52 pages • 1 hour read
Mark Z. DanielewskiHouse Of Leaves
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
Discuss the ways in which your experience reading the novel mirrors characters’ experiences in the text. Choose one or two characters to focus on.
House of Leaves contains extensive use of recursion and consecution, in which objects used previously in the text are repeated with some type of variance. Choose two to three images, characters, and/or ideas and discuss their repetition and difference, and the resulting effects.
Who or what is the beast or monster? Use textual evidence to build a case for your answer.
How does House of Leaves treat the concept of femaleness? Examine two or three female characters in your analysis.
House of Leaves contains significant textual variance on a typographical level. Discuss how this variance affects your reading of the novel, and what this technique’s aims seem to be.
How does your understanding of Johnny Truant change over the course of the novel?
Analyze the role of doubling or mirroring in House of Leaves.
Discuss the concept of reality or truth in House of Leaves.
What is the effect of using real people (like Jacques Derrida and Camille Paglia) to substantiate the text itself? How does it affect your reading of the novel?
House of Leaves touches on several concepts in critical theory, including paradox, the uncanny, Eros and Thanatos, and many postmodernist concepts. Do some research on one of these concepts and discuss its implementation in the novel.
