Shirley Jackson - The Haunting Of Hill House - Episode 1 - Meet The Author And The Personal Issues That Created One Of The Best Horror Genre Books Of All Time!
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Shirley Jackson - The Haunting Of Hill House - Episode 1 - MeetThe Author And The Personal Issues That Created One Of The Best Horror Genre Books Of All Time!
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`Hi, I\\u2019m Christy Shriver and we\\u2019re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.\\xa0
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And I\\u2019m Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.\\xa0 If you are listening to this in real time, we are well into the month of October and in the United States, the month of October means Halloween.\\xa0 Halloween, as we\\u2019ve discussed before, is not Christy\\u2019s favorite holiday.\\xa0 Christy, why is that?\\xa0
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Because it\\u2019s horrifying.\\xa0 It\\u2019s about death.\\xa0 It\\u2019s about being scared.\\xa0\\xa0It\\u2019s about demons.\\xa0 I don\\u2019t understand why we\\u2019re celebrating these things.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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And yet, I have seen you dress up as Wilma Flintstone;\\xa0answer a\\xa0door bell\\xa0to a slew of terrifyingly dressed children, hand out candy\\xa0and\\xa0enjoy every minute of it.\\xa0 For those of you who live in other parts of the world- that is what we do here in the United States on October 31st.\\xa0 My son, Ben, and his wife Rachel live in a part of Memphis\\xa0which is particularly serious about Halloween, so we,\\xa0if we can, love to go down there on Halloween and get in on the party.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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That\\u2019s true- and it is wild. They have a neighbor whose\\xa0yard literally looks like\\xa0the\\xa0set\\xa0of\\xa0a horror movie with graves, and ghosts and witches and everything.\\xa0 It\\xa0spooks me, but on the other\\xa0hand,\\xa0 I\\xa0do love\\xa0dressing up, and I love seeing all the kids dress up.\\xa0 That part I\\u2019m cool with.\\xa0
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And yet,\\xa0here we are reading\\xa0a\\xa0classic\\xa0work described as Female Gothic\\xa0or\\xa0horror fiction- the\\xa0work of the\\xa0celebrated Shirley Jackson, perhaps\\xa0her most famous novel\\xa0The Haunting of Hill House.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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True.\\xa0\\xa0But I will say that Literary Horror is slightly different than\\xa0Nightmare on\\xa0Elm street.\\xa0 Here\\u2019s a little story about myself, so I had never watched a horror movie growing up.\\xa0 My mother didn\\u2019t allow it in our home, and back then these movies were rated R\\xa0and the people at movie theaters really policed that sort of thing- so if you were a young child, obviously you could watch a rated R movie, but they didn\\u2019t make it easy for you.\\xa0 Well, anyway, when I was a sophomore in\\xa0high school, this little school that I attended at the time took an overnight trip out of town to hike up this mountain, Pico da Bandeira.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0After the hike, somebody pulled out the VHS of this move and we were going to watch it (I\\u2019m pretty sure it was a bootleg).\\xa0 Anyway, I was so excited- most everyone in Brazil loves horror movies and Nightmare on\\xa0Elmstreet\\xa0was one of the most\\xa0populat\\xa0at the time.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Well, how did that go for you?\\xa0
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Not well, I\\u2019m not sure I got through 15 minutes.\\xa0 I spent the rest of the night under the\\xa0covers and with my hands in my ears.\\xa0 I didn\\u2019t even want to hear it.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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HA!!\\xa0 Well, what I find fascinating about Literary fiction is that it\\u2019s scary for all kinds of different reasons, not\\xa0the idea of someone jumping out and stabbing an unsuspecting girl.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Exactly.\\xa0It\\u2019s not\\xa0some obvious\\xa0caricature of\\xa0a\\xa0gore\\xa0covered\\xa0mummy walking around with a hatchet\\xa0that defines it.\\xa0 It\\u2019s metaphorical; it\\u2019s about the cost of seduction; it\\u2019s about psychological disorders and\\xa0it\\u2019s very much about anxiety.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Well, you know I love it when we get psychological.\\xa0 One thing I found interesting, and this is coming from the perspective that we just did an entire series\\xa0kind of around women\\u2019s issue with\\xa0A Doll\\u2019s House, but I expected\\xa0Shirley Jackson\\u2019s\\xa0work to be more feminist than\\xa0it\\xa0is.\\xa0\\xa0Also, the book has\\xa0all this\\xa0mother/daughter\\xa0stuff in it.\\xa0 I wasn\\u2019t expecting that.\\xa0
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Yes- it very much has everything to do with mother/daughter relationships.\\xa0\\xa0That motif starts on the first page and never lets up.\\xa0\\xa0I got tired of counting mother references,\\xa0and I never found an article that did\\xa0the math, but there\\xa0are\\xa0reference to mothers\\xa0endlessly- and something that drew my immediate attention- especially the first time Eleanor wakes up terrified in the middle the night\\xa0yelling for her mother.\\xa0\\xa0But that is just\\xa0one\\xa0way of looking at\\xa0the book- although that\\u2019s a great place to start and where we will start our discussion\\xa0today as we attempt to make it all the way through\\xa0chapter 1 of the book.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0But in a more general sense,\\xa0what\\xa0Jackson\\xa0was looking at was this imbalance of power that can exist in\\xa0relationships between any two people.\\xa0\\xa0She wants to express the\\xa0seduction\\xa0and betrayal\\xa0of the powerless by the powerful.\\xa0She expresses how\\xa0one person uses\\xa0the power\\xa0in the relationship\\xa0basically\\xa0to\\xa0crush another\\xa0person.\\xa0\\xa0And unfortunately, she understood this problem so well because it\\xa0was her entire life story.\\xa0 She had that experience with her mother, and then she turned around and had it\\xa0again\\xa0with her husband, and\\xa0really\\xa0she had it within the community at large of the 1950s.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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And, of course, being written in the 1950s, many women of her generation quickly related to it.\\xa0\\xa0In fact, in some ways, it reminds me a little bit of that very famous work by Betty\\xa0Friedan,\\xa0The Feminine Mystique, that became so important in American history\\xa0but wasn\\u2019t even going to be written for another ten years.\\xa0
