by Aidan Little
Spoilers: The Haunting of Hill House (TV show and book)
Photo by Ján Jakub Naništa on Unsplash
With it being fall season, and just a generally spooky time, I want to take the opportunity that Kudzu has erroneously granted me to rant about Shirley Jackson’s gothic-horror novel, The Haunting of Hill House, and how its 2018 Netflix adaptation created a mold which other television adaptations should follow.
Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel takes the idea of a haunted house and develops tension without dipping into the genre’s conventions. As a genre, gothic horror tends to deal with supernatural matters beyond any hope of understanding. Novels of this genre develop their supernatural events outside the narration’s immediate observation, instead depicting the effects of encountering inhuman elements after the fact. For example, the classic (albeit flawed) novel, The Great God Pan, follows the pursuit of a devil-spawn across the English countryside, but the narrative ends without the reader ever meeting the entity head on.
The Haunting of Hill House is no different in the way it builds Hill House. The House itself has a history of tragedy that is never fully explained, and its haunts are never completely observed by the group of researchers staying there. Yet the House is still able to corrode the mind of its point of view character, Eleanor.
Where Jackson’s novel differs from gothic horror genre conventions is in the way it presents the concept of horror. Jackson’s inspiration for the book is founded upon a report she read from supernatural investigators, wherein she describes them as “misguided, certainly determined people, with different motivations and backgrounds.”
Jackson presents insecurity in Eleanor’s narration. Eleanor is determined to fill her empty life by interacting with her investigative peers. But as the plot progresses and her efforts prove futile, she gradually turns her attention to the House itself. By the novel’s end, Eleanor and the House become one and the same, leaving her as she already was.
The novel’s occurrences of the supernatural are undoubtedly effective, but the terror is in the transformation Eleanor’s perspective undergoes. Hill House constantly imposes upon the character’s minds, but it is the loneliness and desperation to belong that make Eleanor most vulnerable to the House’s torment. Jackson’s central conflict of how fear is built from ignoring one’s own internality is recognizably human, and it is this tragedy that Jackson focuses on, rather than the inability to confront some unknowable other.
Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Hill House presents fear in the way that unresolved familial trauma can lead to the avoidance of family altogether. Flanagan adds multiple new characters to the cast, instead presenting Jackson’s investigative team as an estranged family. With this reinvention, the show creates its own identity and disregards gothic horror conventions altogether by placing the haunts directly on screen. This new translation of Hill House’s haunts personifies the tensions between the family, creating an entirely new storyline from the original foundations of lonesome displacement.
This is most evident in how the show handles Eleanor specifically. Eleanor remains an outsider in the show even from her family, and Flanagan’s Hill House similarly targets Eleanor as a victim of the House. Flanagan’s adaptation of the tradition story is warranted because he is effective in matching Jackson’s original characterization of Eleanor and develops the House’s impact in a different direction.
The Haunting of Hill House is a separate story in its television versus textual format, but the two are allowed to coexist because both tell a complete narrative that engages their audience in their character’s conflicts. Flanagan’s adaptation provides an inventive thrill for those who have read Jackson’s novel, but if you’re in the same position as I was, reading the book still entertains in its demonstration of how two storytellers can work with the same elements to produce unique stories.
In a time where recycling I.P’s in media has become the norm, it is worthwhile to examine the differences and similarities of Hill House as a show and as a novel to consider how other entertainment productions may accomplish the same degree of respect and purpose in their own adaptations.
The Haunting of Hill House is available on Netflix, and I highly recommend the show for horror and drama fans alike. The novel is available wherever books are sold, and The Kudzu Review expects its readers to exemplify conscientious consumerism by attaining the book without resorting to piracy. Luckily, I’ve already made those mistakes and am willing to share the totally legal version with you now.
Please remember: art and knowledge are kept to standards determined by consumers. When the expense is our time and dime, it is logical and responsible to pay only what we feel is earned. Without access to the creative tools necessary to develop our internalities, we run the risk of cheapening our experience of life by devoting ourselves to whatever ghosts are best at marketing their institutions, even if they are unbefitting of our worth.
Thank you for reading my manifesto! Have a splendid November.
Aidan Little is a Junior at Florida State University, majoring in Creative Writing with a minor in Humanities, focusing on Communications and Film Studies. He is an editorial assistant for the fiction section of Kudzu. Aidan grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he earned his Eagle Scout rank in Scout Troop 141 and swam for multiple club and high school swimming teams. Aidan enjoys Calvin and Hobbes, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, as well as short stories by George Saunders (“CivilWarLand”), Kelly Link (“Stone Animals”), and Steinbeck’s Travels Across America with Charlie. After graduation, he wishes to join the Peace Corps and to save up enough money to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail.
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