The Women of Shirley Jackson :: Biography Biographies Essays

The Women of Shirley Jackson      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Throughout her life, Shirley Jackson refused to fit into society's limited concept of a woman's role.   Her works feature female protagonists who are punished for seeking a more substantial existence than that of the traditional wife or mother.   In most cases, these characters are condemned as witches, ostracized by society, and even killed for their refusal to conform.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   From her youth, Jackson was an outsider.   Always self-conscious about her obesity and plain appearance, she preferred spending time alone in her room writing 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 husband's university colleagues at Bennington College [where he was a professor]. . . .   But she also set aside time each day for her writing.   "There was always the sound of typing," her children wrote, "pounding away into the night (10)."      Jackson's 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, only made Jackson more determined.   Her writing became a form of rebellion against her husband (who was allegedly unfaithful) and, ultimately, against a male-dominated society.      Ã‚  Ã‚   This element of rebellion in Jackson's works led to its poor reception by contemporary critics and readers alike.   According to mythologian Barbara G. Walker, "Any unusual ability in a woman instantly raise[s] 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).      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   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 turned a certain male faculty member into a pumpkin" (6).   Jackson's 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 many cats "familiars."      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the words of Jack Sullivan, "Jackson's real witchcraft is her fiction" (71).