Twelfth Night, or What You Will

You probably noticed Eleanor saying Journeys end in lovers meeting all the time in the novel. Like all the time. Despite her fondness for the saying, Eleanor is not the first literary character to utter those words. In fact, the passage had been around for over 350 years before Jackson penned the story of Eleanor's frightful vacation.

Who wrote the words that will forever echo throughout the halls of Hill House? Who else? The Bard himself, one William Shakespeare.

Love Dodecahedron

The quotes comes from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, or What You Will. Before we get into the actual reference though, let's back up and have a quick refresher course on the play itself.

Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night in 1601, making the play one of his mid-to-late comedies (source). This means that it was written around the same time as Hamlet, All's Well That Ends Well, and Othello, putting it in league with some AAA-grade material, though to be fair, what would Shakespeare's lowest grade material be? A-? B++?

The story tells the tale of a girl named Viola who is shipwrecked and separated from her brother Sebastian. She washes ashore in Illyria and does what any poor, lost soul would do: she dresses up as like a dude, calls herself Cesario, and finds work in the service of Duke Orsino. We've all been there, right?

But this is a Shakespeare comedy, so matters must be complicated—er, more complicated. Orsino falls in love with Lady Olivia and uses Viola/Cesario as a go-between like he's some twitterpated middle-schooler. Olivia falls for Viola, instead, thinking she's a he. When Sebastian drops in later, not dead and looking every bit like his cross-dressed sibling, he only adds to the madness.

Oh, and did we mention that a couple of drunk nobles trick a walking, talking stick-in-the-mud named Malvolio into thinking that Olivia has the hots for him? Because that happens, too.

Carpe Diem FTW

Let's talk about that quote. The line Journeys end in lovers meeting is spoken by a character named Feste. Actually, he sings the line as entertainment for a couple of drunken noblemen. Why sing? Because Feste is Twelfth Night's clown or fool character, and his role in the play is to be the court jester for Lady Olivia.

But Feste has a depth beyond being a mere jokester. Like many of Shakespeare's clown characters—like King Lear's clown, The Winter's Tale's clown, and the gravediggers in Hamlet—Feste stands on the sidelines of the plot's happenings and is not a very active player. What he does do is see all the characters for who they really are. He comprehends the truths behind the play's many misunderstandings.

Now, a fool like Feste only reveals his knowledge through cryptic, hilarious, and sometimes insulting wordplay. As Isaac Asimov once said, "the great secret of the successful fool [is]—that he is no fool at all" (source).

Since Feste is a court jester, he sings a lot of songs throughout the play, and our quote comes from one of those songs. The song is called "O Mistress Mine," and for the curious, we present it here is in its entirety:

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! your true-love's coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journeys end in lovers' meeting—
Every wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,—
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure. (Act II. Scene iii)

The song is what academics and Latin enthusiasts would call a carpe diem ditty. Basically, this Latin phrase translates as "seize the day."

(For another excellent example of a carpe diem poem, check out Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" right here at Shmoop.)

Notice the line "What is love? 'its not hereafter." In other words, don't wait until death to find love, because you won't find it there. Go get yourself some loving in the here and now. Seize that day.

Wait… What?

Yeah, we know what you're thinking: why does a novel like The Haunting of Hill House reference a play like Twelfth Night so often? Shakespeare's play is a comedy of errors: it's all about festivities, finding love, seizing the day, and the like. Jackson's novel is about fear, terror, death, and love gone horribly wrong. In what nega-world do these two works connect to one another?

Good question. Truth is, we don't have a definitive answer for you. These works are too complicated for definitive answers. But fear not, oh intrepid Shmooper. We aren't going to leave you alone in this strange literary wilderness. We've got a couple of suggestions for you. Just to get you started:

1. The quote is meant to contrast the tone of the two works. Eleanor believes her journey to Hill House will be all about comedic love-finding rather than the horrors do actually follow. Oh, irony, how we love you.
2. You could look at the carpe diem nature of the song and compare it to a character like Eleanor or Theodora. You could even compare it to Hill House itself. Does Eleanor seize the day? Does she try to find love in life, or in death? What about Theodora?
3. You could compare and contrast the character of Feste with a character from Hill House. Does Eleanor quote Feste's song but not grasp Feste's wisdom within it?
4. Does Eleanor ever stop quoting the song? If so, what's significant about that point in the novel? If not, why not?
5. Do other characters begin quoting the song? Who, and why do think that is?

So, allow us to conclude this discussion by asking you a question: why do you think Jackson so often quotes Twelfth Night?