ellauri133.html on line 843: Shirley Jackson’s 1948 story “The Lottery”—arguably the most famous short story in American literature—was written in a single morning. In Jackson’s posthumously published lecture, “Biography of a Story,” she recounts:
ellauri133.html on line 851: After publishing her debut novel The Road Through the Wall (1948), a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood in California, Jackson gained significant public attention for her short story "The Lottery", which presents the sinister underside of a bucolic American village.
ellauri133.html on line 855: "The persona that Jackson presented to the world was powerful, witty, even imposing," wrote Zoë Heller in the New Yorker. "She could be sharp and aggressive with fey Bennington girls and salesclerks and people who interrupted her writing. Her letters are filled with tartly funny observations. Describing the bewildered response of New Yorker readers to 'The Lottery,' she notes, 'The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washing machine at the end would amaze you.'"
ellauri133.html on line 868: According to Jackson's detractors, her marriage was plagued by Hyman's infidelities, notably with his students, and she reluctantly agreed to his proposition of maintaining an open relationship. Hyman also controlled their finances (meting out portions of her earnings to her as he saw fit), despite the fact that after the success of "The Lottery" and later work she earned far more than he did.
ellauri133.html on line 870: Jackson´s most famous story, "The Lottery", first published in the New Yorker on June 26, 1948, established her reputation as a master of the horror tale. The story prompted over 300 letters from readers, many of them outraged at its conjuring of a dark aspect of human nature, characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation, and just plain old-fashioned abuse".
ellauri133.html on line 874: The critical reaction to the story was unequivocally positive; the story quickly became a standard in anthologies and was adapted for television in 1952. In 1949, "The Lottery" was published in a short story collection of Jackson´s ingeniously titled The Lottery and Other Stories.
ellauri133.html on line 880: Details of contemporary small-town American life are embroidered upon a description of an annual ritual known as "the lottery". In a small village of about 300 residents (hmm, just the number of thankyou letters Shirley got, see above), the locals are in an excited yet nervous mood on June 27. Children gather stones, as the adult townsfolk assemble for their annual event, which in the local tradition is apparently practiced to ensure a good harvest (Old Man Warner quotes an old proverb: "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon").
ellauri270.html on line 293: Shirley Jackson putkahti esille albumissa 133 ja pulpahti lyhyesti pintaan albumissa 158. Shirley Hardie Jackson (14. joulukuuta 1916 San Francisco, Kalifornia, Yhdysvallat - 8. elokuuta 1965 North Bennington, Vermont, Yhdysvallat) oli yhdysvaltalainen kirjailija, joka tunnetaan erityisesti kauhukertomuksistaan. Kirjailijanuransa aikana Jackson kirjoitti kuusi romaania, kaksi muistelmateosta ja yli 200 kauhukertomusta, toinen toistaan kauheampia. Kaikista kauhein niistä oli Lottery. Aika kauhean näkönen Shirley oli izekin. Varmaan kotijoukkojakin pelotti.
ellauri270.html on line 298: In The Daemon Lover, James (Jamie) Harris, a handsome author, deserts his dowdy 34-year old fiancée. The plot of this short story may be indebted to “The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen, whom Jackson ranked with Katherine Anne Porter as one of the best contemporary short story writers. When Jamie Harris disappears, he shatters his bride’s dreams of living in a “golden house in-the-country” (DL 12). Her shock of recognition that she will never trade her lonely city apartment for a loving home mirrors the final scenes of “The Lottery” and “The Pillar of Salt” as well as many other stories in which a besieged woman suffers a final and often fatal blow.
ellauri270.html on line 300: In “The Daemon Lover,” the second story in The Lottery and Other Stories, Jackson’s collection of 25 tales, the reader sees James Harris only through his fiancée’s eyes as a tall man wearing a blue suit. Neither the reader nor anyone in the story can actually claim to have seen him. Nonetheless, this piece foreshadows the appearance of Harris in such other stories in the collection as “Like Mother Used to Make,” “The Village,” “Of Course,” “Seven Types of Ambiguities,” and “The Tooth.” As James Harris wanders through the book, he sheds the veneer of the ordinary that covers his satanic nature.
ellauri270.html on line 302: The irony in “The Daemon Lover” is that the female protagonist becomes suspect as she hunts for the mysterious young man “who promised to marry her” (DL 23). Everywhere she searches, she encounters couples who mock her with not-so-subtle insinuations that she is crazy. Indeed, at the end of the story she may well have become insane; the narrative is ambiguous on this point. Significantly, however, if the nameless woman has indeed lost her mind, it is James who is responsible. Although some critics speculate that the disruptive male figure—both in this story and in the others in the collection—is a hallucination of a sexually repressed character, the epilogue to The Lottery, a ballad entitled “James Harris, The Daemon Lover,” suggests otherwise: He is, in fact, the devil himself.
ellauri270.html on line 304: For Jackson, The Lottery is more than a ghost story; “The Daemon Lover” in particular and the collection in general critique a society that fails to protect women from becoming victims of strangers or neighbors. As in “The Lottery,” Jackson’s shocking account of a housewife’s ritualistic stoning, or in “The Pillar of Salt,” which traces a wife’s horror and growing hysteria when she has lost her way, the threatened characters are women. Although many of Jackson’s stories are modern versions of the folk tale of a young wife’s abduction by the devil, and although her characters are involved in terrifying circumstances, the point is that these tales seem true: They are rooted in reality. Thus, Jackson exposes the threat to women’s lives in a society that condones the daemon lover.
ellauri270.html on line 306: The Lottery
ellauri270.html on line 411: “The Lottery” begins with a description of a particular day, the 27th of June, which is marked by beautiful details and a warm tone that strongly contrast with the violent and dark ending of the story. The narrator describes flowers blossoming and children playing, but the details also include foreshadowing of the story’s resolution, as the children are collecting stones and three boys guard their pile against the “raids of the other boys.” These details… read analysis of The Juxtaposition of Peace and Violence.
ellauri270.html on line 415: Jackson examines the basics of human nature in “The Lottery,” asking whether or not all humans are capable of violence and cruelty, and exploring how those natural inclinations can be masked, directed, or emphasized by the structure of society. Philosophers throughout the ages have similarly questioned the basic structure of human character: are humans fundamentally good or evil? Without rules and laws, how would we behave towards one another? Are we similar to animals in….. read analysis of Human Nature.
ellauri270.html on line 425: Jackson’s “The Lottery” was published in the years following World War II, when the world was presented with the full truth about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. In creating the dystopian society of her story, Jackson was clearly responding to the fact that “dystopia” is not only something of the imagination—it can exist in the real world as well. Jackson thus meditates on human cruelty—especially when it is institutionalized, as in a dystopian society—and the… read analysis of Dystopian Society and Conformity.
ellauri270.html on line 428: Jackson, Shirley. “The Daemon Lover.” In the Lottery and Other Stories. Modern Library Series. New York: Random House, 2000.
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