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So hauntings are memes. I can see that--everything is perception, so a perception that won't go away is a haunting. Memes are relics--an idea from the past that takes on a "life" of its own. The forest became a siren calling people to their deaths, because of the meme created by Jukai. The meme became the contagion of suicide. Both Caroline and Rosemary heeded the call of the siren and committed suicide--will Imp?
In the short story, why was the mermaid model so angry? Because of the meme that she had been given and was unable to release? Because she felt herself compared to a dead woman on the beach who had no lower body? Because the painter had denied her the beauty of the mermaid by telling her its true genesis?
Why Mansfield Park? Of all the Austen women, Fanny was the weakest.

KayR wrote:So hauntings are memes. I can see that--everything is perception, so a perception that won't go away is a haunting. Memes are relics--an idea from the past that takes on a "life" of its own. The forest became a siren calling people to their deaths, because of the meme created by Jukai. The meme became the contagion of suicide. Both Caroline and Rosemary heeded the call of the siren and committed suicide--will Imp?

This idea of 'memes' is an interesting element in Kiernan's book. I have encountered the idea before but was not sure of its precise meaning ... so here is a dictionary definition .. 'a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes'. I can see the link between hauntings and memes but also that memes could easily be something that Imp would fixate on. In some respects, her way of looking at her own past is filled with what she perceives to be 'memes' (of course, this is part of her insanity) ...