Shirley Jackson

S hirley Hardie Jackson (1919-1965) was born in San Francisco, California, her mother a housewife and her father an employee of a lithographing company. Most of her early life was spent in Burlingame, California, which she later used as the setting for her first novel, The Road Through the Wall (1948). As a child she was interested in writing; she won a poetry prize at age twelve, and in high school she began keeping a diary to record her writing progress. After high school she briefly attended the University of Rochester but left because of an attack of the mental depression that was to recur periodically in her later years. She recovered her health by living quietly at home and writing, conscientiously turning out a thousand words of prose a day.

In 1937 she entered Syracuse University, where she published stories in the student literary magazine. There she met Stanley Edgar Human, who was to become a noted literary critic. They were married in 1940, the year she received her degree. They had four children while both continued active literary careers, settling to raise their family in a large Victorian house in Vermont, where Hyman taught literature at Bennington College.

Jackson’s first national publication was a humorous story written after a job at a department store during the Christmas rush: My Life with R. H. Macy appeared in The New Republic in 1941. Her first child was born the next year, but she wrote every day on a disciplined schedule, selling her stories to magazines and publishing three novels. Jackson's best-known work, The Lottery, is often dramatized, and televised. However, many people are now discovering her other works, which range from children's non-fiction to fiction rooted in the Gothic to feminist fiction.

Appendix 1 Glossary of terms

Action – The events that take place within a story.

Character – A person who appears in a work of fiction. More accurately, a character is the person or conscious entity we imagine to exist within the world of such a work. In addition to people, characters can be aliens, animals, gods or, occasionally, inanimate objects. Characters are almost always at the center of fictional texts, especially novels and plays.

Characterization – The means by which the author creates the characters. Characterization can involve developing a variety of aspects of a character, such as appearance, age, gender, educational level, vocation or occupation, financial status, marital status, social status, hobbies, religious beliefs, ambitions, motivations, etc. The psychological makeup of a fully developed character involves fears, emotions, backstory, issues, beliefs, practices, desires, and intentions. Often these can be shown through the actions and language of the character, rather than by telling the reader directly. Characterization can be presented either directly or indirectly. Direct characterization takes place when the author literally tells the audience what a character is like. In indirect characterization, the audience must deduce for themselves what the character is like through the character’s thoughts, actions, speech, looks and interaction with other characters.

Episode – A single incident, complete in itself, that forms part of the continuing action of the story.

First person narrative – In a first person narrative, the narrator is a character in the story. This character takes actions, makes judgements and has opinions and biases. It is an important task for the reader to determine as much as possible about the character of the narrator in order to decide what “really” happens. This type of narrator is usually noticeable for the use of the first-person pronoun.

Message (moral) – The lesson a story teaches about what is considered to be right or wrong.

Narrative – A prose account of a fictional event or a series of such events.

Narrator (story teller) – The person who tells the story to the reader. The narrator sees the story from the point it occupies within the fictional world.

Plot – The pattern of events in a narrative. The traditional plot of a short story has the following elements:

• Initial situation – the beginning. It is the first incident that makes the story move.

• Conflict or Problem – the goal which the main character of the story has to achieve.

• Complication – obstacles which the main character has to overcome.

• Climax – the highest point of interest of the story.

• Suspense – the point of tension. It arouses the interest of the readers.

• Denouement or Resolution – what happens to the character after overcoming all obstacles to achieve the desired result and reaching/not reaching his goal.

• Conclusion – the end of the story.

Setting – The time and place in which the action of a story takes place.

Theme – The central or controlling idea of a story.