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Yeah, I\\u2019ve heard of that book, but honestly, I don\\u2019t know much about it.\\xa0 What is the premise\\xa0and why does it connect, in your mind to Shirley\\xa0Jackson.\\xa0
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Well, I\\u2019ll be upfront and tell you I have never read the book,\\xa0so I\\u2019m speaking from\\xa0second hand\\xa0knowledge.\\xa0\\xa0But,\\xa0what I know about it\\xa0from teaching\\xa0and studying\\xa0history is the impact it had on American culture\\xa0because of the power of the argument\\xa0Friedan\\xa0makes in the book.\\xa0\\xa0
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First of\\xa0all\\xa0I would like\\xa0to point out\\xa0she\\u2019s\\xa0interviewing\\xa0women\\xa0that attended Smith\\xa0College, which is a very well\\xa0to do\\xa0private school\\xa0in\\xa0Massachusetts.\\xa0\\xa0survey sample\\xa0was not\\xa0very scientific\\xa0
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\\xa0Friedan, at her 15th\\xa0college reunion, took a survey from her fellow colleagues, about how they felt about their lives.\\xa0\\xa0The basic premise of her book is that society\\xa0had\\xa0created a myth that women\\xa0were most fulfilled if they\\xa0were taking care of children, staying at\\xa0home,\\xa0 supporting\\xa0their husbands,\\xa0and\\xa0staying away from politics and business.\\xa0\\xa0In the book, she claims that entire\\xa0worldview for women\\xa0is\\xa0a myth- at least for many women.\\xa0 I will never assume to speak for\\xa0women\\xa0and I certainly won\\u2019t speak for all women.\\xa0\\xa0But\\xa0Friedan\\xa0will, and she went\\xa0after the 1950s stereotypical\\xa0Leave it To Beaver kind of mom that had been the socially accepted\\xa0lifestyle.\\xa0\\xa0She\\xa0said\\xa0many women\\xa0were\\xa0absolutely miserable.\\xa0 She\\xa0claimed that society\\u2019s pressure on women\\xa0for\\xa0women to\\xa0succumb to what amounted to in many cases\\xa0mindnumbing\\xa0non-stimulating\\xa0existences\\xa0was causing depression.\\xa0 She famously said it was a \\u201cproblem that has no name\\u201d.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0And whether you want to challenge her\\xa0or\\xa0agree with her, you\\xa0have to\\xa0respect\\xa0that her idea absolutely resonated across America and really the entire world.\\xa0 Her book was\\xa0a best seller, selling over 3 million in her lifetime and has been translated into at least a dozen major languages around the world.\\xa0\\xa0Many\\xa0textbooks credit\\xa0Friedan\\xa0for\\xa0sparking\\xa0the second wave of feminism that\\xa0was\\xa0a key feature of the 60s, the kind of thing\\xa0we see portrayed in\\xa0movies like Forrest Gump in the character of Jenny.\\xa0 This women\\u2019s rights movement was\\xa0not interested in voting rights;\\xa0it was\\xa0moving forward\\xa0to the next level.\\xa0 It was pushing for\\xa0workplace equality, birth control, abortion rights,\\xa0breaking the glass ceiling in academia and business.\\xa0\\xa0Where I see it aligning with Jackson, who came much earlier, is that this book,\\xa0The Haunting of Hill House\\xa0is a metaphorical expression of everything\\xa0Friedan\\xa0wanted to say about women in the 1960s- the house is haunted, so to speak.\\xa0 The house was crushing women.\\xa0 It was making women crazy.\\xa0\\xa0
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Well, you\\u2019re starting to steal a little bit of my thunder\\xa0\\u2013next week we are going to spend almost the entire episode discussing the house itself,\\xa0but you are dead on about what Jackson is doing in her work\\u2026pardon the pun.\\xa0\\xa0But,\\xa0I want to say before all the men moan and groan and say,\\xa0I\\u2019m turning this off if this is going to be another one of those feminist books-\\xa0the book\\xa0really is much more than\\xa0a political commentary- in fact that\\u2019s just one way of relating to it.\\xa0 The metaphor most definitely can be read exactly as you have connected to the\\xa0femininist\\xa0movement\\xa0of the 1960s,\\xa0and many\\xa0many\\xa0people have\\xa0read it just that way, but I\\u2019m not sure Jackson herself really did, although there\\u2019s no\\xa0doubt\\xa0she was\\xa0an advocate for many of the things you just enumerated.\\xa0She, like Ibsen, would say her work is art and not a piece of political propaganda.\\xa0 She would also likely claim, and I know I\\u2019m being presumptuous to speak for her, but I do think she would claim, that would be a very small way to understand\\xa0her body of\\xa0work, if that\\u2019s all you thought it was.\\xa0She was writing the emotions and then the reader found themselves in them.\\xa0\\xa0
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I was also interested to see that Jackson, very much like Elizabeth Barrett Browning\\xa0struggled fighting\\xa0critics over the years.\\xa0\\xa0Stanley Hyman, her husband and literary critic during their lives,\\xa0in the preface for a book he published of her yet unpublished work after her death famously wrote, \\u201cFor all her popularity, Shirley Jackson won surprisingly little recognition.\\xa0 She received no awards or prizes,\\xa0grants\\xa0or fellowships; her name was often omitted from lists on which it clearly belonged, or which it should have led.\\xa0 She saw these\\xa0honors go to inferior\\xa0writers.\\u201d\\xa0
