The Screaming Staircase

In many situations throughout the novel, the ongoing theme of a light source amidst the darkness serves as both a practical source of comfort and a symbol of the children’s resolve to fight against the spirits of the night. It is an image that Stroud returns to time and time again throughout the novel. Examples of comforting sources of light include the ghost-lamps, “regular as a lighthouse beam,” that “pierce the night with [their] harsh white radiance” (142) and light up the darkened, empty streets after curfew. The children also rely on oil lamps and flashlights when they enter haunted houses, as the usual lights must be kept off to allow the spirits to manifest. The flares they use also light up the darkness, and this effect becomes particularly striking in the novel’s climax, when the children are in danger of being consumed by the spirits of the manor until Lockwood throws a flare and “a millisecond later, the world exploded in a soundless burst of light” (327). Accordingly, after the story’s most harrowing events are over and the main conflicts are resolved, the darkness that pervaded previous chapters lifts and is replaced by sunlight and warmth. In a symbolic act representing the children’s unwavering hope and the comfort they find in one another, Lucy climbs the stairs from darkness to the “warm, bright room” (381) in the final scene of the novel.