The Haunting of Hill House

            In The Haunting of Hill House, a certain theme revolving families and the nature of familial relationships prevails, as each person that gets invited to Hill House comes from a troubled family. Eleanor comes from a family in which makes her feel underappreciated and alienated from everyone else; Eleanor’s sister and her brother-in-law come across as selfish, authoritative towards Eleanor, and are unwilling to cooperate with Eleanor when she asks to borrow the car despite her technically paying for half the car. Theodora’s family is not mentioned or talked about in the story, and the only person that could be considered as a sort of family is her roommate, who she just got in a fight with and is using Hill House as an excuse to let things between them settle. Luke is characterized as being troubled, if not spoiled, towards his own family, as he is described as often stealing things from his family to get money. The relationship between Dr. Montague and his wife also seemed to be strained, as his wife came across as overbearing and bossy. However, when these people came together at Hill House, they began to treat each other like the family they never had in comparison to the families they actually do have, which is something I found interesting. Perhaps this is Jackson’s commentary on the definition of a family, in that she could be saying that a family is not always made up of those who are related to each other by blood, but rather a family is made up of individuals who truly get along and love to be in the company of one another.