Quote image editor
“Like all good ghost stories, Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" sets a trap for its protagonist. In the classic version of the form[...], the hero is a gentleman of mildly investigatory bent: a scholar, a collector, or an antiquarian. What lures him into the vicinity of the ghost is often intellectual curiosity and, occasionally, greed; what attracts the ghost's wrath or malevolence is the hero's tendency to meddle, to open the sealed room, to root around for treasure, to pocket a souvenir. The hero ("victim" might be a better word) typically hasn't got much personality beyond his intrusiveness; he's just someone inclined to put himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and to rue the consequences.” — Shirley Jackson
Like all good ghost stories, Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" sets a trap for its protagonist. In the classic version of the form[...], the hero is a gentleman of mildly investigatory bent: a scholar, a collector, or an antiquarian. What lures him into the vicinity of the ghost is often intellectual curiosity and, occasionally, greed; what attracts the ghost's wrath or malevolence is the hero's tendency to meddle, to open the sealed room, to root around for treasure, to pocket a souvenir. The hero ("victim" might be a better word) typically hasn't got much personality beyond his intrusiveness; he's just someone inclined to put himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and to rue the consequences.