The Haunting of Hill House

When I began looking at the line “journeys end in lovers meeting,” I initially thought that the lovers were Luke and Eleanor, because on page 63 Theodora mentions that Luke has fallen in love with Eleanor. Another reason why I thought that they were the lovers was because Eleanor says the phrase when she first sees Luke on page 40. Also on page 66, Eleanor says the phrase again when she questions why she and Luke are in Hill House. Towards the end of the book, I began to think that Theodora and Luke were the lovers and that “the journey” was all of them being in Hill House. I’m not sure who the lovers are, because I think the lovers change according to when the phrase is said. For example on page 156, when Luke says to Theodora “journeys end in lovers meeting,” after she tells him that Eleanor wants to live with her, he could be implying that the journey that is going to end is them being in Hill House together, as someone mentioned in class. I think that the phrase forms a connection between Eleanor and Luke, because they are the only two characters who say the phrase. It might have something to do with the connection they both have with the house; Eleanor is connected to the house through what she experiences and in the end kills herself, while Luke is connected to the house because he will one day own it. I think that the journey was Eleanor’s life and it ended when she became too attached to the house, to the point of not wanting to leave. Perhaps the lovers could have been Eleanor and the house, because she felt a sense of belonging at Hill House and did not want to part from it, therefore causing her journey to end.