The Hauntology/Narratology of the Neo-Victorian Ghost Story

Referring to Derrida’s term, “hauntology,” which is a portmanteau of haunting and ontology, and applying his theory, Ayres investigates the iconic haunted house in neo-Victorian literature as a metaphorical conceit that describes the processes of writing and reading in the pursuit of knowledge. Storytelling, for the neo-Victorian, is layered and rarely linear, in contrast to the traditional Victorian novel. Reality and assertions or presumptions about right and wrong, good and evil, acceptable and unacceptable were endemic depictions in the nineteenth century when novels were entrusted to be social purveyors of morality and preceptors of decorum. Neo-Victorian ghost stories, instead, suggest that, at best, writers and their readers might discover clues to reality and truth from a myriad of physical and preternatural means embedded in the text, but knowledge is a spectre that assumes a variety of forms that can be deceptive and allusive. The “haunting” of narratology in neo-Victorian ghost stories set in Victorian times analysed in this chapter are Home Before Dark (2020) by Riley Sager and The Whispering House (2021) by Elizabeth Brooks.