This was a crime scene now, and even the most ordinary objects seemed to pulse with collusion: a plastic doll ruined with ink, candlesticks ornate with wax, one of his wife's blue pumps sticking out from under the couch. These things he saw in flashes as he crossed the floor to the stairs, trying not to make a sound, as if someone else were already here, as if he were the intruder.
-- Narrator (February 23, 1979)

Importance: A common literary technique employed throughout the text is personification. Personification is when the author assigns human, or animate, characteristics to inanimate objects. The objects in the Hale house seem to "pulse with collusion," which is not something that an ordinary object can do. It is perceived by the characters because of their own internal feelings or anxieties. Likewise, this section implies that the house is haunted, and the ghost is treating George as an "intruder." These unseeable...