Saturday, December 8, 2012

What is Woolf's view of death in "A Haunted House"?

Woolf holds a fairly interesting view about death in her
story.  Rather than present it as a force that eliminates life or negates it, she
depicts it as a tool to further appreciate life and the love that happens within it. 
This is where the narrator recognizes her own place in her relationship with the
ghosts.  The reader does not get the impression that the narrator is afraid of ghosts or
she is concerned with her well being by their presence.  Rather, by the end of the work,
she actually understands their purpose in being in the house.  They see the love that
the narrator shares with her husband as something that they shared at one time and
strive to share even beyond death.  The force of death did not stop anything nor did it
cease human emotion.  If anything, it amplified it, as the ghosts recognize that their
death was premature and the love shared between them continues even if their physical
lives do not.  Death is not seen as an obstacle that finishes life and love, but rather
is a realm where human emotions can still be experienced.  Individuals are shown to be
beings that can feel love and the sensuous melding of souls and hearts even through the
previously thought unconquerable force of death.

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