Essay on Shirley Jackson and Her Short Stories

Mary Jackson was an African American mathematician who worked for NASA as an aerospace engineer. She helped launch the space program and worked for women’s working rights. This is the story of the life of Mary Jackson.

Mary Jackson was born April 9, 1921, Hampton, Virginia, U.S.A. She was a math genius and an aerospace engineer. most importantly she was the first African American female engineer to work and be the first flight engineers for NASA.

Shirley Jackson was born on December 14, 1916 in San Francisco, California. She was the daughter of Leslie Hardie (President of Stecher-Traung Lithograph,Inc.) and Geraldine Bugbee Jackson.

The specific topics that will be addressed are as follows: 1) the innate nature of human beings to be judgmental of others; 2) patriarchal society and how the idea of males as the best heads of households prevails, and finally 3) the elderly as people who need to be coddled because they are incapable of caring for themselves or contributing to society. Shirley Jackson, herself, was agoraphobic. She knew first-hand what it was like to be judged by others, by people who did not know her and by people who thought if she was just forced out of her comfort zone, she would be ‘fixed’.

The social standings of the different genders of the town’s people are predominant throughout the story. The people living in this town are very traditional and do not care too much for change. This is directly related to the social standings of the men and the women. The men and women portray the traditional roles of everyday life. The men are the typical breadwinners, going to work every day, enduring hard labor, and supporting their families. The women are characterized as typical housewives who stay at home and take care of the house and family. In this town, the women are looked at as subordinates to their husbands. Before the lottery begins the women would follow in behind their husbands. When it came time for the lottery, the men would choose the first slips for their family (Whittier p.356-357). This is symbolic of the social hierarchy of a society that believes men come before women.

The protagonist in the book The Haunting of Hill House is Eleanor Vance. Eleanor “was thirty-two years old when she came to Hill House” (Jackson 7). When her mother passed away, Eleanor was relieved. She did not have a good relationship with her mother, and in fact, she didn’t have a good relationship with anyone; she had no friends. Eleanor took the role of the “mother” and was always taking care of her mother; she could never escape and find the person so was going to be; she was stuck. She was a very unhappy woman who was searching for freedom.

According to Elizabeth Lowell, “Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.” Sometimes what every situation needs is an outsider to flip the script and create a new outlook on everything. In Shirley Jackson’s novel, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” the speaker, Merricat, is an outsider of society on many levels, such as mental health, gender, and that she is an upper class citizen in a poor area. Although Merricat is mentally unstable, her outsider’s perspective criticizes the social standard for women in the 1960s, indicating that social roles, marriage, and the patriarchy are not necessary aspects in life such as it is not necessary to have the same outlook on life as others.

Shirley Wilder was a troubled African-American child who was raised in a drunk and abusive home. As a child both her parents neglected her; her father, Jay All, was a jealous and drunken abusive husband and her mother, Helen Wilde, was a drunken “party animal” who soon became sick with tuberculosis. Moreover, a year after Shirley was born her parents married in a Baptist church; which joined her mother, father, sister and not Shirley by the father 's last name. Shirley was then the only one left with her mother’s stained last name. There were many problems between both parents in the home she was raised in. It became a drunken relationship that had much affect on Shirley. She often witnessed her mother have

Shirley Jackson writes about this social conduct in order to reflect her childhood trauma of being bullied by other kids, leading to her depression in school (Kellman 1213). Conveying the selfishness of man through her writings, Shirley Jackson displays her consciousness within “The Lottery” and shows how society can influence the conscious at developmental stages and leading examples through psychoanalytic lens.

Eleanor, the protagonist, undergoes a difficult childhood which cause many of her repressed feelings to be expressed through supernatural experiences that are ambiguous. She took care of her ill mother for 11 years, until she died. That affected her tremendously. For example, during Theodora’s supernatural experience, Shirley Jackson displays how Eleanor’s inner child managed to let her grow anger and jealously towards Theodora. Eleanor felt like Hill House was giving Theodora more

Eleanor realized her home was lonelier when her last child left the house. She struggled to bury her past and the horrors she faced in her past. The price of harboring secrets from her loved ones was overwhelming to pay. Her struggles led to revelations that would allow her to eventually move forward in her

Shirley Jackson’s novel, The Haunting of Hill House, explores the cultural anxieties in the mid 20th century. Specifically, men use womanhood (societal norms) as purposely infantilizing women in order to confine the female mind. Jackson utilizes symbolism, metaphor, and anaphora in her novel in order to convey the message for men to stop infantilizing women. Moreover, Jackson spreads awareness that women are being confined by a system that men developed: womanhood. Hence, in effect, the novel serves as an informal protest against male repression through a medium that can be read by a wider audience —more importantly an indirect challenge to male readers. According to Krolokke, Second Wave Feminism became prominent due to cultural discontent with patriarchy during the mid 20th century. Moreover, Krolokke informs the readers that Second Wave Feminism influenced women to challenge traditional family roles and male ideologies about women not belonging in the workplace (11-12). Mid 20th century is also when Jackson published The Haunting of Hill House. So, with these historical and cultural contexts in mind, Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House ends the novel with Eleanor killing herself because she wants women to challenge the ideas of patriarchy into effect. Hence, Second Wave Feminism has a connection to Eleanor having a childlike personality (can not think for herself) because she wants women (especially young and single women) to explore their rights (their choices) and

An example of this notion is shown in Hope Leslie when Governor Winthrop, the landlord, reacts to Hope, the tenant, coming home late and refuses to reveal her reason why: “...Winthrop was not accustomed to have his inquisitorial rights resisted by those in his own household, and he was more struck than pleased by Hope’s moral courage” (184). Evidently, Winthrop’s reaction proves that women with “moral courage” are unladylike because moral courage is a manly trait. On the other hand, Esther Downing, another character in Hope Leslie, embodies the cult of true womanhood. Esther’s mere look at her love interest Everell is described as “a look of...pleased dependence, which is natural... and which men like to inspire, because --perhaps -- it seems to them an instinctive tribute to their natural superiority” (219). So, “Esther’s look … of dependence” confirms that the expectation that all women are supposed to have the same behavior, gestures and personality is meant to not only please men but to also hide their true form. Therefore, the cult of true womanhood presents an internal battle in female writers and Sedgwick presents this womanly struggle through the contrast between Hope and Esther. Society wants women to be quaint housewives but publishing a book defies the cult of true womanhood. Thus, defying the qualities rooted in the cult of true womanhood causes high risk of

Morrison illustrates through the circumstances of Ruth’s life the lack of opportunities and struggles of women, even of high social standing, in the early twentieth century. And even today, Ruth’s story still rings true among the lives of women in America and across the globe. But, unlike Ruth, a lot of women, in the book and in the real world, won’t, and don’t, take this kind of treatment lying down.

Throughout the evolution of the world’s societies, the roles of women seem to act as a reflection of the time period since they set the tones for the next generation. Regardless of their own actions, women generally appear to take on a lower social standing and receive an altered treatment by men. In Mark Twain’s pre-civil war novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, lies a display of how society treats and views women, as well as how they function in their roles, specifically in regards to religion and molding the minds and futures of children. The novel’s showcase of women affords them a platform and opportunity to better see their own situation and break away with a new voice.