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Breann Bassler
Boaz 5:30-6:45pm
Final Draft
Unit 3 Research Argument
The house creaks and groans as it expands and contracts, creating new rooms and
hallways in the dark distant recesses of its body. The house is an entity that does not exist under
the same spatial laws as the rest of the universe, allowing it to contain impossible rooms and
hallways that break and exist outside of the dimension in which the exterior of the house exists.
Vast chambers with ceilings that arch into the void above as well as massive, winding staircases
that descends into the abyss below. Not only does the house break conventions of space, but the
characters of the novel ignore the conventions of narration and space by breaking the fourth wall.
The use of metafiction in in the novel House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski constitutes a
believable narrative due to the breaking of the fourth wall by multiple characters and the
abundance of seemingly legitimate footnotes creates a substantial background of believable data
for the narrators to base their claim on. The novel’s layout lends itself to the postmodern nature
of the narrative through the use of atypical type setting; such as type that is set backwards, type
that follows the spatial events of the novel, and type that is color coded with the use of certain
key words.
House of Leaves is a novel that is set up as a layered story, with the character of Johnny
Truant being used to introduce the works of the deceased character Zampanò, whose novel deals
with the events in the film, The Navidson Record, by the character Navidson. The film
documents the impossibilities of the new house that his family moved into in order to try to
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reinvigorate his marriage. The house appears normal on the outside and when the family first
moves in it is normal for all intents and purposes. As the family spends more time in the house,
they begin to notice that there is a ¼ inch difference in a section of wall that is not marked on the
blueprints. The spatial impossibilities continue to escalate as the family starts investigating,
eventually resulting in a labyrinth that appears to have no end and a staircase with no discernable
bottom. The film is reported to not exist by Johnny, and he further elaborates that the many
publications and treatises on the novel Zampanò claims to exist are incorrect or completely mad
up. Johnny himself is writing because he claims that reading Zampanò’s work has driven him to
insanity or it has unlocked some animal portion of his brain that can no longer allow him to sleep
without fear. The footnotes are further confused by interjections of editors and other entities not
directly involved in any of the novel’s main story lines. However, Johnny’s assertions that the
film do not exist are thrown into question due to the interjections by the editors that provide
translations and other notes. The appendices, which themselves take up almost a sixth of the
book, introduce further viewpoints. These illustrations and writings come from artists and even
Johnny’s mother. She is a resident in a mental ward, thereby answering the question of where she
disappeared to that is raised in the early chapters of the novel. The presence of insanity in his
mother also brings up the question of Johnny’s own mental breakdown and whether or not it is
the result of genetics or Zampanò’s novel.
The use of three narrators creates depth and layers of meaning in the novel due to the fact
that the three narrators can corroborate or negate the claims of each other, thereby keeping the
reader unsure of exactly what is happening. The introduction of other entities such as the Editors
and Johnny’s mom also encourages the assumption that nothing should be taken as the truth,
rather that the novel should be looked at as a symbol or metaphor rather than a telling of a
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singular story. Zampanò is a blind man writing about a movie he could not have seen, a fact
which is pointed out with wry humor by Johnny. Because he could not have possibly seen the
Navidson Record himself, his entire treatise on the subject could conceivably be the product of a
delusional or very imaginative old man. However, there is no guarantee that he had never had
sight in his life, making his writings more improbable than impossible. Such questions of truth
and fiction in a novel that is itself a fiction allows the reader to forget exactly where reality and
imagination are divided. The blurred line in the different realities of the novel allows the reader
to blur the lines between the novel and their own reality.
Additions of footnotes that reference real authors and sources further blurs the line
between what is truth and what is fiction on a larger scale. The presence of spatial distortions in
experiences like dreams or even through optical illusions in the real world also calls into
question the supposed impossibility of such things as a house that is bigger on the inside. As it is
stated in the novel, “no one ever sees the labyrinth in its entirety. Therefore comprehension of its
intricacies must always be derived from within” (Danielewski, 114). Like the labyrinth, the
reader cannot see the full meaning of the novel by only analyzing the storylines; instead they
must consider the personal histories and possible motivations of those recounting the events.
Though Johnny states that the information in Zampanò’s novel is misleading and often
incorrect, the sheer abundance of the information serves as a platform that allows Zampanò’s
writing to appear as if it is an actual research paper rather than a fiction. The presence of sources
that exist in the reader’s own universe also aids in conferring weight and authority to the
footnotes themselves. Even if the information in the footnotes is not from a legitimate source, the
analyses made by the fictious authors serve to enlighten readers on the motivations and pasts of
the characters and thereby give insight into the events and conflicts of future events.
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Foreshadowing via dropped mentions of characters or apparently unrelated information on
scientific phenomena in the footnotes plays a significant role in furthering the plot once the
reader reaches a quarter of the way through the novel. At this point, much of the text is footnotes,
with the actual manuscript by Zampanò likely able to fit within a hundred pages if they are
omitted.
Because all of the characters’ sanity cannot be definitively confirmed, the reader is
unable to disregard all of the shades of meaning present in the different narratives. It is Johnny’s
declaration that “it does not matter whether Zampanò’s film exists or not” that helps to
illuminate the intent of the collection of writings by causing the reader to look for the intended
meaning of the analysis rather than worrying about the author’s sanity (Hagood, 89). By drawing
focus from the plot to the metaphors of darkness, space, and the unknown the author creates a
thread of metaphors and similarity that runs through the entirety of the different narratives like
some oily black trail left by a slimy crawling thing. The connections between the narratives are
also strengthened rather than appearing disjointed because of the shared motifs in each story line.
