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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Haunted House, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love
Happiness and the Home
Death
Summary
Analysis
"Whatever hour you woke" there are doors closing in the house. Holding hands, "a ghostly couple" works their way through each room in the house, rifling through its contents, "making sure."
Woolf introduces the confusion of the speaker's identity in the very first line—who is the "you" waking up? The reader, the narrator, a generic "you"? Also, Woolf brings in the theme of love immediately with the "ghostly couple" holding hands, indicating to the reader that whether or not the ghosts are benevolent, they care in some way for each other.
Themes
The ghostly couple debates where they have “left it,” suggesting possibilities. The woman thinks "It's upstairs," but the man whispers "And in the garden." They remind one another, "Quietly, or we shall wake them." The narrator comments, however, that "it wasn't that you woke us."
Woolf demonstrates the ghostly couple's closeness and affection for one another by having them speak in unison and even complete one another's sentences. The importance of the house also becomes apparent for the first time: whatever the ghostly couple is looking for, it is somewhere in the house. The ghosts’ intimate familiarity with different parts of the house—and the implication that they’ve been here before, since they “left” something here in the past—suggests that this house once belonged to them but now has new, living residents.
Themes
The narrator suggests that “one might say” that the ghosts are “looking for it” behind the curtains, and thus one would continue reading, letting the ghosts carry on with their search. But when one becomes certain that “Now they’ve found it,” one would abandon one’s book and go “see for oneself.” However, one would find the house empty and doors thrust open, "only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine."
In this passage, the narrator describes a hypothetical situation, explaining what "one might" do and leading the reader to consider if these are perhaps the narrator's own actions. This passage also begins to suggest that the ghosts are not malevolent: the scene is quiet and peaceful, the ghosts keep to themselves, and the narrator suggests that “one” has no reason to interfere with the ghost’s search and can read peacefully while the ghosts rifle through the house. The narrator’s search for the ghosts parallels the ghosts' search for whatever they lost, both of which will eventually be resolved in one simultaneous moment.
Themes
The narrator muses, "What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?" Emptyhanded, the narrator goes to look upstairs to find “it” but just finds apples in the loft. Thwarted, the narrator goes back downstairs and returns to the garden, which is “still as ever.” Since the narrator left, “the book had slipped into the grass.”
The narrator is seemingly able to hear the ghosts, but not to see them, indicating the odd limbo in which the ghosts exist—not completely dead but not alive, just as they are able to be perceived with some senses and not others. That the garden is "still as ever" begins to suggest that the house is much like how the ghostly couple left it. Later, the ghosts will reminisce about reading in the garden, an activity that the narrator seems to do too, given the detail about the book in the grass. Like the ghosts, the house has been preserved in a semblance of its original form.
Themes
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Meanwhile, the ghostly couple has "found it in the drawing room," but the narrator is unable to see them—"if they moved in the drawing room, the apple turned its yellow side." The narrator envisions opening the door and seeing "spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling—what? My hands were empty."
The ghosts are barely perceptible—the only physical evidence of them is an apple turning or toppling over, which reaffirms that the ghosts’ so-called “haunting” (given the story’s title) is quiet and gentle rather than invasive and malevolent. It’s difficult to say definitively what the narrator imagines is "spread about the floor" and hanging from the ceiling—it seems like the narrator senses that whatever the ghosts are looking for is embedded in the house itself.
Themes
The narrator hears the sounds of birds and watches flitting of the bird’s shadows. Meanwhile, “the pulse of the house beat[s] softly,” "Safe, safe, safe." Someone—or something—says, “The treasure buried; the room…” With this, the house’s pulse suddenly stops, and the narrator asks, "Was that the buried treasure?" However, "a moment later the light had faded"—the ghosts have still not found what they are looking for and continue the search in the garden.
The first appearance of the house's refrain, "Safe, safe, safe," affirms that the ghosts are not a danger, and that the house is a place of safety and comfort. In a similar vein, that the house has a steady, gentle pulse links the house with a heart, and, by extension, love. The detail that the treasure was "buried" suggests that it was perhaps "buried" with the couple when they died and thus was something they could only access in life—which would explain the fruitlessness of their search now. Later, the story depicts the ghosts holding a lamp, so the mention that “the light had faded” suggests that the ghosts, lamp in hand, are moving down the hall to a different side of the house.
Themes
In the garden, the narrator sees the trees "[spinning] darkness for a wandering beam of sun," and reflects that "the beam I sought always burnt behind the glass. Death was the glass." The narrator recalls the story of the ghostly couple, who lived "hundreds of years ago." The woman died first, "leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened." After her death, her husband left the house, too. The man "went North, [and] went East," but he did not continue traveling for long. Instead, he "sought the house, found it dropped beneath the Downs." The "pulse of the house" beats "Safe, safe, safe," again, and adds, "The treasure yours."
