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The Lovely House

The Lovely House is a short story by Shirley Jackson published in 1950 that involves the conflict of real verses surreal and is full of ambiguity. Jackson forces her readers to use suspension of disbelief and analyze the text in order to understand the full extent of the complex story.

Plot Summary

The Lovely House takes place in a huge and over decorated house that is set among lavish grounds, a park, a river, and a wooded hill and starts off when the narrator Margaret arrives to stay at "the lovely house" owned by her friend, Carla Montague's family. Margaret and Carla explore the various rooms of the house and Margaret quickly learns that every room inside the house serves a different purpose, for example there is the fan room, the painted room, and the room with the tiles. Some rooms are used by the family, like the dining room, and their bedrooms, however most of the rooms are simply there for the family and their visitors to look at and fawn over. Although the number of rooms in the house is never stated, the reader is given the impression that the house has an endless number of rooms and that every room contains one or more tapestries with a picture of the house on it. There are rooms focused on the house during all of the seasons, different times of day, and in all different shapes and sizes. While going through the house Margaret sees the tower door and Carla ignores Margaret's questions about the mysterious tower of the house. Later in the evening Mrs. Montague insists on showing Margaret a few of the rooms in the house herself, and in the room of tiles Margaret sees tiling on the floor that is a picture of a girl with the words "Here is Margaret, who died for love," Mrs. Montague and Carla are very curious to know what Margaret thinks of the Margaret on the floor and Margaret responds by saying "she is pretty."
Carla's long anticipated brother finally shows up in part 2 of the story and when her brother the captain arrives up so does the ever mysterious Paul. Paul and Margaret and Carla and the Captain kind of pair off and whenever Margaret talks to or goes somewhere with Paul, Carla is always cutting in and telling Margaret that she is odd or says strange things or is always trying to go off by herself. One afternoon when Margaret and Paul are looking at the river they discuss the tower and Paul tells Margaret that there is an old lady, an Aunt or a Great Aunt or a Great-Great Aunt, that hides away in the tower because she hates the tapestries. For quite some time Margaret goes daily to the tower door and thinks about opening it but does not until one early morning when she finally yanks the door open and climbs up the stairs to the top room of the tower where Margaret meets the Great Aunt whose name is also Margaret. The Great Aunt is very surprised to see Margaret but welcomes her into the tower anyways and the Great Aunt points to the windows and says "my tapestries" Margaret looks down at the landscape and sees nothing but tree tops and is disappoint because she thought she would be able to see the river from the tower like Paul had said. When the Great Aunt hears Margaret talk about Paul she says he should have come sooner so he would have been gone already and they would have it all behind them. The Great Aunt never clarifies what she means, but continues to tell Margaret that it will be over soon, and then she says "I would help you if I could," and approaches Margaret. Margaret sees the Great Aunt wobble a little so she reaches for her hand to catch her and the two Margaret's are surrounded by the sounds of all of the voices in the world that say "Goodbye, Goodbye," "all is lost," and "I will always remember you," the two Margarets release hands and the younger Margaret leaves the tower.
Finally in part three there is a ball held at the Montague's lovely house and Carla and Margaret dress up and dance with strangers and the Captain and Margaret even dances with Paul. The Great Aunt shows up at the ball to see and reminisce with Paul, and Margaret sees a strong resemblance between the two, she also overhears a strange conversation between the two because they talk about when they were younger however Paul is still young and the Great Aunt is quite old. After the ball is over the family sits down to breakfast and the Captain points out all of the age that is showing up around the house; the carpet is worn in places, there is a tile missing from the face of Margaret who died for love, paint is fading on the portrait of Mr. Montague's Great-Great-Great-Grandfather, etc. Mr. and Mrs. Montague get very defensive and the two and Carla all chime in about what they are going to fix. Then after breakfast Margret and Paul are in the drawing room and angry Paul says "Don't you think I'd know my own house? I care for it constantly, even when they forget; without this house I could not exist; do you think it would begin to crack while I am here?" He then goes on to say that they cannot replace anything in the house only add to it. With that Paul says he will return and abruptly leaves, and when he goes Margaret hears "lost, lost, all is lost." The family then says goodbye to the Captain and the two girls go out and sit on the lawn so Mrs. Montague can put them into her tapestry.

Analysis

"The Lovely House" is a story that uses the concept of Suspension of disbelief. It is evident that only young Margaret can see Paul, there are multiple times in the story when Margaret is talking to Paul and other characters think she is talking to them, or when Margaret wanders off places with Paul Carla is constantly asking where she is off to? If the other characters could see Paul there would be less confusion between the characters.

There is a lot of parallel going on in the story, there is some simpler parallels with colors; how Mrs. Montague's clothing matches the room she is in when Margaret first meets her, and how at the ball young Margaret and Great Aunt Margaret's clothing and hair pieces are opposite colors. Then there is the parallel with the three Margarets; the one in the tile, Young Margaret, and Great Aunt Margaret. Not only do they all have the same name but it is as if they are all the same person. The Montagues bring young Margaret to see the tiled Margaret and when they talk about Young Margaret's reaction it is almost as if the Montagues have been discussing what Young Margaret would say about the tile for a long time. Then there is the Great Aunt Margaret, who can also see Paul, the conversations between Great Aunt Margaret and Paul seem like a conversation between two lovers, they talk about how Paul has not aged and how the Great Aunt has but then they talk about when they were young together. Paul also states at the end of the story that the "lovely house" is his house, so it is possible that he was once Married to the Great Aunt Margaret and they were the first owners of the house, but Paul died young and Margaret aged before she died and now they both "haunt" the house. Also it is possible that the tiled Margaret is a picture of the Great Aunt Margaret when she was young and she died for love because she died of a broken heart because she missed Paul so much. Then the family goes through a lot of trouble to get the young Margaret to the house; "Margaret's very coming there had been a product of such elaborate arrangement," and it is as if the family is using her to elict Paul and Great Aunt Margaret and bring them back together again.