Grief and Loss

The theme of grief and loss is at the heart of this ghost story. The characters who suffer the most from their losses would be Jennet Humfrye and Arthur. The grief they carry with them can be traced back to the eerie Eel Marsh House, making the house seem even more sinister than it is in reality.

To begin, Arthur senses, based off the letters, that Jennet Humfrye suffered a great loss: “I felt sorry for J, as I read her short, emotional letters over again. Her passionate love for her child and her isolation with it, her anger and the way she at first fought bitterly against and, finally, gave despairingly into the course proposed to her, filled me with sadness and sympathy” (121). Arthur clearly empathizes with the dead woman, showing how grief acts as a bridge between generations. Additionally, Arthur can tell...