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True,\\xa0and\\xa0Hyman, although I have trouble giving him credit for anything because of his and Shirley\\u2019s relationship which we\\u2019ll talk about in a different episode, but he\\xa0predicted that\\xa0Jackson\\u2019s \\u201cpowerful visions of suffering and inhumanity\\u201d and would be found \\u201cincreasingly significant and meaningful.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0He truly always understood that her\\xa0long form or serious\\xa0work was more than pop fiction,\\xa0or gory horror,\\xa0and yet that was not the majority view of that time.\\xa0
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And part of that is somewhat understandable.\\xa0 One thing I didn\\u2019t know about her until we started reading up on her for this podcast series was that\\xa0her acclaim during her day really came from two places- one was for the short story, \\u201cThe Lottery\\u201d, but the other and this is what I didn\\u2019t know-\\xa0was her best-selling essay collection on domestic life titled\\xa0Life Among the Savages.\\xa0\\xa0I haven\\u2019t read\\xa0much\\xa0of that, to be honest, but what I did read is\\xa0really truly\\xa0funny stuff\\xa0stuff.\\xa0\\xa0She was Erma Bombeck before Erma Bombeck.\\xa0
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Yes- and\\xa0she was funny, and she was writing about her kids, house cleaning,\\xa0being a mom, a member of a local community and all the craziness of middle-class life.\\xa0 It was the stuff that people were living\\xa0in their world, and she made it funny.\\xa0 People didn\\u2019t take seriously the\\xa0psychological insights into\\xa0issues of emotional isolation, rage,\\xa0paranoia,\\xa0and the fragmentation of the human mind- from a person who was a regular\\xa0contributor\\xa0to\\xa0magazines\\xa0like Good Housekeeping,\\xa0Mademoiselle,\\xa0McCall\\u2019s\\xa0and Ladies Home Journal.\\xa0
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No, it was just too different,\\xa0and\\xa0of course,\\xa0you can\\u2019t discount the\\xa0condescension from the serious art community-\\xa0I mean here was a woman writing in a genre that nobody took seriously about female protagonists- which was often not taken seriously- and was famous for cute anecdotes about\\xa0the comedy of errors which is life as a\\xa0house-mom\\xa0raising four children in a small\\xa0town.We\\xa0must remember\\xa0also, as a general rule, the 1950s are not that far\\xa0removed from the time period where women didn\\u2019t read literature at all- there was a thing called\\xa0\\u201cladies reading material\\u201d\\xa0That\\u2019s what women read.\\xa0 Men read literature, but\\xa0women writing for women\\xa0was not elevated enough to\\xa0actually be\\xa0called \\u201cliterature\\u201d- it was simply reading material for women.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Oh- well\\xa0\\u2013 I guess we shall make that distinction- although I will say,\\xa0as a woman writing\\xa0\\u201cladies\\xa0reading\\xa0material\\u201d\\xa0for money\\xa0she did\\xa0fairly well\\xa0for herself.\\xa0\\xa0Shirley Jackson\\xa0made\\xa0serious cash\\xa0off of\\xa0these stories- in fact, she\\xa0outearned\\xa0her husband- and it was the essays that were funding their lifestyles, not her novels. Her biographer Ruth Franklin, commented in an interview that she\\xa0could\\xa0make\\xa0\\xa0over\\xa0$2000 per essay which at the time was enough to fun\\xa0to fund\\xa0her Morris Minor collection.\\xa0
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Nice- well British Sports cars are always a fun thing to keep around the house.\\xa0\\xa0
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I\\u2019ll\\xa0say.\\xa0 But back to her legacy for a second, Jackson\\xa0is\\xa0like Elizabeth Barrett Browning in that\\xa0her work, well after her death, found\\xa0it\\u2019s\\xa0way into the canon and today\\xa0is\\xa0very much taken seriously.\\xa0\\xa0In fact, we\\u2019re teaching her right now\\xa0to all the 11th\\xa0graders at Bartlett\\xa0High School,\\xa0and almost all\\xa0American\\xa0students will at some point\\xa0read\\xa0\\xa0her\\xa0short story \\u201cThe Lottery\\u201d, the\\xa0\\xa0famous\\xa0short story that triggered more public outrage\\xa0 in 1948 than anything published before or since by the magazine the New Yorker.\\xa0\\xa0Hundreds\\xa0of people\\xa0cancelled\\xa0their subscriptions and even more wrote the magazine totally exasperated.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Well, it\\u2019s political and psychological and\\xa0really even\\xa0religious as well.\\xa0 But back to the 11th\\xa0graders at Bartlett, do you think\\xa0your kids will be able to\\xa0appreciate\\xa0or enjoy\\xa0the depth of the psychological analysis\\xa0in her novel\\xa0that today is the central hallmark\\xa0of her work?\\xa0
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Yeah,\\xa0I think many of them will get it.\\xa0 I look forward to how they understand what she\\u2019s talking about.\\xa0 You know, students today live in such a different world and the ghosts and houses that haunt them look so differently than the ghosts and houses that haunted our generation or much less Shirley Jackson\\u2019s.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0I look forward to discussing some of these issues with them and see what fascinates them the most.\\xa0\\xa0
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\\xa0One of the things that fascinates me\\xa0the most\\xa0and I\\u2019m expecting to come out\\xa0is\\xa0Jackson\\u2019s\\xa0multiple direct and indirect references to the relationship between\\xa0mothers and daughters.\\xa0\\xa0It\\u2019s clear in this book that whatever is going wrong in Eleanor\\u2019s mind has something to do with her dead mother.\\xa0 I have two daughters, and I really pray, I am not the kind of\\xa0mother\\xa0Shirley Jackson had or\\xa0that my daughters ever express any of the feelings\\xa0she expresses\\xa0about\\xa0mother/daughter relationships- nothing that would haunt and torment my children after I\\u2019m dead.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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No, I\\u2019m sure none of us want to\\xa0have that kind of legacy with our children.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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And yet, there are women like\\xa0Geraldine Jackson, Shirley\\u2019s mother.