User:Bar19

The Lovely House
The Lovely House is a short story published in 1950 and written by Shirly Jackson. By using American Gothic style Jackson was able to make this piece dreary in an ordinary setting. The reader is left wondering th entire story who is really real and who is non- existant.

Author
Shirley Jackson was born in San Francisco, California in December of 1916. She attended the University of Syracuse where she graduated with her BA in English in 1940. After graduating, she married her husband Stanley Edgar Hyman. She died at the age of 49 due to heart failure.

Her work mostly consisted of short stories and novels. Her first short story was published in 1941 called My Life with R.H. Macy. She continued to write many short stories with the most well known as The Lottery which was published in 1948 and another well known short story was The Lovely House published in 1950.

Plot summary
The Lovely House consists of three main parts. In Part 1, the main character Margaret spends her summer vacation at her friend's, Carla Montague's, house. When entering the house she is consumed by its' beauty for there are endless amounts of room in the house and each room is filled with beautiful tapestries. She is later told by Carla that the tapestries have been made by several generations of the female Montagues and her mother continues to carry out the tradition. It takes several days to tour the entire house. Two main things that stick out to Margaret during the traveling through the house are a tile portrait of a beautiful young girl which has a quote underneath it saying "Here was Margaret, who died for love" and secondly the tower which she has only seen and heard about but not yet entered.

In the second part of the short story, the Captain and Paul come to visit the Montagues. During this part of the story it is made known that Paul and Margret are spending lots of time together talking and getting closer. One of their main conversations in the story is about the tower, which Margaret has still not entered but still is intrigued by. All the talk about the tower sends Margaret to venture into it. When reaching the top she finds that an elderly women lives there with her cat, her name is also Margaret. The elderly Margaret and young Margaret start to converse until young Margaret gets stuck in the tower due to a thunderstorm. During this time they talk a lot about Paul and the elderly Margaret seems anxious for him to leave.

In Part three of the short story there is a Grand Ball held for Carla, Carla's Brother and Margaret. Margaret spends most of her time dancing with Paul until the elderly Margaret arrives. Paul then leaves Margaret to talk to the elderly Margaret. At this time Margaret begins to dance with the Captain. The next day it is time for the Captain and Paul to leave. It is at this point in the story that the reader realizes that the Captain is Carla's brother and that Paul is just a mere ghost. The reader is left wondering what the relationship between Paul, Margaret and the elderly Margaret is.

Analysis
In terms of American Gothic writting, The Lovely House by Shirley Jackson define its work by the theme of the house. One of the most prominent themes is within the characters obsession with the beauty and integrate of the house. In the readings it is easy to tell that the characters seem to never want to leave the house. When the story begins the tapestries document the history of the house and by the end of the story the characters seem to become part of the house and its beautiful tapestries.

Jackson also uses various techiniques to unravel her ghostly tale. The reader is lead to beleive that Paul is Carla's brother, but it is later revealed that Paul is just a ghost and Carla's real brother is the Captain. She also uses the tower to symbolize Margaret life in the unescapable house. The innocent love struck child becomes a decripped old women who died from love, this is symbolized mostly by the ruined tower.

In the last part of The Lovely House Jackson incorperates the American Gothic style of writting into the piece through describing the house as unescapable. The characters at this point of the story are now known to be one with the house and the past loves mirror ghost in the house.

Main themes
When Carla's brother, the Captain, comes home the house seems to the reader to be complete once again.

Carla's is always saying to Margaret, "you say odd things", to the reader Margaret is just always with Paul but Paul is really non-existant and Margaret just spends alot of time by herself.

The tower is old and ruined this symbolizes Margaret's death and her never dieing love for Paul.