A Haunted House

What made Woolf’s fiction distinctive was its attempt to go beyond what she
regarded as the tyranny of plot, to get close to life as it is actually experienced. To do so,
to approach life as it is actually experienced she uses the “stream-of-consciousness”
technique in her novels.
Virginia Woolf doesn’t create characters; she’d rather cut their wings just like D.
H. Lawrence. She tries, as far as possible, to catch each moment as it passed rather than
trust her characters into the contrivances of a plot.
The short story, A Haunted House first appeared in 1921, in the volume entitled
Monday or Tuesday, a collection of eight short stories and then was republished in 1944
in the volume A Haunted House and Other Short Stories.
This story is one with meaning, by portraying to us the treasure of life. When the
two ghosts are searching through their old house looking for their treasure, the treasure
or meaning is revealed to us. The joy and love between two people is the treasure, the
treasure of life. By using irony and stream of consciousness Virginia Woolf is able to
reveal the meaning of the story.
Virginia Woolf uses a style called the "Stream of Consciousness", revealing
the lives of her characters by revealing their thoughts and associations. We
learn about the ghosts past by seeing what their thoughts were and associate them with
their past. For example when they were discussing death she put " "Here we
slept," she said. And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking in the morning_"
"Silver between the trees." "Upstairs-" "In the garden-" "When summer came-" "In
the winter snowtime-", thus making us take part in a little sequence of their life. This
quote shows us what places and actions the ghosts associate with there joy and love.
Using stream of consciousness gives us a better feeling of what the characters are going
through, hence a better understanding of the meaning.

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 We also see the use of irony, using a word or phrase to mean the exact
opposite of its literal or normal meaning. The irony is that the story is
entitled "A Haunted House" which made us think that the house was an evil place.
But instead, the house ends up being where everything good happens.The ghosts did not
haunt the people, instead they make them realize the treasure they have. By
seeing how much the ghosts valued finding their treasure it makes the people
take a harder look at what their treasure is, the love and joy they share. It
is very evident when she says " Now they found it, one would be certain,
stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise
and see for one self". The irony draws use in by
making us think that we are about to read a trivial ghost story, but instead, gives
us a deeper and more meaningful interpretation of one’s life.
By Virginia Woolf's use of, streaming consciousness and irony she is rather
dramatically able to portray her thoughts on the meaning of "A Haunted House".
That the joy and love shared between two people is the treasure of life.
Through this short story Virginia Woolf reveals something that many people seem
to forget, that is, the treasure is not necessarily something material, like money or
fortunes, but can be as well something like love and joy, two feelings which are far more
important than palpable treasures. She may have emphasized that, precisely because of
her health (she often had severe breakdowns and eventually siucide at he age of fifty
nine); she realized that is was the love she received from those dear to her that helped her
and offered shelter and not their material goods. Anyhow, through A Haunted House
Woolf gives us an important lesson about life and what really counts.

Toana Claudia
Master Engleza – anul I