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In “A Haunted House,” Virginia Woolf subverts the genre of the ghost story to explore themes of life and death, love and loss, and the significance of memory. In the Gothic ghost stories of the Romantic and Victorian eras that preceded Woolf’s writing, settings often included old, decaying castles or mansions. The ghosts of those stories were meant to terrify, often metaphorically pointing fingers at the underlying corruptions of society and human beings. Woolf’s ghost story, in contrast, takes place in an old house in a pastoral setting, and the house itself is benign and protective rather than deteriorating or menacing. Rather than terrifying, Woolf’s ghosts are harmless and loving as they seek memories of a personal treasure, one reflected in the relationship of the house’s two living residents.
As the story opens, the narrator describes awakening at all hours to the sounds of the ghostly couple searching the house for their lost treasure. Woolf immediately begins subverting the expectations one might have for a ghost story. The ghosts appear at all hours, not just in the dark of night, and they are neither disturbing nor horrifying. The ghostly couple is instead calm and kindly. As they search for some unknown thing, they move items, open and close doors, and whisper together, trying not to disturb the living couple’s sleep.
As the ghosts search the house, Woolf’s narrator searches too. The narrator follows the ghosts’ activities mentally, and the narrator’s own actions reflect the movements and motivations of the ghosts. As the ghostly couple searches the house for their unknown treasure, the narrator searches the house for signs of the ghosts, longing to identify that treasure as well. At times, this conflation might lead to confusion about what is real, defying a reader’s desire for certainty. The living, as the narrator suggests, find only subtle evidence of the ghosts, such as open doors and drawn curtains. The ghosts’ presence is elusive—if they are there at all. The truth of what the narrator knows, at times, is equally elusive. Just as the ghosts discover their treasure, only to begin their search again, the narrator enters a room and then forgets why they are there or what’s being looked for.
While considering the behavior of the ghosts, the narrator draws connections between life and death. For a time, death separated the two lovers. The man traveled the world, almost as if he were already a ghost, searching for that elusive something. At his death, the two were reunited in the search, trying to rediscover their treasure. While drawing personal conclusions about the haunting, the narrator compares death to a glass that stands between the living and the dead. Glass can be a transparent solid pane, allowing the living and dead to see each other. It can also be translucent, allowing light to pass through it without revealing details of objects on the other side. Memories of the dead, the narrator suggests, are sometimes achingly clear, while at other times hazy and distant. In Woolf’s time, however, glass also referred to a looking glass, or mirror. The narrator’s comparison therefore gains additional meaning, suggesting that life and death provide reflections of each other. This reflection reveals the narrator’s own quest to find a treasure identical to what the ghosts seek.
In the story’s quickly-paced rising action, the ghosts reveal that the lost treasure is the joy they possessed as a living couple. They visit places and times where their memories of love are strongest—their bed, up the stairs, in the garden, in summer and in winter. Their memories drive their search.
At the story’s climax, the ghostly couple stoops over the living couple as they sleep. It becomes clear that the joy the ghosts seek is not present only in the places they visit. When awoken, the narrator has a sudden realization. The lost treasure the ghosts seek lives within the hearts of the narrator and the narrator’s partner. The living couple has inherited the dead couple’s greatest treasure, a reflection of the same love and joy that the ghosts once experienced.
This epiphany is both melancholy and joyful. The reader may feel some sympathy for the ghostly couple, forever searching for, finding, and losing their treasure again. Yet, readers might also feel comfort seeing that the ghosts’ love has not died with them but lives on. Perhaps, when the narrator and their partner die, the love will pass to the next couple who inherit the house. By upending the traditional elements of the ghost story, Woolf expresses a positive relationship between the living and the dead, reflections of the shared experiences of human love across time.
