La maison hantée ou le miroir du territoire à conquérir dans « Dolph Heyliger » de Washington Irving

This article focuses on the different symbolical functions of the haunted—or allegedly haunted—house in the initiation story, which is composed of interwoven mirror narratives. The haunted house is first and foremost a narrative construct that gives the author the opportunity to play with gothic clichés; the ghost story can thus be read as a tall tale, the fallaciousness of which is obliquely denounced. Moreover, after meeting the ghost wandering in the haunted house, the eponymous hero is compelled to leave the microcosm of “the Manhattoes” and to explore the wilderness surrounding his “sleepy hollow.” The haunted house is the mirror of the wilderness to be conquered and tamed; it not only stands for the place of origins, but also for the place the hero comes back to and where he redeems himself. Dolph, indeed, symbolically finds the treasure hidden in the depths of its well; he pieces together his family’s genealogy and reconstructs himself both personally and ideologically: the rebel becomes a capitalist. Thus, the haunted house, where the living and the dead usually meet, is also a place of rebirth