\\xa0 Geraldine\\xa0was truly\\xa0relentless in her cruelty towards her daughter.\\xa0 She was cruel to her as a child and her passive aggressive disapproval was something she perpetuated\\xa0all throughout Shirley\\u2019s life\\xa0right to her\\xa0untimely death at age 48.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Yes\\xa0and I think\\xa0understanding Geraldine\\u2019 cruelty really helps me see some of the things in Jackson\\u2019s writing that I may have overlooked before.\\xa0\\xa0And I know\\xa0that an author\\u2019s life cannot be used uncritically to explain an artist\\u2019s work; obviously\\xa0art speaks for itself, but maybe more than any other writer we\\u2019ve read together, Jackson uses\\xa0her writings to express pain\\xa0in artistic ways that were personal to her, but universal to many of us.\\xa0\\xa0Geraldine\\u2019s ruthless subtle\\xa0and sometimes not so subtle\\xa0demoralizing was something\\xa0Jackson\\xa0could not get out of her\\xa0mind.\\xa0\\xa0.\\xa0
Geraldine\\u2019s\\xa0own\\xa0personality disorder took a heavy toll on Shirley.\\xa0
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And it was always expressed with all the best of intentions- she was always so concerned.\\xa0
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Let\\u2019s tell a little about their story and then people will know what you\\u2019re talking about.\\xa0\\xa0
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Okay, well the story starts\\xa0when\\xa0 Jackson\\xa0was born in 1916 (although she lied about her age\\xa0and claimed to have been born in 1919- which I think is funny), but anyway, she\\xa0was born into an affluent family and up until she was 16 they lived in\\xa0Burlingame, California.\\xa0\\xa0
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Let me interrupt, just for context,\\xa0Burlingame, to this day is one of the most expensive cities in the United States.\\xa0 The median house in\\xa0Burlingame\\xa0costs\\xa0over 2 million dollars- and\\xa0I\\u2019m not talking mansions- this is the price range for what would be\\xa0an average\\xa0home that would cost a tenth of that in other parts of the US.\\xa0\\xa0Every review on bestplaces.com talks about how unaffordable it is\\xa0for most people\\xa0to live in this\\xa0Burlingame.\\xa0\\xa0
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Yep, and Geraldine, Shirley\\u2019s mom and her father Leslie, cultivated that\\xa0clich\\xe9\\u2019d\\xa0vision of the\\xa0upper\\xa0class\\xa0\\xa0country\\xa0club\\xa0lifestyle.\\xa0 They were into the production\\xa0of this very sophisticated appearance of success and wealth,\\xa0what was important was\\xa0the appearance of things.\\xa0\\xa0 They were into\\xa0competitive living,\\xa0and\\xa0that,\\xa0 of\\xa0course, still\\xa0includes having perfect children.\\xa0 Shirley\\u2019s brother, I might add, was beautiful and competitive\\xa0and made them proud, but unfortunately for Shirley, she was not- and this\\xa0was just a huge disappointment\\xa0for Geraldine.\\xa0 She could not nor did she want to fit the mold.\\xa0\\xa0Shirley was heavier than the other girls.\\xa0 She didn\\u2019t enjoy the same kinds of things as the other girls.\\xa0 She didn\\u2019t have that\\xa0\\u201cAll-American\\u201d barbie doll\\xa0look like the other girls.\\xa0\\xa0She wasn\\u2019t into the\\xa0deputante\\xa0thing, and if she\\xa0had been wasn\\u2019t\\xa0cute enough.\\xa0
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Yes, I read a couple of articles that called\\xa0Jackson\\xa0morbidly obese, so I googled images of her, it was true that she was\\xa0heavier ,\\xa0but, in my mind, she falls way short\\xa0of\\xa0the criteria for morbidly obese by today\\u2019s definition, especially in her youth.\\xa0And I want to say something else about this 1950\\u2019s lifestyle we\\u2019ve been discussing.\\xa0After WW 2 there was a huge economic boom that doubled\\xa0family incomes\\xa0in the\\xa0decade. It was the first decade of widespread\\xa0middle class\\xa0wealth. And one sign of that new\\xa0middle class\\xa0wealth was the ability to live on one income. Wives staying at home were a sign of wealth and\\xa0prestige.\\xa0\\xa0
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Maybe not, but she certainly wasn\\u2019t the daughter Geraldine wanted nor could be proud of at a\\xa0deputant\\xa0ball.\\xa0\\xa0In fact, truth be told, Geraldine was\\xa0actually disappointed\\xa0when she found out she was pregnant because she didn\\u2019t want a child at that time.\\xa0 But\\xa0Geraldine\\u2019s\\xa0largest problem and\\xa0obsession\\xa0was\\xa0with Shirley\\u2019s weight- and her obsession with\\xa0Shirley\\u2019s weight\\xa0never ended.\\xa0\\xa0She made comments about her weight-\\xa0all of\\xa0the time.\\xa0 They were gratuitous, just dropped in to remind her that she was fat.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0Here are some\\xa0quotes\\xa0from a couple of Geraldine\\u2019s\\xa0letters to her daughter just to show you what I\\u2019m talking about.\\xa0\\u201cGlad you\\u2019re dieting.\\u201d \\u201cExcess weight is hard on the heart.\\u201d \\u201cYou should get down to normal weight. Try non-fat milk.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0Even after the publication of what would be Jackson\\u2019s final novel, Geraldine could be relied on to bring up her weight, \\u201cWhy\\xa0oh\\xa0why do you allow the magazines to print such awful pictures of\\xa0you?...I have been so sad all morning about what you have allowed yourself to look like.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Yes, let me read the full quote for context.\\xa0\\xa0
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If you don\\u2019t care what you look like or care about your appearance why don\\u2019t you do something about it for your children\\u2019s sake\\u2014 and your husband\\u2019s. . . .\\xa0I have been so sad all morning about what you have allowed yourself to look like. . . .\\xa0You were and I guess still are a very\\xa0wilful\\xa0child and one who insisted on her own way in everything\\u2014 good or bad.\\xa0
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This is a straight up\\xa0narcissistic rant.\\xa0\\xa0
