Female companionships in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle

In her gothic fictions The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), Shirley Jackson explores the ambiguous relationship between female characters within gothic settings through creating mysterious atmosphere and spectrality. This research aims to investigate different outcomes of female relationships presented in Jackson’s last two novels. The failed bond between Eleanor and Theodora in The Haunting of Hill House, which is formed to protect themselves from a threatening space as Hill House where a long history of women control and domination take place, is explored in contrary to the bond between the Blackwood sisters Merricat and Constance, whose construction of female space within a patriarchal setting like the Blackwood house leads to a successful withstanding against patriarchal oppressions and a lasting female bond.This study uses a psychoanalytic perspective to understand how the primary attachment between mother and daughter affects the internal conflicts of these female characters, especially Eleanor Vance and Mary Katherine Blackwood, which results in their longing for lasting female companionships. In the context of American society in the 1950s that tried to confine women in the role of mother and wife, both female relationships represent women’s struggles and resistance against patriarchal power that aims to control women in obedience. Although the relationship between Eleanor and Theodora fails to carry through, the sisterly bond between Merricat and Constance has a more positive outcome which shows the importance of women’s relationship against patriarchal oppressions.