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Shirley Jackson’s Biography and Influence
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Please DO NOW
Read Jackson’s biography on page 362 of Timeless Voices; Timeless Themes and answer the questions below.
 Use the dictionary to define the following terms:
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Askew- ____________________________________________________
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1. What do you think it means that she “wears two hats”?
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2. How can a writer make horror stories funny? Give an example that you are familiar with.
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3.
How do you know her stories were very popular?
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Shirley Jackson was an American author and, although a popular writer in her time, her work has been largely ignored by
literary critics until relatively recently.
Her most famous works are her short story "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to
peaceful, small-town America, and the novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959), an update of the classic ghost story to a
contemporary (modern) setting.
Jackson graduated from Syracuse University in 1940 and married the American literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. They
settled in North Bennington, Vermont in 1945. Life Among the Savages (1953) and Raising Demons (1957) are witty and
humorous books made up of a collection of fictionalized stories about their life with their four children. Their light, comic tone
contrasts sharply with the dark pessimism (negativity) of Jackson's other works, whose general theme is the presence of
evil and chaos just beneath the surface of ordinary, everyday life.
"The Lottery" is a short story first published on June 26, 1948, issue of The New Yorker. With themes of scapegoating
(blaming a person for something he/she didn’t do), man's inherent (natural) evil and the destructive nature of observing
ancient, outdated rituals, the story depicts (tells the story of) an average American community. "The Lottery" is a chilling tale
whose meaning has been much debated, provoked widespread public outrage when it was first published.
The magazine, and Jackson herself, were shocked by the highly negative reader response. Controversy surrounding the
story brought an avalanche of hate mail plus phone calls and hundreds of cancelled subscriptions. South Africa even
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banned the story. Despite that, it has now been accepted as a classic American short story, subject to many critical
interpretations and media adaptations.
In Private Demons, Jackson's biographer, Judy Oppenheimer, wrote, "Nothing in the magazine before or since would
provoke such a huge outpouring of fury, horror, rage, disgust and intense fascination."
Many readers demanded an explanation of the situation described in the story, and a month after the initial publication,
Shirley Jackson responded in the San Francisco Chronicle (July 22, 1948):
Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose, I hoped, by
setting a particularly brutal ancient rite (ceremony) in the present and in my own village to
shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization (made-up production) of the pointless
violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.
Jackson's six finished novels, especially The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962),
further established her reputation as a master of gothic horror and psychological suspense. Her work has influenced such
writers as Stephen King.
Rarely mentioned in essays and discussions of the story is the fact that, during the late 1940s, crowds gathered at town
squares in rural communities across the country to participate in weekly cash-prize lotteries, calculated by city councils to
drum up business for local merchants. Such a lottery was held on the lawn of the courthouse square in Lexington,
Mississippi in the post-war years, and New Yorker subscribers who had witnessed similar small town gatherings perhaps
began reading "The Lottery" with a notion (idea) that the story was a fictionalization of those cash drawings.
Jackson lived in Bennington, Vermont, and her comment reveals she had Bennington in mind when she wrote "The Lottery."
In a 1960 lecture (printed in her 1968 collection, Come Along with Me), Jackson recalled the hate mail she received in 1948:
One of the most terrifying aspects of publishing stories and books is the realization that they are going to
be read, and read by strangers. I had never fully realized this before, although I had of course in my
imagination dwelt (emphasized) lovingly upon the thought of the millions and millions of people who were
going to be uplifted and enriched and delighted by the stories I wrote. It had simply never occurred to me
that these the millions and millions of people might be so far from being uplifted that they would sit down
and write me letters I was downright scared to open; of the three-hundred-odd letters that I received that
summer I can count only thirteen that spoke kindly to me, and they were mostly from friends. Even my
mother scolded me: "Dad and I did not care at all for your story in The New Yorker," she wrote sternly; "it
does seem, dear, that this gloomy kind of story is what all you young people think about these days. Why
don't you write something to cheer people up?"
The New Yorker kept no records of the phone calls, but letters addressed to Jackson were forwarded to her. That summer
she began to regularly take home 10 to 12 forwarded letters each day. In addition, she also received weekly packages from
The New Yorker containing letters and questions addressed to the magazine or editor Harold Ross, plus copies of the
responses the magazine’s editor mailed to letter writers.
