Happiness and the Home Theme Analysis

The title of the story, “A Haunted House,” demonstrates the importance of the house to the story’s narrative. The story takes place almost completely within the house’s walls, as a ghostly couple drifts quietly through the house they once lived in hundreds of years ago. As the ghosts recall their fond memories of things that happened at the house and admire the living lovers who now inhabit it, Woolf suggests that the concept of home is central to one’s happiness, and that one will always be pulled toward home.

As the ghosts search for their “treasure,” they swap fond memories of living in the house, highlighting how their joy in life was intimately connected to the home. Approaching the living couple, the ghosts exchange brief recollections of moments in the house: “‘Here we slept,’ she says. And he adds, ‘Kisses without number.’ ‘Waking in the morning—’ ‘Silver between the trees—’ ‘Upstairs—’ ‘In the garden—’ ‘When summer came—’ ‘In winter snowtime—.’” Their memories, and their love for one another, are so intrinsically connected to the house that they do not even need to specify what took place upstairs or in the garden; the place itself brings to mind their love and their joy. At the end of the story, as the ghosts watch the living couple sleep, the dead woman recalls, “Here, sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure—.” She reminisces about the same activities the living couple is depicted doing in the story, all of which take place in and around the titular “haunted house.” Like the dead couple, the things that bring the living couple joy seem to be founded on their life in the house itself.

The story’s description of the world outside the house’s doors also suggests that the home is a place of warmth and safety. While searching for the ghosts in the house, the living narrator describes “the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm.” Even at this point in the story, when the ghosts have not yet been revealed to be harmless and benign, the soothing atmosphere of the house and yard suggests to the reader that this isn’t a classic ghost story—the titular haunted house is a wellspring of peace and comfort, not horror. At one point while the ghostly couple is searching for their “treasure,” Woolf explicitly contrasts the wild weather outside with the comfort and safety of the house: “The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain.” The outside world is cold, wet, chaotic, and at the mercy of nature and the weather. Inside the house, however, “the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still.” The lamp and candle carry associations of light and warmth, making the house a safe haven from the storm. In addition, the detail that the beam of light from the lamp “falls straight” and the candle’s flame “burns stiff and still” suggests that the inside of the house is calm, silent, and peaceful. In contrast to the blustering wind and rain that’s whipping the landscape up into a frenzy, the house is a refuge, warm, safe, and unmoving.

Furthermore, the ghosts’ presence in the house hundreds of years after their respective deaths also suggests that it was an important a part of their lives and emphasizes how strong the pull toward home can be. Throughout the story, the repetition of the word “here” affirms the intensity of the ghosts’ connection to the house. At the beginning, the dead couple exclaims, “Here we left it,” “Oh, but here too!” The appearance of “here” in their dialogue throughout—“Here we slept,” “Here, sleeping”—continues to underline the powerful importance of the house in their minds and lives, both before death and after. The story also reveals that the house had a strong pull on one half of the ghostly couple, the man, while he was alive. The story notes that death “[came] to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the window; the rooms were darkened,” before noting that the man “left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky.” As his travels draw to a close, the man “[seeks] the house, [and] [finds] it dropped beneath the Downs.” While the story doesn’t make it explicit why the man leaves (perhaps because the house reminded him of his late wife) or why he returns, it is clear that the house has a strong pull on him. Furthermore, it seems that the house welcomes him warmly—as soon the man returns, “the pulse of the house beat[s] gladly” once again, repeating the word “Safe, safe, safe.” Even though the house was a source of pain for the man in that it was “darkened,” literally and metaphorically, after his wife’s death, the house’s steady “pulse” in light of his return suggests that it once again becomes a place of love and joy for him. While “A Haunted House” focuses on this one particular house, it also deals with the concept of home more broadly, suggesting that warm feelings like joy, safety, and contentment are intimately tied to the home.