Essay Questions

Do you think Hundreds Hall is haunted? What other explanations could there be for the strange sounds and movements the family are hearing?

Hundreds Hall does appear to be haunted because there are so many unexplained and tragic events within it that even Dr Faraday does not really believe that they can all be explained away rationally. The house seems possessed and in some parts of the book it is as if the house itself is the force that is doing the haunting. Even Dr Faraday starts to suspect this as he warns people to stay away and not to go there. It is also possible that it is the Ayres' young daughter Susan who passed away who has in some way come back to the home with malevolent intent. Mrs Ayres believes this to be the case and she believes that Susan is trying to accelerate her death in some way so that they will be reunited. Although this does seem like a plausible explanation it would mean that Susan was in some way a malevolent force rather than a child longing to see her mother again. It is, however, more likely an explanation that the theory developed by Catherine, who believes the evil is somehow telepathically generated by her brother who is angry that he has been admitted to a mental institution against his will. The presence would seem to be recognizable to Catherine if what the maid said at the inquest was indeed true; Catherine was heard to say, "You!" shortly before her death and so it can be assumed that the presence she finally recognized was known to her.

Dr Faraday has quite a complicated relationship with the Ayres family. What are some of the contradictions in the way he feels about them?

Dr Faraday appears to like the Ayres family and is genuinely trying to help and protect them; however, he is also jealous of them too, for their upper class, and for the life he believes them to have when he is looking in from the outside. However, once he becomes an insider and understands that their wealth is just show and assumption, he does not envy them as much, but still feels privileged to know them, and also seems to feel like an imposter who does not qualify to be friends with them, based on class strictures and grounds. He is a smart man who became a doctor because of his intelligence and work ethic, not because of his contacts. This again confuses how he feels about the family. Despite technically working for them, he becomes protective of them.

Dr Faraday believes the residents of the house are victims of their imagination not of a malevolent force. Does he really believe this himself, and could he be right?

At first, Dr Faraday really does believe that the residents of the household are imagining what they are hearing, or at least, if not imagining it, interpreting the normal creakiness and noise of an old house as something completely different. He is, after all, a man of science, and so he finds it much easier to explain everything in a scientific manner, even the unexplained. It is possible that they are not encountering the paranormal at all, but are somehow projecting the guilt they feel about what has happened to members of their family. For example, it would be natural for Mrs Ayres to feel horrendous guilt about the death of her daughter because parents who lose children feel guilt when it is not their fault at all. Caroline could feel guilty that she was unable to help her brother more when he was in anguish due to post traumatic stress disorder, and her stress reaction to that situation was to believe that he would be so angry with her that he is telepathically "haunting" the house. She may be attributing his anger to her feelings of guilt. However, even Dr Faraday starts to lose faith in the ability of science to explain everything that is going on at Hundreds Hall, and in the end he seems to be wavering between science and paranormal at the novel's end.