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There was always the subtext that\\xa0was\\xa0no matter what Shirley did with her life, she\\xa0could never live up to her mother\\u2019s expectations- even if she was famous- Jackson wanted acceptance of who she was- but she wanted it on her terms, and she\\xa0and wanted to prove to her mom that the way she was\\xa0was\\xa0a good way, and she could be good at life\\xa0just by\\xa0being herself- but that was never going to happen.\\xa0 In fact, at one low moment, Geraldine\\xa0actually told\\xa0her daughter that she was a failed abortion.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Wow.\\xa0 That is just hateful.\\xa0\\xa0Geraldine wanted a girl in the image of what she wanted, and she was never going to compromise.\\xa0\\xa0This is classically what people call today a \\u201ctoxic mother\\u201d,\\xa0\\xa0And\\xa0this plays a terrible toll on\\xa0girls\\xa0who have toxic mothers.\\xa0 These behaviors can\\xa0destroy\\xa0women\\u2019s\\xa0images\\xa0of themselves.\\xa0\\xa0 And this is what seems to have happened with Jackson and her mother.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Let me just\\xa0back\\xa0\\xa0up\\xa0and\\xa0say, it\\u2019s absolutely\\xa0natural\\xa0and healthy\\xa0for a girl to look up to her mother;\\xa0a mom is the\\xa0original ideal of what a woman should be.\\xa0 That\\u2019s how we all learn to navigate in this world, and likely a mom and a daughter will have a lot in common for obvious reasons.\\xa0 There is a lot of joy in that.\\xa0 There is a special bond in that.\\xa0 Over the years, though,\\xa0as a little girl\\xa0develops into\\xa0a teenager,\\xa0although at\\xa0first\\xa0she wants to be exactly like her mom, that desire kind of separates out.\\xa0 In a\\xa0normal relationship, as a\\xa0girl transitions into a woman, she individuates.\\xa0\\xa0 She becomes her own person.\\xa0\\xa0Some things\\xa0of her mother she will keep; others she\\u2019ll discard.\\xa0 And healthy moms respect and encourage their\\xa0daughters\\xa0individuality.\\xa0 A normal mom will\\xa0do whatever she can to equip her daughter, make her\\xa0bolder\\xa0and stronger.\\xa0 But as painful as it may be from a mom\\u2019s perspective,\\xa0healthy mom\\u2019s\\xa0accept\\xa0daughter\\u2019s\\xa0choices- even the ones they think are mistakes.\\xa0 That\\u2019s just what they do, and if they end up being mistakes, it\\u2019s okay.\\xa0 We all get to live our own lives.\\xa0 But in Geraldine\\u2019s life, what Shirley did was a reflection on her, so she couldn\\u2019t let the fact that her daughter was overweight go.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Well,\\xa0how do you think she took it\\xa0when Shirley told her mom she was marrying a Jew\\xa0in 1940- or I should say that she had\\xa0already\\xa0married a Jew, she didn\\u2019t even tell them she got married until several months later because they were anti-Semitic\\xa0people,\\xa0 I\\xa0can imagine that didn\\u2019t\\xa0go well?\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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No, I\\u2019d say it probably didn\\u2019t, but I really don\\u2019t know.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0I do want to say one other thing, Christy,\\xa0don\\u2019t get me wrong,\\xa0I think it\\u2019s\\xa0pretty\\xa0well-established\\xa0that motherhood is by definition\\xa0a lose/lose proposition- moms just can\\u2019t win.\\xa0\\xa0It\\u2019s impossible to raise a perfect child,\\xa0just like it\\u2019s impossible to\\xa0be a perfect person,\\xa0so of course we can\\u2019t\\xa0raise a person in the most perfect of emotional environments.\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
\\xa0Mom\\u2019s\\xa0will\\xa0unrealistically be blamed for\\xa0things that\\xa0may or may not be their fault-\\xa0the reality is\\xa0no one can be perfect, we will hurt each other and there will\\xa0insecurities\\xa0that spring up because of the way we are raised, and that\\u2019s kind of normal too- it\\u2019s normal for dads; it\\u2019s normal for moms.\\xa0\\xa0But,\\xa0that is not the same as being a toxic mom.\\xa0\\xa0Geraldine was toxic.\\xa0 Nothing was ever going to be good enough for\\xa0Geraldine.\\xa0 She was perpetually\\xa0disapproving,\\xa0and Shirley was never going to meet her standards.\\xa0\\xa0Geraldine\\xa0was\\xa0also always very\\xa0controlling- I read somewhere she made Shirley wear garters and high heels as a little girl.\\xa0 She was constantly guilt-tripping Shirley.\\xa0 She constantly made negative comments; she\\xa0manipulated her emotions,\\xa0and most of the time she did it passive-aggressively.\\xa0 She did it under the guise of love.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
And\\xa0that seems to be\\xa0in one sense\\xa0what\\xa0Jackson\\xa0expresses in her writing- it\\u2019s\\xa0at least\\xa0what lots of people have identified with in Hill House.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0There is\\xa0this\\xa0sense\\xa0that Shirley could\\xa0never get her\\xa0mom\\xa0out of her head, and of course, she\\u2019s not the only one who struggles with these kinds of things.\\xa0\\xa0In Hill\\xa0House,\\xa0\\xa0the\\xa0main character\\xa0is a 32 year old young woman\\xa0named Eleanor Vance. I want to add that\\xa032\\xa0is\\xa0not a young age.\\xa0\\xa0She\\u2019s not telling the story of a child and the abuses of a mother\\xa0on a small child.\\xa0\\xa0Eleanor is a fully grown adult who should be living her own\\xa0independent\\xa0life\\xa0for quite some time.\\xa0 But she hasn\\u2019t.\\xa0\\xa0She hasn\\u2019t even had an opportunity to do so.\\xa0\\xa0Eleanor has no friends and is alone. That\\u2019s what we\\u2019re told\\xa0at the\\xa0beginning\\xa0and we will see all the way through to the end of the book when she tells Theo she has never been wanted, it\\u2019s been how she\\u2019s felt always.\\xa0 We\\u2019re also told\\xa0Eleanor\\u2019s mother is dead\\xa0right here at the beginning,\\xa0and\\xa0that Eleanor has been taking care of her relentlessly since she was twenty years\\xa0old.\\xa0\\xa0 Eleanor\\u2019s mom\\xa0is\\xa0a constant presence in Eleanor\\u2019s psyche, even beyond the grave.\\xa0\\xa0She even buys clothes that she knows her mother hates- pants- just because her mom is dead and can\\u2019t do anything about it.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0Eleanor is being haunted before she ever gets to Hill House.\\xa0
