The Women of Shirley Jackson :: Biography Biographies Essays

The Women of Shirley capital of Mississippi Throughout her life, Shirley Jackson refused to clothe into societys limited concept of a womans role. Her whole works feature female protagonists who argon punished for seeking a more substantial existence than that of the conventional wife or mother. In most cases, these characters are condemned as witches, ostracized by society, and even killed for their refusal to conform. From her youth, Jackson was an outsider. Always self-conscious about her obesity and knit appearance, she preferred spending time alone in her room opus poetry to socializing with other children (Oppenheimer 16). As an adult, she struggled to fulfill her role as a mother without sacrificing her career as a writer. Kathleen Warnock writes Jackson served as chauffeur for her children and hostess for her husbands university colleagues at Bennington College where he was a professor. . . . But she also touch on aside time each day for her writing. There was a lways the with child(p) of typing, her children wrote, pounding away into the night (10). Jacksons husband, writer and literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, felt threatened by her talent and tried to discourage her by preoccupying her with housework. This, however, nevertheless made Jackson more determined. Her writing became a form of revolt against her husband (who was allegedly unfaithful) and, ultimately, against a male-dominated society. This element of rebellion in Jacksons works led to its poor reception by contemporary critics and readers alike. According to mythologian Barbara G. Walker, both unusual ability in a woman instantly raises a charge of witchcraft (1078). In the flood of mail that followed the publication of The Lottery, Jackson was labeled un-American, perverted, and modern (Sullivan 71). Rumors of supernatural events concerning Jackson began to circulate. According to David Gates, Jackson was widely believed to have broken the leg of publisher Alfred Knopf by sticking pins into a voodoo doll (67). Bennington College student Elizabeth Frank recalls a rumor that. . . Jackson had off a certain male faculty member into a autumn pumpkin (6). Jacksons extensive library of witchcraft as well as the mystique that arose from her agoraphobic tendencies added to this characterization. Her house became a cave, her small social circle a coven, and her numerous cats familiars. In the words of Jack Sullivan, Jacksons real witchcraft is her fiction (71).