Unpacking the Trauma in The Haunting of Bly Manor

*Warning — there are spoilers for the series The Haunting of Bly Manor in this article.*

Much like my article unpacking the trauma in The Haunting of Hill House, this article explores how a horror story is often about so much more than what goes bump in the night. I was a bit skeptical that Mike Flanagan could do it again, but I was wrong. Not only did he produce another breathtaking adaptation of a classic story, but he also built a world around the true terror we all face: our traumatic pasts. 

As an avid lover of the horror genre, I’ve come to realize there are two kinds of horror stories — those that explore what terrifies us on the surface (yet, usually still touches on what’s beneath that fear) and those that use horror as a metaphor for something more insidious. 

For me, The Haunting of Bly Manor falls into the latter camp. It’s less concerned with surface-level terror and focuses more on the horror of our humanity. I love and whole-heartedly agree with this quote from Sergio Pereira in his beautiful run-down on The Haunting of Bly Manor:

No, The Haunting of Bly Manor is a study of humanity. About how our internal demons follow us around, never allowing us to forget the past. It shows how traumatic events become emotional wounds, and they’re left untreated, you’ll be stuck with the poison of regret and fear for the rest of your life. — Sergio Pereira, The Haunting of Bly Manor Is a Metaphor for Emotional Trauma

What I believe Sergio is talking about here is that the characters in Bly Manor, including the ghosts, are not terrifying because they are ghosts, but because they’ve internalized so much of their emotional and physical traumas. For some of them (Peter, Viola) that manifests in terrifying and destructive ways. For others (Hannah) it’s the sheer ignorance of their predicament. 

As a storyteller, I found Flanagan’s use of horror and ghosts to be outstanding in capturing how far-reaching trauma is. I hesitate to call the deceased residents of Bly Manor victims of intergenerational trauma, but really when you see where it all starts (Viola) and how it all ends (Dani), it’s impossible not to see how the dots connect together. Viola’s trauma and subsequently her trauma responses start a chain reaction for all of the generations to come. 

That being said, I think the most terrifying threads that weave through the tapestry of Bly Manor, is that of memories and that of forgetting and being forgotten. And the scariest bit of all?

It affects all the characters — the living and the dead.

Because this is a Flanagan show, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how intertwined and interconnected everything is. The trauma informs memories, the memories inform further trauma, the secrecy and denial of trauma cause memories to be forgotten, and the truth of trauma forces the reliving of memories one would prefer to forget. And as all of this plays out on screen, viewers are reminded of all the spiraling and terrifying ways trauma and memory haunt us in life and death.

So, let’s start with the ghosts at Bly Manor:

The dead at Bly Manor all face a similar predicament and fate: they cease to exist once forgotten. At least in the “spiritual” sense. But they also seem to forget themselves. In fact, it’s safe to say that if Viola hadn’t (in her millionth time of waking and walking) forgotten who she was… if she could have tapped into the memories that had kept her whole in death before being thrown in the lake, she may never have killed a resident of Bly Manor. Alas, she did forget. And in her forgetting, she changed the trajectory of everyone else’s life who stepped foot on the property.

But Viola isn’t the only case for the terror of forgetting — we watch as Peter and Rebecca reckon with their potential future when they discover the nameless, faceless ghosts that reside within the walls of Bly Manor. The fear of being forgotten forces them to consider sacrificing Flora and Miles to keep their “souls” alive. This may not be a surprise for Peter’s character, but for Rebecca who really cared for the children, this is quite the decision to reckon with.

Luckily, Rebecca’s refusal to follow Peter’s lead and take over Flora’s body holds a stark duality. On the one hand, Rebecca knows that the likely outcome of this means joining the nameless, faceless residents. On the other, it means that she also won’t have to live with the memories of erasing the soul of a child she cared for.

And in Hannah’s case (one of my favorite characters), memories are the safety with which she tucks herself into until she’s forced to come face to face with the reality that she’s dead. Memories serve as a sort of “let’s-work-this-out” venture for Hannah and is one of the reasons her realization of her death is so freaking sad. If only she’d had Owen like that in real life…

To me, though, it’s the living that suffers the most when it comes to their trauma and the memories associated with them. 

