Analysis Of The Haunting Of Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House written by Shirley Jackson, and Tony Burgess’ People Live Still in Cashtown Corners, are horror novels. Both evoke fear in readers in dissimilar ways. The Haunting of Hill House takes readers on an ominous journey that creates feelings of uneasiness, while Burgess’ novel has a direct approach to create fear, right from a rampant killer’s point of view. Despite the differing approaches on the classic genre, Jackson and Burgess demonstrate that horror stems from isolation. Isolation negatively affects mental health, which produces petrifying chaos and destruction of oneself and others. Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House is widely recognized as a novel about a haunted house, yet it can be argued that the only haunting that truly occurs is of the protagonist’s mind. The protagonist,

The setting of the gas station in People Live Still in Cashtown Corners mirrors Bob’s seclusion from society. Just as Hill House mirrors Eleanor as it stands “by itself against its hills, holding darkness within” (Jackson 1). Similar to the house, Eleanor is isolated from society, and there is an impending ominous darkness that follows her. Hill House is the sole setting of Jackson’s novel which is consistent with Eleanor’s mind. Eleanor has a single dream of finding a family, and a place where she belongs, whereas Bob’s rampant mind is erratic, equivalent to Burgess’s multiple settings. Bob’s journey starts at his sequestered gas station, and then moves to a grocery store, muddy cornfield, and finally a family house. As Bob sits in the cornfield, the “corn swallows [him] whole” (Burgess 77). The pathetic fallacy of the nature around Bob, emulates his feelings of being trapped. For a person with mental health problems like Bob, who is used to being separated from others, the feeling of being “swallowed” creates panic. This panic adds to the destructive killing spree Bob embarks