As mentioned in a previous blog post, The Haunting of Hill House is one of the inspirations for both my project as well as my research topic. Coincidentally, I came across a Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis written by Kristýna Káňová (2021) that talks about the representation of a haunted house trope in The Haunting of Hill House. The paper also includes Sigmund Freud’s idea of the uncanny, which so happens to be the topic discussed during classes in week 6.
Firstly, the thesis’s objective is to analyze and compare the representation of the haunted house trope in both the original novel as well as the Netflix series adaptation. The first chapter discusses the literary history of the haunted house phenomenon, namely Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher (2006) and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1992) amongst others. It also draws upon Sigmund Freud’s theory of The Uncanny (1919), examining how it is portrayed in the works mentioned. The second chapter analyses the novel’s characterization of the titular house, the characters’ experience with the house, and the uncanny feeling that is evoked in one of the characters, Eleanor Vance. Similarly, the third chapter focuses on the exact same aspects in the Netflix series.
The Uncanny
In Sigmund Freud’s The Uncanny (1919, cited by Káňová, 2021) he pointed out about the haunted house phenomenon as such, “The German word unheimlich is obviously the opposite of “homely” [heimlich], “native” [heimisch] – the opposite of what is familiar” (p. 85). The original German word “unheimlich” can either be translated as uncanny or unhomely. According to him, the uncanny sensation signals the resurfacing of a memory or an experience from one’s early stages of life; “… the ‘uncanny’ is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar” (p. 85). Similarly, these experiences are not something that’s new, but rather those that have been hidden and repressed from the mind; “… uncanny is in reality nothing new or foreign, but something familiar and old—established in the mind that has been estranged only by the process of repression” (p. 93). He also proposed that for something to be classified as uncanny, it should be both familiar and unfamiliar, creating a tension between these two feelings.
The haunted house trope definitely relates with the uncanny. The idea of a house could be perceived as a safe place, and one may remember them as such, but the feeling of the uncanny can challenge this perception. As Anthony Vidler (1992, cited by Káňová, 2021) writes in his book The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Unhomely, “At the heart of the anxiety provoked by such alien presences [of ghosts and spirits] was a fundamental insecurity: that of a newly established class, not at home in its own home” (pp. 3-4). The uncanny could alienate one from their own home, which is often associated with providing comfort and safety, but also happens to be surrounded by uncertainties and secrets.
Hill House is a place that evokes the uncanny feeling. In one instance, it mirrors the paranoia in Eleanor. In the Netflix series, the uncanny sensation is associated with the return of something from the past; time appears to be non-linear.
image from Google Images
Hattenhauer (2003, cited by Káňová, 2021) suggests that “Although the house estranges her, it gives Eleanor an uncanny shock of recognition because it is a figuration of her” (p. 159).
The series also points out that the uncanny feeling arises in the return of the repressed psychic material; the haunting does not only occur in Hill House, but also follows the Crain family members far away from the house in their respective lives. It suggests that the phenomenon of haunting has its roots in the resurfacing of guilt and paranoia, and serves as a reminder of the forgotten, ignored, or otherwise repressed trauma.
Reference List:
Káňová, K. 2021, Representation of the Haunted House Trope in The Haunting of Hill House, pp. 1-35