Henry Wingrave is constantly haunted not by the dead, but by the memories of his life. His attempts to do the very thing Bly Manor reaps from its residents (maybe he should have just stuck around there and waited for Viola to make her move?) are insufficient and all he ends up doing is drinking himself into stupors that bring back the very memories he wishes to forget. 

Then we have poor Dani Clayton who can’t escape the memories of her late fiancé dying right in front of her. What makes this particular set of traumatic memories so hard to watch is that we see her struggle with her sexuality and her sense of identity. It’s clear how much she cares for him and yet, she also can’t bring herself to marry someone she doesn’t love. Those realizations coupled with his sudden death would make anyone want to run away to a different country. Unfortunately, just like Henry, she can’t escape the memories and the constant reminder of her fiancé’s death. No matter how much she wishes to forget about that time in her life, she can’t seem to shake it. 

Then there’s sweet, sweet Owen. He even waxes poetic about memories in an attempt to soothe the wound of losing his mother and viewers are left to understand just how multi-faceted and complex memories and forgetting can be. What’s not said by Owen is more prophetic though. His mother’s death has been both a blessing and a curse for him and though he knew the time would come, no amount of preparing actually, you know, prepared him. I think that’s a common misconception about death in general. We think we can prepare, but we can’t. 

It’s this back and forth duality that makes The Haunting of Bly Manor so effective in its storytelling to me. 

However, it’s not until the last few episodes that we see how the true terror that lies in wait at Bly Manor. 

The forgetting that haunts the living.

In a scene with Owen, Jamie, and Dani at his restaurant, he mentions that Flora and Miles don’t remember their time at Bly Manor. They simply view it as a “place they stayed a few summers.” The only person they stay in touch with and remember is Owen.

What an insane and terrifying tragedy for Dani and Jamie. Dani sacrificed her life, her future, and her happiness when she saved Flora from Viola’s wrath. She didn’t hesitate, either. She gave that little girl her everything… and yet, she remembers nothing of the sacrifice Dani made for her. 

I can only imagine the depths of hell that Dani experienced in realizing that Viola was going to drag her under and the sweet little girl she saved knew nothing of her. 

It’s this exact forgetting that brings me to tears for sweet Jamie who retells the story in painstaking detail, only to have grown-up Flora give some flippant remarks about love (okay, this is my bias showing. It just really annoyed me) and her marriage. The most painful part of all of this retelling is that Jamie is doing so in an effort to keep the memories of Dani alive while being amongst those who were the first to forget her. It’s hard for me to watch Jamie sitting across from Flora, retelling this epic love story in the guise of a horror tale, knowing the entire time that Flora is clueless. Perhaps, Jamie is a better person than I am because I certainly wouldn’t be able to be so coy. 

Regardless of how painful it seems to be for Jamie that everyone except for her (and Owen and Henry) forgot Dani, it’s the constant reminders she gives herself that keeps Dani’s memories alive. Maybe re-telling the horrific yet beautiful love story helped soothe some of Jamie’s wounds for that length of time, but it’s really the small but essential details that allow her to keep Dani close. Jamie’s gazing into pools of water, hoping to see Dani’s reflection, or keeping the door open in case her love returns… these are conscious acts of remembering. Conscious acts of reliving memories, no matter how painful they are to keep Dani alive in her heart. Though I can’t say for certain what the ending scene actually means, I’m taking the liberty as a storyteller myself to imagine that the hand that cups Jamie’s shoulder in the ending shot is Dani’s. I imagine that it’s her spirit’s way of thanking her for remembering, for choosing to relive the trauma, the pain, the bad (and the good) to keep her memory alive. In a way, Dani has done what Viola couldn’t — live in both worlds peacefully. 

I’m aware that a lot of people have taken issue with this retelling of a classic and I understand that people were expecting something different than what they were given, but for me, Flanagan’s genius is ever-present in The Haunting of Bly Manor and why I will continue to watch what he puts out. He does what so many novelists, filmmakers, and storytellers attempt to do but often misses the mark — use literary techniques to intertwine the very real and very scary parts of our humanity.