Skip to content Skip to navigation

The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson)

Mid-20th century American novel that mixes themes of the supernatural and lesbian obsession.

LHMP entry

Literary women who love women often lament being "the only one" or consider themselves outside of nature, but in the 18th century this begins being transformed into a sense of monstrousness. Versions of Ovid's myth of Sappho's late-life conversion to heterosexuality begin to presage this shift in the early modern era. Though a straightforward reading of Ovid's tragic ending would be that heterosexuality was the death of her, it began to be framed as a retroactive punishment for her previous love for women.

Subscribe to The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson)