Faculty Scholarship

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction

Volume

60

Issue

4

First Page

1

14

Publication Date

2020

Abstract

In her classic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson appropriates Shakespearean romantic comedies and tragedies for the purposes of lesbian gothic. Shakespeare’s plays provide signposts for leading (as well as misleading) protagonist Eleanor Vance through the fraught terrain of restrictive gender expectations, patriarchal persecution, and queer desire in Fifties America. The present article develops a queer reading of Eleanor’s relationship with Theodora. This essay pays particular attention to the ways Jackson uses Shakespeare to structure and complicate the erotic subtext of The Haunting of Hill House.

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