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Death can serve to inform life’s meaning.
It is only natural to fear an end to existence, and a typical ghost story plays on fears and anxieties about mortality. Death, after all, includes the possibility of eternal damnation or a compulsion to haunt and perhaps torment the living. In “A Haunted House,” however, Woolf presents an atypical view of death and the ghost story. In her story, mortality informs an understanding of life.
The ghostly couple serves as a vehicle for describing fundamental concerns of life, which, through the experiences of the living, continue long after death. The ghosts may have died hundreds of years ago, yet the qualities of their lives persist in the house where they once lived. Death, as the narrator describes it, provides a mirror in which the living and the dead reflect each other. In the tale of the ghostly couple, the woman died before her partner, and he left her and their house to travel around the world. Without her, his life seems aimless, a living death. He returns and the couple is reunited in death, creating a story that now informs an understanding of life.
In their afterlife, the couple continues their loving existence. They are not the tormented or angry spirits that inhabit typical ghost stories. They are kindly and serene. Their love keeps them together. They pass through the house hand in hand. They finish each other’s sentences. At times, they even speak as one. They retain the memories of their past lives, revisiting scenes of joy. Although they search the house for their buried treasure, they do not show anxiety or fear. When they find it in one place, they move on to find it again in another. In their example, the narrator and readers see that death does not have to be frightening or final. That which is significant, the couple’s love for each other, abides and is meant to be reflected in the living.
Home is where the heart is.
Since the story’s title is “A Haunted House,” it should not be surprising that the house plays a significant role in the story. The story is entirely set in the house and its gardens. The sound of the ghosts opening and closing doors and windows sounds to the narrator like the heartbeat of the house, as if it were a living thing. For centuries, the heart has been associated with strong emotions, especially romantic love, which is a significant theme throughout the story. The pulse of the house beats softly, gladly, proudly, and wildly, each time to a rhythm of the reassuring words, “safe, safe, safe.”
As the rhythmic “safe, safe, safe” reassures both the ghostly couple and the narrator, the house exists as a place of warmth and safety. While the winds and rain rage outside the house, the inside is calm. The light from the lamp “falls straight from the window” and “the candle burns still and still.” Both suggest not only calm but warmth as well.
Readers might suspect that when the narrator hears the house’s heart beating, it is the sound of the narrator’s own heart. That heartbeat may reflect the heart of the house, yet the latter has been beating for centuries before. When the man returns to his partner and their house after years of travel, the pulse of the house beats gladly. The ghosts remain in the house because of the strong emotions they associate with it and each other. They carry memories of joy and love tied to specific places in the house. Their love is their treasure. They find love not only in the rooms of the house but in the hearts of the living couple who have taken their place there.
Not all hauntings are malevolent.
Although the story’s title is “A Haunted House,” the word haunt does not appear within the story. To most readers, a haunted house is one that is visited or inhabited by a ghost or ghosts. Because haunt can also mean “to cause repeated suffering or anxiety,” the ghosts in typical haunted houses often seem to be suffering or anxious. The ghosts in ghost stories are often malevolent, frightening or tormenting the living. But the ghosts haunting Woolf’s story are not.
Instead, they are a loving couple who move through the house lovingly holding hands. They avoid being seen and try not to be heard. They whisper to keep from waking the living couple. They open and close doors and windows and draw curtains, looking for their lost treasure. Readers might feel sympathy for them in their search. At the story’s climax, the ghostly couple stands over the sleeping couple, not threateningly, but endearingly, admiring the love they sense on the sleepers’ lips. The ghosts search the living couple for evidence of their treasure, and they find it in their living hearts. The ghostly couple suggests another meaning of haunted, which is “to be preoccupied with an emotion, memory, or idea.” The ghostly couple haunts the house with benevolence, not malevolence.
