'The Witch' | Shirley Jackson’s Hidden Masterpiece
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- čas přidán 28. 08. 2024
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Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) was a master of twentieth-century American Gothic literature. Her novels and short stories are still widely read, studied, and adapted. If you’ve read Jackson, you’re probably familiar with her chilling 1948 short story, ‘The Lottery’. But is it the most unsettling story Jackson ever wrote? Might there be an even shorter, even more disturbing tale in her oeuvre? Watch on to find out.
Written, presented, and edited by Rosie Whitcombe
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Directed, produced, and edited by Matty Phillips
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Bibliography
Franklin, Ruth, '"The Lottery" Letters', www.newyorker....
Franklin, Ruth, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (New York: Liveright Publishing Co., 2016)
Heller, Zoë, 'The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson', www.newyorker....
Jackson, Shirley, 'Biography of a Story', Shirley Jackson: Novels & Stories (Library of America, 2010)
Jackson, Shirley, 'The Lottery', The Lottery and Other Stories (London: Penguin, 2009)
Jackson, Shirely, 'The Witch', The Lottery and Other Stories, (London: Penguin, 2009)
‘Witch-hunts in early modern Europe (circa 1450-1750)’, www.gendercide...
For me, I think my read of "The Witch" hinges on the exchange the boy has with the man when he first enters the train car, about how his dad smokes cigars too, and the old man says something like "all men smoke cigars; you will too one day." I've always interpreted "The Witch" as being about how casually and blatantly violent misogyny is passed down to boys from older men. Given that the violence is being done to a younger sister and the man and boy form a bond over rattling the mother, I've always felt like that's at least one of the undercurrents to the story. The gender reversal of the titular witch then calls to mind how men in power used accusations of witchcraft to keep women in line and distract from their own misdeeds.
I really like this interpretation, thank you - Rosie
This is just an insightful take on the story. TYSM for posting this.
That's my read too. It feels highly metaphorical. The boy is innocent, but already he has internalised some of society's misogyny by how he speaks about the witch. Then the old man comes, and his initiation is finalised, his innocence lost fully.
Right on the nail! Thanks for sharing
I agree, that's what I noticed too! The whole exchange between the older man and the boy is disturbing. The ease with which the old man draws everyone into his narrative is so spooky. It's like he used magic or hypnosis or some otherworldly means to manipulate them, and the effect is devastating. The little boy gleefully follows along, and the mother seems powerless to counteract it.
At age 74, after a lifetime of being an avid reader, “The Lottery” still stands as the most horrifying piece of fiction I have ever encountered. I actually was introduced to the story in play form, performed by my junior high school drama club. It so disturbed me that I became physically ill and had to leave school. I had nightmares for months. In spite of this, I forced myself to read the story and its hold on my psyche even deepened. I truly believe that Shirley Jackson’s capturing of the human capability for being inhumane is one of the most chilling and brilliant written works of post-WWII literature. Thank you for your wonderful presentation.
The Haunting of Hill House had a similar effect on me. The original B&W movie and the book have caused me to experience "house" nightmares, or sometimes just rather bad dreams (almost worse because they aren kind of real-feeling) all my life. I saw "The Haunting" on TV back when I was 13, and I'm 69 years old now, Still having nightmares! I watched the newer TV series for about . . . . oh, 3 minutes? Scared me rigid.
your junior high put this on? damn. that's insane.
We did it as a school play as well. It's horrifying, I agree.
At 69 it’s true for me also after reading in jr. High..it affected me the same way…
@@margaret2713the difference is women volunteer for the abortion. No one’s forcing them. Their body their decision. It’s called free will given to us by God. I may not agree with it but thankfully I’m not a woman so I will never have to make that decision.
I think The Witch is about how easy it was (and still is) for men to influence young boys and get them excited about violent misogyny as if it were a normal thing that just happens sometimes. The mother, being a traditional woman raised to expect that men would protect women and that women were meant to be timid and defenseless, is just that; timid, defenseless, and totally unsure what to do now that she’d witnessed her son being effortlessly indoctrinated into the folksy, traditional masculine pastime of fantasizing about violence against those too weak and timid and defenseless to stop them.
Her horror was one of unknown territory which she’d never imagined possible. She was raised like a sheltered prize winning pony to produce beautiful perfect children, and now an old man, an authority figure over all women and children, is joyfully teaching her joyful male child how to be a violent misogynist. Because that’s how masculinity was expressed; prizing and sheltering the women you approve of and like, and torturing and murdering the ones you deemed to be witches. It was normal! She was a nag, and only witches do that! There’s just something about her that makes me feel…angry!
And then male life goes on, joyfully, knowing that they will never be burnt at the stake for raising their voice or taking attention away from their sisters. They will be rewarded by male acceptance and terrified female offerings of lollipops in exchange for short term compliance with the most superficial rules of civility.
The mother’s horror is realizing what her innocent little baby boy is already on his way to becoming.
