hell house
...servation. As the novel progresses he reluctantly begins to open himself to his surroundings. Ben closes himself off from the house in the beginning. He figures if he shuts off his physic abilities, there is no way that the house can once again break him mentally and physically. Dr. Barrett and the medium Florence trust Ben and look to him for assistance from his past knowledge of Hell House. But Ben truly fears the house and refuses to help the others. “There’s nothing in this house we can handle. Nothing anyone is ever going to handle.” Just as the house had nearly killed Ben thirty years he sees Florence going in the same direction. Harm has seemed to follow Florence and Ben did not want to be any part of it. Ben did not trust anyone or anything in the house. “You’re right, I’m obstructed and shut off. I am going to stay shut off until the week is over. At which time I’ll collect my hundred thousand clams and never come within a thousand miles of this goddamned house again. I suggest you do the same Florence.” Fischer has no desire to discover the secret behind Hell House. He had once tried along with a team of respected scientists and everyone had ended up either dead or completely insane with the exception of himself. He just wants to make it through the week alive. To endure this second “expedition”, Ben decided early on to turn off his talents, survive the week, and take the money and run. Ben slowly begins to trust his comrades as they begin to discover links to the mystery of Hell House. As they figure out more of the house’s secrets, he realizes that he has been useless up until this point. He must open his mind and his talents to the heart of the house if his group is going to solve the house’s mysteries. Without opening up his psychic abilities, this expedition would end like the past one did so many years ago. The house will devour them all once again. He has only one choice left. “The feeling he had was almost unendurable compounded of shame and guilt and fury. He’d never felt so meaningless. To walk around in Hell House like a turtle with its head pulled in, a blind shell seeing nothing, knowing nothing, doing nothing, waiting for the others to accomplish the work he should be accomplishing.” He was a child; a thoughtless overconfident fool and even so, the house had been unable to kill him. Fischer was no longer a boy, but a thinking man, not so confident that he would make himself vulnerable prey. “ I will open up with care, stage by stage, monitoring each step of the way, trusting only myself, not allowing others to control my perception in any way.” Fischer is very confident now and realizes that he should contribute to unraveling the mystery of Hell House by allowing his talents to finally open up. Hell House had killed Dr. Barrett and Florence. They were so close to uncovering the mystery. Dr. Barrett believed that the house was filled with electromagnetic radiation that came from the people that had once lived in Hell House. He believed it could be vanquished through radiation. He constructed a machine, the Reversor, which would literally “vacuum” up the house’s stray energy fields and des...