\\xa0
True,\\xa0and\\xa0this lack of self-esteem\\xa0and then\\xa0loneliness\\xa0is what has resonated with so many\\xa0women and men who read\\xa0Jackson\\u2019s\\xa0stories.\\xa0 It also is\\xa0what\\xa0directly\\xa0led to\\xa0a lot of\\xa0the suffering\\xa0Jackson\\xa0experienced in her marriage to Stanley.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
Stanley Hyman,\\xa0there\\u2019s a character.\\xa0 Before I smear him, I guess I will say right off that bat that he, in\\xa0many ways,\\xa0was very supportive of Shirley\\xa0professionally and admired her intellectually.\\xa0 My problem with him is that he\\xa0degraded her sexually- and that is the cruelest and most intimate and demeaning forms of degradation that there is.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0For one thing he absolutely did not respect the sexual boundaries Shirley wanted in their marriage.\\xa0\\xa0Besides\\xa0having\\xa0so many affairs\\xa0with students at the school he taught\\xa0but also\\xa0really just\\xa0anyone\\u2014he\\xa0seemed to enjoy\\xa0telling\\xa0Jackson all about these trysts.\\xa0\\xa0I\\u2019ve read a few of the letters he wrote about women he was sleeping with on\\xa0various business\\xa0trips,\\xa0and I got the feeling it\\u2019s almost like he was bragging a little bit.\\xa0 I\\u2019d read a few quotes, but they\\u2019re vulgar.\\xa0\\xa0He talked about groping girls- giving details about what he had done.\\xa0It\\u2019s gross never\\xa0mind hurtful.\\xa0\\xa0And Shirley would get upset.\\xa0\\xa0Although she was a free spirit and Bohemian in some ways, this was not okay with her.\\xa0 She didn\\u2019t want\\xa0a\\xa0open marriage where everyone just slept with whoever they wanted.\\xa0\\xa0There are letters where she writes him and\\xa0expresses\\xa0how this behavior\\xa0made her feel, but she\\xa0never mailed\\xa0these letters.\\xa0 I don\\u2019t even know why.\\xa0 Maybe she didn\\u2019t have the nerve.\\xa0 Maybe she knew it made no difference.\\xa0 Maybe she wanted her family and that was a price she was willing to pay.\\xa0 I\\u2019m speculating.\\xa0 We only know\\xa0that\\xa0\\xa0she\\xa0just took it.\\xa0\\xa0She wouldn\\u2019t confront him, at least that\\xa0there\\xa0isa\\xa0record of.\\xa0\\xa0She just forced herself to accept it and moved\\xa0on with her life.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
And that is an indication of low self-esteem, obviously.\\xa0\\xa0Jackson wouldn\\u2019t have put up with\\xa0that sort of\\xa0thing\\xa0like she did, if she didn\\u2019t think, at some level, it was her fault\\xa0or that\\xa0she didn\\u2019t deserve to be treated any better than that.\\xa0\\xa0This is the legacy of\\xa0a\\xa0toxic\\xa0parent.\\xa0\\xa0Allowing people to treat you in a way that is lesser and that is not how you treat them is a direct\\xa0result of low self-esteem, but\\xa0I want to add that future abusive relationships is not the only symptom of low\\xa0self-esteem\\xa0and it isn\\u2019t the only symptom of low-esteem we see in Jackson\\u2019s life.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0Behaviors\\xa0that\\xa0provoke self-harm\\xa0\\xa0like\\xa0over-eating, over-drinking, and pill-popping- all things Jackson did- are also a\\xa0result of low esteem\\xa0and indicate high levels of anxiety.\\xa0\\xa0Feelings of sadness, depression, anxiety, anger,\\xa0shame\\xa0and guilt- are also things we see in Jackson\\u2019s life.\\xa0 She seems to have truly struggled emotionally.\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
True, but before we get too dark, Shirley was all of that, but she\\xa0wasn\\u2019t ONLY that.\\xa0 She\\xa0had a\\xa0happy side too- an apparently tremendously happy side.\\xa0 I say that from interviews I read that people did with her children.\\xa0 When her kids write\\xa0or talk\\xa0about their homelife, the reports are glowing.\\xa0 Her home was a happy place.\\xa0 It was chaotic and topsy\\xa0turvey\\xa0at times, the kind of crazy that people love.\\xa0 They didn\\u2019t even see any tension between their parents.\\xa0 For one thing, Stanley didn\\u2019t have a whole lot to do with the family- lots of men didn\\u2019t in the 50s, that was the mother\\u2019s domain, but\\xa0from the perspective of her children, her marriage to Stanley was a happy one, as was their home.\\xa0\\xa0So, we see all of that going on.\\xa0\\xa0Back to her biographer,\\xa0Ruth Franklin, Franklin titled her biography\\xa0about Jackson, \\u201cA Rather Haunted Life\\u201d kind of to reflect that idea- that she was haunted, but not entirely, just rather haunted.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
Yes, and it was that dichotomy that leads to all kinds of\\xa0cognitive\\xa0dissonance.\\xa0\\xa0I read in another article by a different biographer that Shirley, as a mother\\xa0was\\xa0deeply involved but also emotionally\\xa0erratic.\\xa0 \\u201cHer moods and anxieties colored her children\\u2019s days.\\xa0 No one could be more loving; no one could be meaner.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
Which brings me back to her as a writer.\\xa0\\xa0One critic observed that out of over 110 different stories that Jackson wrote in her lifetime,\\xa0most of them are about imperiled, divided or anxious women- and that is including both her scary and her funny stories.\\xa0\\xa0And when we get to her final three novels- they are gothic completely about anxiety, entrapment\\xa0and in the case of Hill House, a deeply troubled female with an inability to differentiate well between illusion and reality.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
Understanding that really makes the famous first paragraph of\\xa0The Haunting of Hill\\xa0House\\xa0 meaningful\\xa0in a deeper way, at least it does to me. And I do want to emphasize this first paragraph is one of the most famous paragraphs in all of Jackson\\u2019s writings:\\xa0
\\xa0
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.\\xa0 Hill House, not sane, stood\\xa0by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for 80 years and might stand for eighty more.\\xa0 Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.\\u201d\\xa0
