Within the Mundane Lives Terror
I have had for many years a consuming interest in magic and the supernatural. I think this is because I find there so convenient a shorthand statement of the possibilities of human adjustment to what seems to be at best an inhuman world. [. . .] Everything I write [involves] the sense I feel, of a human and not very rational order struggling inadequately to keep in check forces of great destruction, which may be the devil and may be intellectual enlightenment. (Oppenheimer 125)
For those familiar with Shirley Jackson’s longer texts, the immediacy of tension within her work is staggering. In novels like The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived In This Castle, Jackson uses a combination of supernatural ambiguity and human psychology to create the horrifying content that would make her literary legend. Yet in her short stories, her focus will detract away from the unexplainable parts of terror and focus on the unexplainable parts of humanity and society that create a different kind of horror. The parts that question our identity and role in both our personal lives and the society at large. Within these pages, I analyze three short stories from her vast collection to prove these themes were of great importance to Jackson. In fact, I found many of her stories stray away from the supernatural elements of her longer works and focus on the everyday and mundane, yet that creates a fear in itself. The story themes, which range from missing fiances to unruly children, all address issues that will resonate with readers yet the writing evokes paranoia, fear, and the general psychosis that results from the drudgery of everyday life. Advice columns from Good Housekeeping they are not.
How does she manage to highlight the fear that lives inside the mundane? It is the intricacy of detail, the dwelling on the minor details that perhaps aren’t important to the larger plot, but to the character’s psychology. It’s the small exchanges between characters in which they make small talk or discuss the appropriate flowers for a wedding that reveal so much about the people within these stories and their true fears; they are fears not of the ghostly or the other worldly, but of judgement and assuming the role of outcast.
Every story chosen is from Shirley Jackson’s collection The Lottery, And Other Short Stories. And why the short story? In his thesis about the short stories within this collection, Hovard Norjordet dedicates some time discussing the importance of the short story as a collection and whether the thematic elements were intentional on Jackson’s part. He states: “Generally, I might add, the short story composite is often considered an apt structural vehicle for the portrayal of hidden fears, disorders and problems in a seemingly functional society—these themes are often prominent in composites” (15). This is certainly the case in the stories of Shirley Jackson, especially since little happens plot-wise in these stories, rather focusing on the themes Norjordet listed.
I will provide brief summaries of the stories before jumping into my analysis, but I do recommend for the sake of comprehension, as well as for fun, to read the complete stories beforehand.