How The WMH Labyrinth has been characterized in print
The labyrinthe architectural features designed by Sarah Winchester are often maligned by the press as irrational and non-sensical. The word choice in the articles establishes a public memory that this labyrinth is an unnatural place. It is unnatural because Sarah Winchester is crazy, spiritually obsessed, or dismissed because of her gender. The main narrative being pushed is that she was compelled by spirits to build. Mary Jo Ignoffo in her book Captive of the Labyrinth looks at how Winchester was skilled at her craft and self-educated. There are seldom news articles that embrace this approach but one down below has a tour guide that acknowledges her brilliance as an inventor and works to debunk the public memory of Sarah Winchester as a haunted woman.
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This article belittles Winchester's architectural work as "obsession," "women's fancy." All of the odd features are not seen as innovative but as nonsensical or proof of insanity caused by spirits. The rhetoric here is echoed by others that tell her story.
This article provides a conter-narrative to the typical Sarah Winchester narrative of spirits and a maze of a house. A tour guide, Bob Kelty, praises Winchester on her abilities as an architect. He recognizes that she was ahead of her time in the innovations she made.
Mary Jo Ignoffo's Captive of the Labyrinth Chpater 6
Victorian Architecture
In Chapter Six Captive of the Labyrinth Ignoffo wrote: "Winchester described her house to her sister-in-law back east as 'rambling.' That was a bit of an understatement. Victorian homes had many more rooms than houses of other styles before or since. Winchester adopted this cluttered style with abandon, room by room, leading on and on to even more rooms. The emerging labyrinth of rooms and hall, and foyers and passages rambled along a path that captivated her creative attention."
It is often forgotten that in Victorian architecture this was the style. Labyrinthe became a trend and then now that it is out of fashion it appears odd and rambling.