\\xa0
And what do you always\\xa0say, when we start these books,\\xa0that\\xa0great writers will give their story away in the first sentence or two.\\xa0
\\xa0
They almost always do.\\xa0 This one in particular\\xa0invites\\xa0us to think about so much.\\xa0\\xa0First of all, it starts with a negation- \\u201cno\\u201d\\xa0but there are a lot of negative words here.\\xa0 It\\u2019s hard to understand, but something is telling us no- and when we get to the end of the book, that prophecy is fulfilled, although I won\\u2019t spoil that just yet and tell you how.\\xa0 But there\\u2019s so much more.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
Listen to\\xa0the ideas\\xa0she introduces-\\xa0\\xa0there\\xa0is\\xa0the idea of being alive- of being sane-\\xa0or not sane-\\xa0another negative word-\\xa0of standing in the darkness-in the\\xa0silence-\\xa0of being alone.\\xa0 Of being in a house,\\xa0but yet\\u2026being alone.\\xa0\\xa0 The alliteration highlights\\xa0and brings together her key\\xa0ideas- within walls- drawing attention to the idea of claustrophobia-\\xa0sensibly\\xa0shut;\\xa0silence\\xa0lay steadily\\xa0I might add\\xa0brings the silence and the claustrophobia together.\\xa0\\xa0Then of course- whatever walked- walked alone-\\xa0the w sound kind of\\xa0swoshes\\xa0in her head and haunts the end of that sentence.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
All of\\xa0her personal\\xa0demons in one sentence.\\xa0
\\xa0
Yes- and\\xa0all of\\xa0her personal demons getting ready to\\xa0flesh themselves out metaphorically for all of us to understand\\xa0and experience with her.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
This assertion that she makes about absolute reality, of course is a religious or philosophical statement.\\xa0 This idea that we absolutely just cannot know what is real, and if we did know what is\\xa0real\\xa0we would go crazy.\\xa0 She\\u2019s going to say that even little\\xa0bird or crickets (a katydid is a cricket if you haven\\u2019t heard that word yet, it\\u2019s not very common)- Not even the\\xa0simpliest\\xa0organisms can handle a world without illusions.\\xa0\\xa0We need them to protect our own sanity.\\xa0
\\xa0
Yes- and the subtext here suggests because reality is dark; and the reality is you are alone in this world.\\xa0 You can live\\xa0\\u2013 but perhaps you must accept a dream, perhaps an\\xa0illusion that people have your back, people love you and will support you, but\\xa0in\\xa0reality- you are alone.\\xa0\\xa0Perhaps you\\xa0have to\\xa0even create an entire fairyland- something to give you an escape from what you know to be true- the betrayal which is coming.\\xa0\\xa0I\\u2019m speculating, obviously because I\\u2019m fleshing out what is implied with the subtext, at least implied to me-\\xa0 but\\xa0there is a sense that that is the direction she\\u2019s leading us, and it certainly seems to be\\xa0something we find in her personal story.\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
It\\u2019s also kind of a religious statement because it speaks\\xa0to the nature of reality and that is the\\xa0essence\\xa0of\\xa0faith\\xa0and\\xa0walking through life not-alone.\\xa0 Christy, what was her religious background.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
Well, that\\u2019s a very interesting question.\\xa0 She was raised\\xa0by members of the the\\xa0Christian Science church, but\\xa0later on\\xa0she\\xa0developed a real fascination with the occult and was even accused of being a witch.\\xa0 Garry, what makes Christian scientists different from\\xa0main stream\\xa0Christianity?\\xa0
\\xa0
Christian scientists, for those who are not familiar with\\xa0Christianity, adopt\\xa0many\\xa0tenents\\xa0of traditional Christianity but\\xa0they\\xa0break from\\xa0it in a couple of ways that are obvious.\\xa0 For\\xa0one,\\xa0\\xa0they\\xa0do\\xa0not\\xa0accept the\\xa0diety\\xa0of Jesus Christ in the way traditional\\xa0versions of Christianity do.\\xa0\\xa0But the second is\\xa0What most people know\\xa0and that is the tension\\xa0is the between\\xa0The\\xa0teachings of the\\xa0Christian science\\xa0church\\xa0and their\\xa0complicated relationship with the medical community.\\xa0\\xa0They\\xa0\\xa0encourage\\xa0their members to\\xa0pray for divine healings\\xa0often perhaps instead of going to doctors.\\xa0 And this\\xa0has been controversial\\xa0in some cases\\xa0especially for family members outside of the faith.\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
That was\\xa0certainly\\xa0true\\xa0for Jackson.\\xa0 One time she and her brother were horsing\\xa0around\\xa0and her brother broke his arm, instead of going to the doctor\\xa0Geraldine and her mother\\xa0stayed up all night and prayed for his broken arm.\\xa0\\xa0Her grandmother\\xa0was a faith healer in the church\\xa0and Jackson did not approve of this.\\xa0So, she had\\xa0this side of\\xa0her, that would seem more secular- but then\\xa0Jackson had her own sense of the spiritual.\\xa0 She\\xa0carried around tarot cards,\\xa0tried to communicate with spirits later in her life, and flirted with all kinds of spiritual practices,\\xa0like I said before, many accusing her of\\xa0actually practicing\\xa0witchcraft,\\xa0ahtough\\xa0I never found anything that really verified how serious she was about that.\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
\\xa0So\\xa0I\\xa0can see why she might say\\xa0something\\xa0about absolute reality being\\xa0somewhat unknowable or even\\xa0a dark and lonely thing.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
True, and at least in this book\\xa0what we see in the\\xa0the\\xa0relationships that populate\\xa0the\\xa0lives\\xa0\\xa0of\\xa0the characters is that they\\xa0are contrived.\\xa0 In chapter 1 of The Haunting of Hill House, Dr. Montague,\\xa0a title that is somewhat meant to mislead since he\\u2019s really a ghost hunter,\\xa0assembles a very select group of people to live with him for three months in a house that he thinks is probably haunted.\\xa0 There are only four people that will be in this house- Dr. Montague himself, Luke, who is a member of the family who will own the house, Theodora who is selected because she\\xa0may have extra-sensesory\\xa0perspection\\xa0abilities and\\xa0Eleanor\\xa0who as a child appeared to bring down a shower of rocks.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
