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The Haunting of Hill House

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Submitted By jjones0024
Words 1008
Pages 5
Jared Jones
October 8, 2012
ENGL 121
Response Paper #1

Haunting of Hill House Throughout the entire story you read about many different episodes where it seems that Hill House is a house that is haunted. However, most of these occurrences are never proven that they are actually “haunted” ones. As readers, we just assume that they are and we don’t really think about questioning it while we are in the moment of reading. After reading the sections of the story when these events happen more than once, I began to believe that Hill House was not haunted at all. I think that it is the guests having the idea in their head that it is haunted, so their minds start playing tricks on them and they let their imagination get the best of them. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary give this definition for the word imagination, the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality. I believe that this exact definition is what is going on in Hill House. As people get older I think they forget how powerful their imaginations used to be when they were children. When I think about it, I used to imagine some of the craziest stuff when I was younger. Now that I’m older, I don’t really use my imagination much anymore because I really don’t have a need to use it. I remember when I would watch a scary movie as a child, I would let some of most ridiculous things allow to play tricks on my mind. If there would be a noise my house would make when the wind would blow, I would be used to hearing it any other time. However, after I would watch something that would scare me, I would allow myself to believe that there was something in the house. A perfect example would be after I watched the move “Child’s Play” when I was 8 years old. I went to bed that night not even thinking about the movie at the time, and while I was

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