Upon her arrival to the grand home that the narrator and her husband are renting for the summer, the narrator notices a particular strangeness, and her early comments foreshadow her eventual mental breakdown. Although the narrator is unable to determine the exact cause of her unease, her mention of the broken greenhouses, a place designated for growth and nurturing that has fallen into disrepair, as well as her later descriptions of her bedroom, enable the reader to anticipate the cause of the narrator’s suspicions.

At the start of the story, the narrator comments on the beauty and grandeur of the house and gardens but acknowledges that she intuits something odd about the property. This observation combined with the fact that the house was available for rent at all suggests that other potential renters may have sensed something similarly unusual, therefore choosing not to live in the property. This possibility inspires the reader to ask, alongside the narrator, why the property might feel strange and what might have happened inside the beautiful building that could cause such a persistently powerful and strange feeling. As well, the narrator openly dislikes the bedroom John has chosen, which also portends the danger ahead, just as John’s refusal to listen to the narrator predicts his shock at the ultimate consequence of his dismissive attitude.