AN ANALYSIS OF THE GHOSTS IN THE SHORT STORY A HAUNTED HOUSE BY VIRGINIA WOOLF AND WISH YOU WERE HERE BY GRAHAM SWIFT
AN ANALYSIS OF THE GHOSTS IN THE SHORT STORY A HAUNTED HOUSE BY VIRGINIA WOOLF AND WISH YOU WERE HERE BY GRAHAM SWIFT

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the short story A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf and the novel Wish You Were Here by Graham Swift from a reader-response perspective which leads readers – by relying on their emotional reactions to the stories and on their background knowledge to understand and interpret them (Mart, 2011) – to consider how the two authors challenge the perception and role of the ghost from previous, traditional, Victorian and Edwardian Age ghost stories. Woolf portrays the presence of ghosts as natural, and associates them with issues about memories and experiencing moments of enlightenment, or of high awareness. They are looking for memories and for a meaning of life, just like living beings. Their presence is psychological, related to the memories which still, figuratively, haunt the living characters. In Swift's novel, the presence of the ghost has to do with the psychoanalytical concepts of grief work, mourning, and melancholia. Not accepting loss is illustrated literally by the presence of Tom – Jack's brother who died in the war in Iraq - as a ghost. The ghost in Swift's story also has a positive function – not a menacing one – like in Woolf's story and, especially, a protecting and comforting one.

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