Curiously, there are three main themes that dominate the letters of that first summer--three themes that might be
identified as bewilderment, speculation and plain old-fashioned abuse. In the years since then, during which the story has
been anthologized (collected and reprinted) , dramatized (acted out), televised, and even--in one completely mystifying
transformation--made into a ballet, the tenor (mood/tone) of letters I receive has changed. I am addressed more politely,
as a rule, and the letters largely confine themselves to questions like, ‘What does this story mean?’ The general tone of the
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early letters, however, was a kind of wide-eyed, shocked innocence. People at first were not so much concerned with what
the story meant; what they wanted to know was where these lotteries were held, and whether they could go there and
watch.
The Influence of Shirley Jackson
(This blog post was originally taken from the site http://www.tornadohills.com/shirley/influence.htm , but has since been removed.)
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and
katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."
-Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
When I was 14 years old and in ninth grade I was made to read a short story in English class. That short story changed my
life. It was called The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. We were told to read it to ourselves, then we had to fill out a worksheet. I
read it twice. When the rocks rained down on Tessie, I felt understood. After class I went straight to the library and looked
for any and all books by Shirley. I got "We Have Always Lived in The Castle" and "The Haunting of Hill House." I didn’t
simply read those books. I lost myself in them and then found myself in them.
I was 14, I was hated, I was fat, I was ugly, covered in freckles and I was a bitch. I was my own person and I was scared. I
saw people for what they were, not what I was told they were. I saw that most of my teachers were stuck in classrooms
doing jobs they didn’t care about or do well. I also could tell when a teacher was perfectly content and well placed. Those
teachers were the ones you really didn’t notice. You learned without realizing it and they came and left the school invisibly. I
saw my fellow classmates as enemies. They were spoiled little rich kids who always did what they were told, or they
rebelled the "normal" way, by smoking dope or drinking or staying out late. I didn’t have anywhere to go, I didn’t do drugs or
drink. I rebelled the not so normal way, I told teachers what I thought of them and the job they were doing teaching, whether
it was good or bad. I eventually dropped out of school altogether. They weren’t sad to see me go, I was their sore spot.
What I found in the real world didn’t satisfy me either. I started to realize that adults were just kids in bigger bodies. I saw
them steal, lie and kill. I was surprised. I was so disappointed at how much it was like High School. I didn’t have any friends
for a very long time. I remember going to an amusement park and seeing a movie on one of those huge screens. They were
in outer space, showing the earth down below. I remember scanning the planet, wondering where on earth I might find
someone like me, someone who’d understand me and appreciate me.
MerriCat in "We Have Always Lived in The Castle" would have been that person. Eleanor Vance in "The Haunting of Hill
House" would have too. I found a friend in Shirley Jackson, long dead, but her words still talked to me. I didn’t have to read
about how nice little girls were supposed to be, how refined and pretty. These fictional females felt deeply, they were
misunderstood and alone. They were ugly and hated. They were bitches. I was home.
In Judy Oppenhiemer’s biography of Shirley Jackson, she states on page one, "[Shirley’s Mother] too would have liked a
daughter who was beautiful and a fool; instead, she got Shirley, who would never for one instant be either." As close as I felt
to the characters Shirley created, nothing could prepare me for how close I would feel to her personally as I read "Private
Demons; The Life of Shirley Jackson." The book is an amazing look at a woman who was, herself, as remarkable as any
character she created. She had a San Francisco socialite mother, who worried when Shirley married a Jewish writer. Shirley
was never one to base her love on such things. She had four wonderful children, which she took care of during the day, and
wrote her stories in her spare time. She was the opposite of what a normal 40’s housewife would have been. Her stories
usually centered on one troubled female, with the males in the story being diseased, disabled or dead. Shirley needed them
only for backdrops in the lives of the richly divine female characters she created.
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Not many people I have talk to about Shirley Jackson even know who she was. Most who know her only know her one
story "The Lottery." Some others know her because of her novel "The Haunting of Hill House" which was turned into a
move called "The Haunting" starring Julie Harris. For this reason I decided to do a web page dedicated to her. This is my
playground and I plan to be adding a lot to the pages soon. For now we have some links and photos. Hope you enjoy.
Please use the blog to answer the following questions.
1. What do YOU think this blogger meant when she said, “I lost myself in them and then found myself in them”?
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2. What is ONE thing that you do that you don’t consider to be “normal” for a young adult your age? Explain why you
feel this way.
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3. What do you think it feels like to be “understood and appreciated?”
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4. How do people often treat others who act differently and are not “normal?” LIST AND DESCRIBE THREE WAYS
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The following quote from the book Authors and Artists for Young Adults helps to make modern readers who are more
exposed to gruesome images and stories respect Jackson for her skill:
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No matter how grim her theme, however, Jackson never forgot what she considered a writer's primary task: to tell a good
story.
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