. Spinning .

In a previous post I complained about Jackson’s somewhat inappropriate use of adverbs.  Here’s another…

After coming into her bedroom and finding it streaked with blood, Theodora opens her wardrobe and finds her clothes covered with stains and ruined as well:

Then, pulling away from Eleanor, who tried to hold her from going farther into the room, she ran to the great wardrobe and threw open the door and, cruelly, began to cry.  "My clothes," she said.  "My clothes."  (p. 154)

Just prior to finding the clothing upset, Theodora had, rather cruelly, accused Eleanor of doing the damage.  But cruelly, as Jackson uses it in the above sentence, doesn’t make sense.  She’s angry and upset, enough so to cry, but to do so cruelly?

At the very least however, I haven’t found any more inadequately’s. 

After learning to understand Faulker’s Benjy in The Sound and the Fury, Jackson’s Eleanor is a piece of cake. 

Thinking quickly over the evening before, she could remember only that she had–must have–seemed foolishly, childishly contented, almost happy; had the others been amused to see that she was so simple?  I said silly things, she told herself, and of course they noticed.  Today I will be more reserved, less openly grateful to all of them for having me.  (p. ninety-four)

We understand Eleanor from her thoughts.  While in third person, the novel only gets inside the her head, but it goes deeper than the simple "she thought to herself."  What Jackson displays is the character in all her fears and triumphs.  Jackson also uses it as a means to build tension; there has been nothing more than doors closing by themselves in the house to scare us so far, though there are some background stories given us by the doctor as he tells the others about the house.  But Jackson uses Eleanor to channel our fears; she is going to be our spirit guide.  We will become so one with this character, that we have taken on her traits; timidity, anxious to please, afraid and yet joyful at this opportunity of freedom.

Eleanor, thank goodness, is eloquent.

While there’s a lot to learn from Jackson’s writing style, there are a few peccadillos, it seems, and they do bother me.

An overuse of adverbs:  "I know," Elinor said tiredly.  He snickered disagreeably.  Anyway, she thought obscurely, it’s my last chance.  (These are randomly taken from the text.)

Thought obscurely?  If she had made the remark to someone or said it aloud, it could be taken as ambiguous or unclear.  But the statement is made in reference to her own thoughts, and surely, she knows what she means by it.

And the one that bothers me the most because it’s repeated quite a few times, and doesn’t make complete sense:  Well, she thought inadequately, here I am. (p. 36)  "It’s why they call it Hill House," Eleanor said inadequately.  (p. 50)  Journeys end in lovers’ meetings, she thought, and could only say inadequately, "Are you looking for us?’  (p. 56)

A Thesaurus yields these for replacement:  poorly, insufficiently, inefficiently, improperly, incorrectly, ineffectually, scantily, weakly, badly, unsatisfactorily.  How do any of these meanings fit in with her thoughts?  They’re certainly not incorrect or improper, nor are they ineffectual in that there is any answer required that isn’t produced. 

I realize that Jackson’s character of Elinor is one of breaking free from a learned lifetime of submission and timidity, but she is well-spoken and intelligent, if socially immature.  I don’t think that Jackson intended to make her appear inadequate however.  She may have spent her youth trying to please others, and that will certainly be a factor in her personality, but there is also the joyful wickedness she feels with this journey as her bid for freedom.  She is shown to at least be standing up for herself and initiating conversation with strangers.  She’s also shown to laugh easily–much as a child takes random delight in everyday situations–that hasn’t shown itself to be instead, a cover, or nervous giggle.

I’m sure that inadequately is going to ring from the pages for me each time it comes up.

Here’s how Jackson gives us Elinor, one of the main characters on her way driving up to meet the others at Hill House:

On the main road of one village she passed a vast house, pillared and walled, with shutters over the windows and a pair of stone lions guarding the steps, and she thought perhaps she might live there, dusting the lions each morning and patting their heads good night.  Time is beginning this morning in June, she assured herself, but it is a time that is strangely new and of itself; in these few seconds I have lived a lifetime in a house with two lions in front.  Every morning I swept the porch and dusted the lions, and every evening I patted their heads good night, and once a week I washed their faces and manes and paws with warm water and soda and cleaned between their teeth with a swab.  Inside the house the rooms were tall and clear with shining floors and polished windows.  A little dainty old lady took care of me, moving starchily with a silver tea service on a tray and bringing me a glass of elderberry wine each evening for my health’s sake.  (…) People bowed to me on the streets of the town because everyone was very proud of my lions.  When I died… (p. 18)

What Jackson is showing is not the house itself–at least not that we can tell thus far into the story or would suspect–but rather, Elinor.  Elinor in her fantasy world that she must need desperately and sees within her reach now that she has escaped the reality of her life by taking the initiative of making this secret journey.  Behind her she has left a sister who wouldn’t let her use the car she’s had to sneak away to take.  A mother who finally released her from nursing responsibilities by her death after many years.  This is Elinor and where her imagination takes her.  This is the character that Jackson is revealing to us in the most intimate way.