52 pages • 1 hour read
Mark Z. DanielewskiHouse Of Leaves
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Beast/Monster
The beast, or monster, is a chimericentity sometimes depicted as a literal presence, and other times as a symbolic one. On a physical level, the beast enters Zampanò’s world, as evidenced by the claw marks on the floor. Johnny also reports sensing and at times seeing the beast—a creature that brings with it a terrible stench that induces nausea in Johnny. The men in the hallway experience the beast as well. They hear a growl, and Jed refers to “the heaviness which always seemed to him to be crouching, ready to spring, just a few feet away” (118). Tom refers to the beast as Mr. Monster, and also notes its growl, though never sees it.
Renditions of the beast may also appear Chad and Daisy’s drawings, where they depict “marauding creatures” like a wolf, a tiger, or a dragon (313). These animals also come up in the Appendices. Finally, the beast could refer to the Minotaur, a mythical creature imprisoned in a maze.
Separately, the beast may refer to various characters in House of Leaves. Johnny’s foster father, Raymond, may be the beast, and Johnny describes Raymond as “cornering [him] like some beast in the stairwell” (324). Johnny himself may be the beast, and Raymond often calls him such. In his fantasies/hallucinations, Johnny sometimes descends into a deep, animalistic rage, thus suggesting he is becoming beastlike. When Pelafina possibly tries to strangle Johnny, he hears his father’s growl, thus likening his father to the beast. However, in a different memory of events, Johnny says, “and there was the roar, the one I’ve been remembering, in the end not a roar, but the saddest call of all” (517). The growl turns into his mother’s wail—her cry of sadness at being taken away from him.
The House on Ash Tree Lane
A significant, pervasive object in the text is the house on Ash Tree Lane. It is the object at the center of Will’s film, Zampanò’s manuscript, and Johnny’s footnotes. It also the source for the title of the novel. The house is a deeply unstable place, and Zampanò calls it a “trope for the unlimited and the unknowable” (6). It does not afford the residents any comfort of stability of place, and is constantly shifting. These shifts “destroyed any sense of security or well-being” (28).
The house is a physical object as well as a symbol that appears in instances other than The Navidson Record. It permeates Johnny’s text, and he notes, “Inside me, a long dark hallway already caressed the other music of a single word, and what’s worse, despite the amazements of chemicals, continued to grow” (49). The hallway is growing inside Johnny—that is, something unfamiliar and unknown is taking hold of him. In this way, the house and its elements represent uncertainty and instability, and waywardness.
The Uncanny
In a Freudian sense, the uncanny is that which is familiar yet unfamiliar—it is repetition with a slight difference. Uncanny objects and experiences abound in House of Leaves. The house itself is the ultimate uncanny object. It is supposed to be “homelike” and comforting to the inhabitants, yet it is, “alien, exposed, and unsettling” (28). All the minor and major shifts that occur within it serve to disrupt and unsettle its inhabitants, going so far as to kill some who enter. Furthermore, Harold Bloom, a real-life literary critic and Yale professor, and also one of the critics interviewed in Karen’s film, notes, “You see emptiness here is the purported familiar and your house is endlessly familiar, endlessly repetitive. Hallways, corridors, rooms, over and over again” (359). The repeated emptiness is familiar, yet all the shifts are simultaneously unfamiliar, producing an uncanny effect.
Relationships among characters and objects in the text also represent the uncanny. There is significant mirroring—characters and actions reproduce each other, but always with slight variations. For example, Zampanò’s manuscript is another uncanny object in its relationship to Johnny. The words and activities it describes often remind Johnny of a correlating experience in his own life—here, the text acts as a mirror for Johnny, sparking a recollection, which he then relates to the reader. These double representations of actions produce an uncanny effect. Johnny himself mirrors Zampanò—both are or become reclusive, obsessed with the manuscript. Both enjoy the company of women and are constantly seeking them out. Taken to another level, we, as readers, experience what Johnny is experiencing. The form of the text creates confusion and instability, elements that Johnny experiences in his own world. In this way, our experience mirrors Johnny’s experiences which, in turn, mirrors Zampanò’s experience. All of this repetition with difference hearkens to the uncanny.
