles women could find themselves in at this intersection with time. Because of this, The Haunting of Hill House explores the challenge of the category of “both/and.” The lack of binaries throughout the novel creates a change within logic and reworks the notions of the human experience. The monster is a reflection of the rebirth of this phenomenon, however, a simultaneous death of organization.
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11/20/2017 08:55:59 pm
I appreciated your take on Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House as it relates to Cohen's monster thesis. It's clear that Eleanor's role in The Haunting of Hill House is largely undeveloped. As far as the readers know, Eleanor is rediscovering herself and her identity--whether it's how she dresses or where she lives. I understood the relationships she developed at Hill House to replace the ones she had at home. Her relationship with her cousin Theodora, for instance, gave her a glimpse into sisterhood, and her relationship with Dr. Markway fulfilled a paternal role in her life. As a whole, I understood the house to be the one thing in her life that was finally giving her attention, but identifying the house as Eleanor's womb was something I hadn't explored. In light of this and Cohen's aforementioned argument that "the monster is born only at metamorphic crossroads," I'm curious to see how this would related to other texts we've explored. For example, if time does in fact create a rebirth within a monster, it's possible that time in Toni Morrison's "Beloved" created the monster that showed up at the door of 124 and called herself Beloved.
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AuthorNatasha Dodge |