Johnny’s fear of the unknown danger that lurks in the dark corners and his obsessive measuring
of the confines of his apartment mirrors Zampanò’s strange desire to seal in every smell inside
his small apartment because of their shared desire to define a space as a way of preserving a
section of the world that is unaffected by change. Johnny and Navidson are both marked by
absent parents, something that causes both to look for trills and adventure while also craving a
place of safety that is exclusively theirs to own.
The fear of the unknown that inhabits the dark places of the world can also be tapped into
by the reader themselves and they may find themselves glancing uneasily out of the corner of
their eyes at a shadowy space in the room, as if daring the darkness to move. The physical panic
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and personal terror felt as they begin to remember their primal fear of the darkness draws the
reader into the narrative, making them part of the story and breaking that wall of safety between
themselves and the nameless thing that resides in the darkest recesses of the house. This shift in
the reader’s perceptions shows that “our conception of reality can always be restructured”, much
akin to the house is constantly shifting and rearranging itself without submitting to the will or
reason of its inhabitants (Hagood, 95). Danielewski’s overarching symbol of the house mimics
the nature of reality in its unwillingness to remain unchanging. The labyrinth beneath the house
serves as a physical metaphor for the self-discovery and psychological struggles that each
character must overcome or succumb to. Navidson must realize that he needs and values his
family in order to escape the darkness, while his wife Karen must face her phobia and brave the
darkness to reclaim the connection she has with Navidson. In contrast, the animals of the house
can run headlong into the darkness of the space and emerge outside because they do not possess
the idea of identity and consciousness that would necessitate a facing of inner struggle
(Hamilton, 7).
The layered narratives serve to bring the themes of the novel closer to the readers, with
Navidson’s story being most removed and Johnny’s narrative existing the most closely to the
reader’s own reality. Navidson’s story is the most outlandish and it violates reality in a manner
that could be easily shaken off if his was the only story being told. With the addition of footnotes
and analytical text provided by Zampanò, the events of The Navidson Record become less
outlandish and closer to a believable narrative because of so much apparent scholarly
documentation. Johnny’s refuting of Zampanò’s veracity is undermined by his own mental
breakdown and the interjections of the editors that apparently corroborate Zampanò’s sources.
Since the reader is meant to identify most closely with Johnny, due to his mostly normal reality,
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results in the reader’s loss of complete security once Johnny begins to experience more physical
symptoms caused by the manuscript. If Johnny is affected by the fictional manuscript, then the
reader begins to consider the ways in which the novel and Johnny’s story can affect their own
perceptions of reality.
Like the ever twisting passages of the labyrinth beneath the house, the formatting of the
novel adds to the reader’s confusion by altering the layout and frequency of the fonts and texts in
accordance with the changes in the storyline and narration shifts. As the different footnotes
become more mixed, and the interjections of different viewpoints become more frequent, the
reader is forced to consider each shift and the larger implications in the reading of the novel as an
active rather than passive experience. The text of the novel shifts fonts when switching between
narrators, courier for Johnny, times new roman for Zampanò and bookplate for the editors.
Though Navidson himself does not actively narrate his story, there is enough dialogue and
description without analysis to clearly illuminate his point of view on the subject matter. The
reader therefore must “determine which footnotes are misleading, which are clues, and which
speak ‘the truth’” (Hemmingson, 276). This sorting of information is something that is not usual
of fiction novels that exist in some other universe than the one the reader inhabits. Typically,
novels present information about a world and readers are meant to take such facts at face value,
with no idea or intent of the author to deceive or mislead the reader on the fundamentals of the
world they are writing about. Danielewski causes the reader to engage in the story line because
he makes the reader constantly question their own perceptions and beliefs about the world and
the narrators within it. In addition to font shifts, the text also changes orientation and spacing;
sometimes running vertically up the side of the page, sometimes with a single word inhabiting
the entirety of a page. These shifts mirror events in the novel, such as the sudden cut outs on
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page 119 once the explorer Holloway manages to kick a hole in one of the walls of the
underground labyrinth.
With the ever increasing font shifts and other changes to formatting, text, and narrators
the novel becomes increasingly more complex and some may argue more arduous to read. The
sudden orientation shifts and even mirrored text that begins to occur after page 119 necessitates
that readers hold multiple narratives and facts in their head for a long stretch of reading. These
text shifts also interrupt the thread telling of the exploration of the house, causing the reader to
focus less on the life and death situation of the characters and more on a deluge of facts and
seemingly meaningless lists. Hagood herself acknowledges that “House of Leaves presents an
interpretive challenge for even the most intrepid reader” (Hagood, 87). However, the chaotic
structure of the narrative and the formatting are in agreement with Danielewski’s symbolism of
the house as “a symbol of the ever-changing nature of narrative” (Hagood, 87). Nevertheless,
many readers take enjoyment from the unusual format and find a challenge in navigating the
many text shifts, and “some readers may find the fabricated references so interesting that they
wish these books and articles existed” (Hemmingson, 281).
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Works Cited
Danielewski, M. (2000). House of Leaves. 114
Hagood, C. (2012). EXPLORING THE ARCHITECTURE OF NARRATIVE IN HOUSE OF
LEAVES. Pennsylvania Literary Journal, 4(1), 87-97.
Hamilton, N. (2008). The A-Mazing House: The Labyrinth as Theme and Form in Mark Z.
Danielewski's House of Leaves. Critique, 50(1), 3-15.
Hemmingson, M. (2011). What's beneath the Floorboards: Three Competing Metavoices in the
Footnotes of Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. Critique, 52(3), 272-287.
doi:10.1080/00111610903380022U