The Haunting of Hill House: Eleanor and her Age

One detail that I do not quite understand, in The Haunting of Hill House, is why Eleanor ages herself two years, saying that she is 34 instead of her real age of 32. Typically people past there twenty’s want to say they are younger then they are, not older. However, in context I can see why she might lie and add those extra two years.

            A common opinion of Dr. Montague’s guests is that the House is “motherly” and it is because of this interpretation that the guests of Dr. Montague behave like children. The background of the characters’ lends to this idea as Luke never had a mother and Eleanor, as we all know, missed out on a decent chunk of her youth because of her mother. Hill House gives the Guests’ the opportunity to relive the childhood they feel they never had. A few of the child-like moments of Eleanor, Theodora, and Luke include when Dr. Montague is sitting on the lawn working and the Guests’, or “young people”, explore the summer house, or when he is measuring the cold spot and the girls record the measurements but are also playing tic-tac-toe, or how during any given day, at some point one of Dr. Montague’s guests runs from point A to point B, giggling as they go, this last occurrence is frequent and something I can not really imagine a women of thirty taking part in. The behaviors of the characters make them seem more like children then like the adults they’re supposed to be.

            With this in mind it makes sense why Mrs. Dudley, Arthur, and Mrs. Montague completely disregard the opinions of the original visitors of Hill House. When children tell tales of “fantastic” things or are acting particularly silly, adults take what they’re saying as nonsense and disregard it as an imaginary scenario or a child’s explanation for something that they don’t completely understand. It is their child-like behavior that lowers the integrity of the Guests’ stories in the eyes of the adults of Hill House.

            However, Eleanor, who is not just acting child-like but rather is child-like, feels the most receptive to the true emotions and happenings of Hill House, which makes sense because typically children don’t try to hide their discomfort like adults do, but rather express their discomfort or fear or whatever they’re feeling as soon as the emotion comes to them. They also express fear that stems from seeing that those in the room whom they usually rely on for support and stability, the adults, are afraid even when they choose not to acknowledge it. Eleanor is the only one who ever says exactly what she is afraid of and what she is feeling. Unfortunately as soon as she expresses such insecurities Dr. Montague, Theodora, or Luke downplay her concerns with humor, trying to lessen the bad of their situation in an attempt to get Eleanor to think that nothing is wrong. So, to be taken more seriously, Eleanor ages herself two years.

            Everyone can relate to childhood experiences when something that made you upset was not taken seriously by a grown-up authority figure, and everyone can recall the distress felt when such concerns are not taken seriously. As a little kid, it can seem that if one were older, adults would listen. Such is my reasoning for why Eleanor claimed to be two years older then she actually is.