We will follow what happens to them from the point of view of Eleanor.\\xa0\\xa0This story is written in the\\xa0third person omniscient style, but it\\u2019s way more akin to the free indirect discourse we saw Jane Austen create in Emma.\\xa0\\xa0Laura Miller in the introduction to the book put it this\\xa0way,\\xa0readers "experience the novel from within Eleanor\'s consciousness, and however unreliable we know her to be, we are wedded to her".\\xa0 And\\xa0of course\\xa0the farther into the novel you get, the more you understand how true this statement really is.\\xa0\\xa0Most of the first chapter is really kind of a way to introduce us to Eleanor, and what we find out about her\\xa0first is that she is 32,\\xa0she\\xa0genuinely\\xa0and for good reason\\xa0hated her mother until she died and now genuinely hates her sister.\\xa0\\xa0Let\\u2019s read this part\\u2026\\xa0
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Page 3\\xa0
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She\\u2019s clearly alone and exploited by people who are supposed to be protect her.\\xa0 This is further\\xa0developed through the anecdote about her sister and their car.\\xa0\\xa0Apparently\\xa0they bought a car together but her sister never lets her drive it.\\xa0 So, when Dr. Montague invites her to come to Hill House, she just takes the car and goes.\\xa0 And while she\\u2019s driving\\xa0to Hill House, she imagines all sorts of things.\\xa0\\xa0She imagines things that could never be real, like the road being an intimate friend\\xa0or living in a house with a pair of stone lions and people bowing to her on the street\\xa0because of these lions.\\xa0 It\\u2019s gives you kind of this crazy feeling- like how you would feel if you finally\\xa0had\\xa0escaped.\\xa0
\\xa0
Yes,\\xa0and that crazy feeling is going to intensify as the book progresses.\\xa0 She\\u2019s escaped her\\xa0mother only to land sleeping on a cot in the nursery of a terrible\\xa0sister.\\xa0 She\\u2019s not escaped her sister,\\xa0but to go\\xa0where.\\xa0 At one point on her drive to Hill House she stops to admire a quarter of a mile of Oleanders.\\xa0 Oleanders are beautiful\\xa0flowers\\xa0but they are also poisonous flowers.\\xa0\\xa0She fantasizes about them about a castle with oleanders\\xa0\\u2026then she gets back in her car and drives to a diner where she\\u2019s going to watch a mother\\xa0try to coax her daughter into drinking a\\xa0cup of milk- and let me tell you know- these very same images that she sees on her drive in come back\\xa0towards the end of the book as we, as readers, feel we are losing our grasp of reality.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
But here in chapter 1, when she finally gets to the mansion, the\\xa0care taker, Mr. Dudley flat out tells her, \\u201cYou won\\u2019t like it.\\xa0 You\\u2019ll be sorry I ever opened that gate.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0She looks at him and asks him to get away from her car\\u2026then she proceeds forward.\\xa0 At the end of the chapter, we see her looking at this house and this is what she says, \\u201cThe house was vile.\\xa0 She shivered and thought, the words coming freely into her mind, Hill House is vile, it is diseases, get away from here at once.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
But\\xa0of course\\xa0she doesn\\u2019t.\\xa0
\\xa0
No, she doesn\\u2019t.\\xa0\\xa0That\\u2019s the thing about haunting houses- they are dangerously tantalizing.\\xa0\\xa0She was invited here\\xa0by Mr. Montague and for better or for worse, she wants to be here.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0I don\\u2019t know\\xa0if the\\xa0Haunting\\xa0of Hill House is the best example of this, but Jackson was absolutely fascinated with this-\\xa0Jackson was fascinated with man\\u2019s obsession with what Poe called the \\u201cimp of the perverse.\\u201d\\xa0
\\xa0
Oh\\xa0yes,\\xa0\\xa0the\\xa0urge to do something awful to someone and have pleasure in it.\\xa0\\xa0I\\u2019ve seen this in kids, a kid just trips a stranger in the hall just because he can.\\xa0\\xa0Paul\\xa0Salkovskis, a psychology professor, suggests that it\\u2019s evolutionary\\xa0to have these kinds of intrusive thoughts as part of our way of problem solving for future problems.\\xa0\\xa0But this idea that people\\xa0have impulses to\\xa0do mean\\xa0things\\xa0\\xa0or\\xa0at least things we know we shouldn\\u2019t\\xa0and get joy from them.\\xa0\\xa0Jackson was very interested in this idea.\\xa0 So, are you saying that Dr. Montague is\\xa0deliberately doing something\\xa0mean.\\xa0 Or that Dudley is?\\xa0\\xa0Or Eleanor is?\\xa0
\\xa0
Not really,\\xa0in other stories she really demonstrates this much more poignantly, but the reason it comes to mind, besides the fact that I\\u2019ve been told to look for it in her writings, is that we are setting up relationships where we really can\\u2019t trust each other to be there for each other.\\xa0\\xa0Hill House looks like a place where you are really going to feel alone and exposed and that\\u2019s where the terror comes from, but we will also see that it\\u2019s soft and motherly and the people here at the beginning seem kind of exciting- it\\u2019s seductive.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
And I guess it does and has for many readers.\\xa0\\xa0Let me just\\xa0add\\xa0one thing I didn\\u2019t know until we started studying this book.\\xa0\\xa0Horrornovelreviews.com claims that\\xa0The Haunting of Hill House\\xa0is the 8th\\xa0scariest novel of all time.\\xa0 And\\xa0Paste magazine puts it into the unsorted top 30.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
\\xa0
And\\xa0so\\xa0we open the gates to this terrifying place- Hill House- next episode we will look at the house itself, we\\u2019ll look at the places where biographers think she got her\\xa0inspiration\\xa0for the house, we\\u2019ll meet the other residents, explore the history of the house\\xa0and begin to experience the ghosts- if that\\u2019s what they are-\\xa0as they manifest themselves to us through the eyes of Eleanor.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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