Setting and “The Specialist’s Hat”, by Kelly Link

 

“The Specialist’s Hat”, by Kelly Link, is quite the gothic short story. Set in this ethereally dark old manor that is called, “Eight Chimneys,” the house is a suffocating world. There are 100 windows, but no light, people who visit the manor, but are moving mannequins, and everything in the house comes off to be damp and old-timey, including the people who live there. Truthfully, the story setting feels like the color, “smokers yellow”, a house that was probably once a beautiful home with vibrancy and life that is Life, but the walls overtime became oversaturated with nicotine. Any existence that was left was replaced by decay, rot, and just a shell of an object, and every encounter made by the main characters is an unhealthy rush of adrenaline. The author captures this perfectly when they describe the chimneys that lead to the attic of the house as they, “seem too alive, somehow, to be contained in this empty, neglected place; they thrust almost angrily through the roof and attic floor” (Link). To think that a house that was built to be so beautiful could be so rotten by the metaphorical smoke of its past owners is disturbing.

Nevertheless, the story follows twin sisters, Clair and Samantha, who are made to stay there throughout the summer with their dad and babysitter because their mom died 282 days ago. These sisters are eerie. They spend the summer playing games, but especially one about romanticizing the dead. Their babysitter, who is implied to be a ghost, enjoys playing this game with the sisters and their drunk of a dad is none-the-wiser to it because he’s too busy being an author and getting cozy with a new woman to cope with the loss of his wife.

The twins are left to navigate the house and motherless reality, so they cope by playing games, and Eight Chimneys is their gameboard. Their most favorite game is “The Dead Game”. This game has three rules which are summarized as the following:

• 1)       You do not have to be afraid of anything when you are Dead,
• 2)       Do not play the dead game in front of grown folk,
• 3)      Numbers are significant.

When they play this game, every dark nook and cranny opens to be a fun new place to explore. For instance, when one of the girls pokes her head up the chimney in her room because she’s Dead and has nothing to fear, she breaks an expectation of reality, which is fireplaces are dangerous. She’s able to justify it because a game is only temporary, and if she follows the rules, she’ll be alright. The story uses the setting to play around with this concept, especially when the “Specialists Hat” is introduced. This haunt of a hat expands their gameboard because now they have an opponent to the game. For instance, the author explains how “Samantha watches as the Specialist’s hat rolls away. It gathers speed, veering across the attic floor, and disappears, thumping down the stairs.” (Link) as if going downstairs to chase the hat is the next objective in the game; and they’ll have to use their house as an accessory to challenge “The Specialist”.

Something so innocent as a chimney poker becomes a hero’s sword to them, and by using their environment they can challenge the fear of living in such a creepy old house without their mother in this innocent and childlike manner. Overall “The Specialist’s Hat” is a good read, it’s dark, there’s a lot of interesting allegories, and is a fun way to explore gothic literature.

 

Works Cited:

Link, Kelly. "The Specialist’s Hat." Word file.