Masters Thesis

Ghostly Substance: The Evolution of Spaces, Minds, and Narrative in the Haunted House Novel

This project looks at three haunted house novels over a wide span of time: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. The investigation will seek to understand how the haunted house novel has evolved over time, by looking at three similar themes between the novels. The chapters examine the physical space of the haunted house, the inclusion of female protagonists as a method of propagating the haunting, and the reliance on ambiguity as a storytelling technique. The findings will show that the houses have drastically changed over time, with the house as a physical space starting as a relatively unimportant aspect of the narrative, and eventually evolving into a more prominent component of the haunting. A constant among the narratives was the presence of a female protagonist, who was in some way shaped by loss, deprivation, and unlucky romance. All three novels also relied heavily on ambiguity, through the use of unreliable characters or narrative technique, as a way of masking the true nature of the haunting. This project seeks to demonstrate how these three themes have functioned in haunted house literature and how these three novels can be put into conversation with each other.

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