Throughout the story, light represents human connection and love. Here, light seems to refer to narrator's desire to communicate and form a bond with the ghosts, the "beam" that the narrator seeks, which is prevented by the "glass" of death that separates them. Moreover, the narrator adds that when the husband left the house many centuries ago after his wife’s death, "the rooms were darkened"—the loss of love also meant the loss of light. The theme of home is also relevant in this passage, since although the man leaves the house after his wife's death, he is ultimately drawn back to it and to her memory—home, and the love and happiness it fosters, is too powerful a force to resist.
Themes
Outside, the wind howls, trees thrash around, and “Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain." In the house, though, a beam of light from a lamp "falls straight from the window," and the flame from “The candle burns stiff and still." The ghostly couple continues to drift through the house and open windows. The narrator notes that the ghosts talk softly so they don’t “wake us” while searching for “their joy.”
This passage forms a sharp contrast between the comfort, safety, and loving warmth of the home, bathed in lamplight and candlelight, and the dark outside world, where the weather is wild and dangerous. This passage also gives the reader a better understanding of what the ghosts’ treasure is: it has something to do with “their joy.” That their “joy” is hidden somewhere in the house also speaks to the story’s insistence that the home is central to one’s happiness.
Themes
The ghostly woman of the couple recalls, "Here we slept," and her husband adds, "Kisses without number." They list their fond memories of life in the house to one another: "Waking in the morning—" "Silver between the trees—" "Upstairs—" "In the garden—" As they move through the house, they open and shut doors, which sounds "like the pulse of a heart."
Reminiscing about their love and life, the ghosts point out parts of the house and yard where they were happy together rather than specific memories. Once again, this suggests that love and happiness are intimately tied to the home. The description of the doors as sounding "like the pulse of a heart" also depict the house as a symbol of love and as the repository for the dead couple's love. It seems that the ghosts’ love is what is still beating through the house.
Themes
The ghostly couple comes “Nearer” and stops in a doorway. Outside, the wind continues to roar, and rain drip down the windows. The narrator notes that "we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak." The ghostly man tries to block some of the light from the lantern with his hands and whispers, "Look. Sound asleep. Love upon their lips."
The story once again forms a contrast between the dark and stormy environment outside the house’s walls and the warm and loving atmosphere inside the home, lit by the ghost’s lantern. Here, light again symbolizes connection; although the living couple is still not able to perceive the ghosts, the dead couple seems to be face-to-face with them for the first time. The ghosts are also drawn to the love that the narrator and the narrator’s partner share—suggesting, perhaps, that the love the ghosts shared in life is living “upon [the] lips” of the couple who now inhabits the house.
Themes
"Holding their silver lamp above us," the dead couple gazes down at the narrator and the narrator’s partner as they sleep, lingering for a long time. Meanwhile, "The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly" and "wild beams of moonlight" move through the room. The moon shines on the faces of the dead couple, who are "pondering," "search[ing] the sleepers and seek[ing] their hidden joy."
Once again, light symbolizes love and connection, here in the form of the "silver lamp," the "stooping flame," and the "beams of moonlight" that light the scene. As the dead couple begin to recognize their "hidden joy" in the sleeping couple, the house is filled with light and life.
Themes
The house’s heart “beats proudly,” "Safe, safe, safe." With a sigh, the husband of the dead couple reflects, "Long years—Again you found me." His wife softly recounts fond memories from living in the house, saying, "Here, […] sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure—."
The house's "proud" refrain, "safe, safe, safe," reappears, suggesting that the house has preserved the ghostly couple’s love and joy for centuries, and that it still beats on through the house and through the living couple that now inhabits it. Once again, the dead couple reminisce about their life together in the context of the house, recalling their favorite activities in it, "sleeping, in the garden reading." These mimic the activities the narrator does throughout the story, demonstrating the continuity between the dead and living couples; although the living couple has taken the dead couple's place in the house, the dead couple's love and happy life are embodied in the living.
Themes
At that moment, the light of the ghostly man’s lamp "lifts the lids" of the narrator's eyes. Suddenly, the house’s pulse begins to "beat[] wildly," "Safe! safe! safe!" The narrator, waking up, cries out to the couple, "Is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart."
The use of light as a symbol culminates with the narrator finally being able to interact directly with the ghosts, awoken by their lamplight. In this moment, the light represents the brief but profound connection between the dead couple and the narrator, in which the couple realize that their "treasure" is embodied in the narrator and the narrator’s spouse. At the same time, the narrator realizes what the couple's "treasure" is: the "light in the heart," the love and joy that the ghosts experienced in life.
Themes
