Nell and Luke, the twins of the Haunting of Hill House, are displayed as soft and innocent souls which end up on traumatic paths of emotional destruction.
For Nell, she is haunted by a dream (ghost) all her life and experiences terrifying sleep paralysis. Toward the end of her life, she appears to act out toward her older brother, Steven, and attempts to reach out and yet isn’t heard by anyone but her father until it is too late. The years before her passing, Nell finds happiness in love and marital life as she marries the doctor who she sees about her sleep paralysis, an unusual and quirky first meeting for future spouses. He continues to help and ease her in her sleep paralysis whilst they are together, until one day he dies seemingly at random, and Nell is forced back into a state of chaotic flux.
In Luke’s case, he finds himself homeless and addicted to drugs when his life is left without structure and support. His family pay for him to go to rehab a few times over, but the traumas and questions from his childhood shadow over him, making his recovery difficult. It isn’t until he finds a friend in rehab that Luke makes a turn for the better, but even this friend ends up being a cautionary tale for Luke. When his twin sister passes, he is distraught and shaken, left with a feeling of numb, cold nothingness over him.
As twins, they represent two paths going the same way. Both Nell and Luke struggle with wounded childhoods which force them into harmful states and events in adulthood (Nell’s obviously linked to the bent neck lady, and Luke’s hinted at by his visuals of the hat man and counting to seven). Their older siblings all somewhat ignore or disregard them, leaving Nell and Luke to feel extremely misunderstood and alone.
So what’re their placements?
Continue reading Nell and Luke Crain: A Character Study