Haunted Houses, Haunted Bodies: Spectral Presence in Arlington Park

Abstract

Derrida suggests that spectres disrupt temporality, pointing to the future as well as to the past, denying the ability of the present to be present to itself. In a similar way, Jean-Jacques Lecercle shows that the present – if there is such a thing – is haunted by the possibilities of the future. It is precisely that structure of haunting which appears in Arlington Park, as the female characters try to find continuity in themselves through time. There is only one spectral apparition (that of Amanda’s grandmother), but the novel as a whole shows women that are haunted by their former selves – their childhood, who they were before marriage –, by the way others perceive them, by who they might have been, by who they might still be. This quest for an identity explains the focus on reflections in mirrors, windows, but also in children and other women. The main characters try to define themselves using marital status and social class, images of femininity and the possibilities offered by consumerism. The novel stages uncanny moments when women feel estranged from themselves, as when Amanda finds herself “strangely tranfigured” in Liz Connelly’s eyes: “a sort of ghost passed through her that was both herself and not herself.” Cusk also plays up the assimilation of body and house. Discontinuity is thus not limited to the psychological realm but affects the very body itself, as the image of the Russian dolls suggests it. The point of this paper is to show that Cusk uses spectral presence in a subtle and contemporary way to provide a non manichaean account of the female experience in a suburban environment.