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  • Essay / Trapped in a Cage: Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

    The human mind is a very fragile thing. It's easy to be manipulated or hurt by events in someone's past. When the mind is hurt, it looks for something to attach itself to. For example, he may find comfort in an object that has sentimental value or seek empathy from others such as love and acceptance. In the case of Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrators of both stories appear to have mental problems when visiting their "vacation homes" respectively. They both develop an unhealthy attachment to their home and thus become unstable. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayIn Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, our narrator Eleanor is introduced as a lonely person who hates her family. “The only person in the world she truly hated, now that her mother was dead, was her sister. She didn't like her brother-in-law and her five-year-old niece, and she had no friends. The reason she was like this is because she spent eleven years nursing and caring for her sick mother. Eleanor's loneliness is the reason why her adult life has been so unhappy and regrettable. “While never intending to become reserved and shy, she had spent so long alone, with no one to love, that it was difficult for her to speak, even casually, to another person without embarrassment and without an embarrassing inability to find words. ". Because of this, when she received an invitation from Dr. Montague to help her with her research at Hill House, she saw it as an opportunity to get away from her problems at home. Maybe she could meet people who would make her feel wanted since she's never done anything like that before in her life. When Eleanor arrived at Hill House, she immediately became friends with Theo and felt like she belonged to something for once. Eleanor was not attached to Hill House when she first arrived. She became very nervous when she got to the gates and almost didn't enter Hill House. “I should have turned around at the door,” Eleanor thought. The house had gripped her with an atavistic twist in the pit of her stomach, and she looked along the roofs, trying in vain to locate the wickedness that resided there; her hands grew nervously cold, so much so that she fumbled, trying to get out a cigarette, and above all she was afraid, listening to the sick voice inside her that whispered: "Go away from here, go- go away.” At first, faced with the presence of the house, she overcame her fear and entered anyway. Hill House is said to be "haunted" and is personified in many different ways. “Hill House has a reputation for insistent hospitality; apparently he doesn't like to let his guests escape. This is important because throughout the story Eleanor continues to experience paranormal things and it really changes her whole personality. During her time at Hill House, Eleanor begins to become paranoid towards everyone around her as she feels like everyone wants to take her place at Hill House. She develops an unhealthy attachment to the house that seems to captivate her into believing that she has been chosen for something for once. Ultimately, when she was kicked out of the research group, she was forced to leave Hill House, something she desperately did not want to do. Since she was taken away from the only thing that brought her happiness in her life, she ended up committing suicide by driving a car into a tree filled with regret..