LITERATURE: The Haunting of Hill House – Adverbial Abuse

In a previous post I complained about Jackson’s somewhat inappropriate use of adverbs.  Here’s another…

After coming into her bedroom and finding it streaked with blood, Theodora opens her wardrobe and finds her clothes covered with stains and ruined as well:

Then, pulling away from Eleanor, who tried to hold her from going farther into the room, she ran to the great wardrobe and threw open the door and, cruelly, began to cry.  "My clothes," she said.  "My clothes."  (p. 154)

Just prior to finding the clothing upset, Theodora had, rather cruelly, accused Eleanor of doing the damage.  But cruelly, as Jackson uses it in the above sentence, doesn’t make sense.  She’s angry and upset, enough so to cry, but to do so cruelly?

At the very least however, I haven’t found any more inadequately’s.