A Haunted House Virginia Woolf's short story "A Haunted House" was published in 1985 and offers an interesting take on modern ghost history. By using a modernist view of the genre, Woolf subverts the conventions of a ghost story and sometimes makes it difficult to understand what is happening in the passage. Throughout the story, two ghosts roam their old home, searching for lost “treasure” but without going into detail about what that treasure is. The narrator, inhabitant of the house in which the ghosts are found, does not see the spirits, but feels their presence in the house. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay The word “safe” is repeated numerous times throughout the story towards the ghosts, indicating that the treasure the couple is searching for is in fact found within. this house somewhere. The couple are described as they were before her death, stating that the wife died hundreds of years ago and that her husband left their home and traveled, not wanting to deal with his late wife's grief . At the end of the story, we discover that love, and specifically "light in the heart", is the thing the couple has been searching for, and they realize that what they have been searching for all this time was actually right in front of them all the time. This short story by Virginia Woolf does a great job of making the reader wonder whose point of view they are experiencing, the ghosts or the resident of the house. When Woolf writes: “Their light lifts the lids of my eyes. "Sure! sure! sure!" the pulse of the house beats wildly. When I wake up, I cry out, “Oh, is this your buried treasure?” Light in the heart. she says: Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper now from our expert writers. Get a personalized essay. Love was their buried treasure, long kept safe inside the house the ghosts had once inhabited. The love they shared was preserved and passed on to the inhabitants of the house. Virginia Woolf's style allows her to easily mix love and ghost stories in a way that the reader almost doesn't notice the connection. Woolf's use of stream of consciousness acts as a vessel to connect to the reader's innermost emotions and tugs at the heartstrings in a way that makes the reader question what they are reading, and might even get him to think about getting back into the stream of consciousness. the story to take another look at the deep emotion that Woolf conveys in less than two pages of prose.