Eleanor Vance

Eleanor Vance is a fascinating character study. She wins the reader's empathy right away when the author reveals that Eleanor has sacrificed her youth to care for her sick mother. Her mother's prolonged illness and subsequent death has left Eleanor an old maid at thirty-two, with no money, no home and no prospects for employment. Eleanor never ventures an opinion about her mother, but some of the facts she volunteers about her make it clear to the reader and to the other guests at Hill House that Eleanor's mother was a jealous, paranoid, ill-tempered woman. Poor Eleanor has spent eleven years cooped up with this demanding harridan, forced to cater to her every whim out of a daughter's loyal sense of duty.

Eleanor is thus portrayed as a victim. Dr. Montague's offer of employment at Hill House appears to be the adventure Eleanor so desperately seeks. When...