But the happy little boy with the second lollipop is reflecting on how much he admired the old man for being the _real_ witch. That is, a malevolent person who manipulates others and sows the seeds of evil thoughts into benevolent minds, but always invisibly. In ways that can’t be called criminal. Just stories. And then he gets up and moves on, still the same harmless, smiling old man.
I really like this interpretation, and very much see how much the story has to do with older men influencing younger boys to behave violently etc. Thanks for commenting - Rosie
“That is, a malevolent person who manipulates others and sows the seeds of evil thoughts into benevolent minds, but always invisibly. In ways that can't be called criminal. Just stories. And then he gets up and moves on, still the same harmless, smiling old man.”
Kind of like the writer of the story itself. Evil always masquerades itself as something desirable at first. It sells millions of books, and infects millions of minds… so who is the real witch???
You can turn children violent against anything
Yes!
This is an excellent analysis of that story, and imo spot on regarding the elements contained within.
However, real life isn't nearly so neat and cooperative with such vile creatures...
I was the firstborn, a girl, birthed and immediately burdened with the express task and purpose of fixing my viciously narcissistic, histrionic mother's 7-year marriage. When my birth instead prompted a temporary separation between my mother and my father, my "Mommie Dearest" turned on me and literally became my mortal enemy - in the most sly, deceitful ways possible.
5 years later, my younger brother was born, and he immediately became the "Golden Child", the favorite and darling of Mommie Dearest.
Meanwhile Mommie Dearest was deliberately sending me to live with her child-raping father, every summer vacation from when I was 6 years old on up. Incidentally he never touched his own child, Mommie Dearest. No, he saved his sickening attentions for Mommie Dearest's older half-sister, not related to him.
I was born looking like the far more attractive older half-sister, and I've often cattily surmised that the dreadful sexual predator wasn't at all attracted to Mommie Dearest, because she popped out with the absolute worst versions of his physical appearance - tiny near-sighted pig eyes, weak chin, snaggle teeth, big bulbous nose, pale pinkish sickly looking skin with an abundance of blemishes, and worse.
Mommie Dearest took sadistic delight in threatening me with being raped - by a "stranger" - whenever I was home during the school years, which means she was fully aware of her cruelty towards her own daughter, and covertly delighted in tormenting me.
BUT...!
It was my younger brother who was targeted for sexual violence by some boys at school!
Mommie Dearest's actions in dangling me as a tidbit for her rotting pestilent father backfired on her, because he never touched me! My grandmother was constantly around me, every summer that I had to spend on their ranch, and SHE protected me, possibly because she realized how badly she'd failed her oldest daughter.
But my brother... In addition with being threatened by some other boys at his school (I think he was around 10 - 11 years old at the time), Mommie Dearest latched onto him with a fearful ferocity! I'm not quite sure how she accomplished thoroughly isolating my brother, (although being raised in the elitist and extremely insular apocalyptic, fundamentalist Jehovah's Witnesses sect certainly helped, especially in light of their literalist and highly dysfunctional 'purity culture' mentality), but somehow she managed to keep him from ever even DATING anyone, let alone finding someone with whom to live his life independently from her.
I recently found her obituary online (since I'd completely cut myself off from that poisonous family many decades ago), and I see that my brother has been commenting on how much he still misses her, and how lost he is without her.
THIS is the hidden damage and enslavement to the supposedly docile and obedient females who support abusive patriarchal systems, that the foolish conservative male proponents of such systems are totally blind to. 😂
The most disturbing part of The Witch to me isn't the story itself, it's that it mirrors an experience I had when I was a lot younger. I was on the bus alone, carrying home groceries and a bottle of detergent that had a baby harp seal on the label. An older man came and sat beside me, striking up a fairly normal conversation, and after a couple minutes of chatting he says while pointing at the detergent, "Hey, do you know what they do with baby seals like that?" I say, "No, what?" He then began to describe in detail how baby seals are clubbed to death and skinned for their fur. I awkwardly cut him off, said goodbye, and got off the bus at the next stop.
The horror for me isn't in the hypothetical scenario of "wouldn't it be scary up if this happened" or thinking about what the story could have conceptually represented, it's that people like that are real and I met one.
I was about to write something similar! The horror for the story isn't necessarily its symbolism or open-ended interpretation, but that I had two vivid experiences with old men, as a child, which was disturbing as in the story. Vivid memories of them speaking to me, or "at" me about violence, and laughing when people were disturbed.
@Solonneysa I've had these experiences as well. Seems that perhaps a lot of us have... the manner with which and reason for speaking about such things, to children no less, is just sick.
A way of stripping away the innocence of children without having (or getting) to touch them. It's an act of power abuse that we are helpless to stop because the intended impact is only felt once it's too late to stop it.
Yes, I've met one too. We weren't children though, an adult mildly disabled daughter and elderly mother. He followed us round a shop talking disgusting violence like this until I yelled at him and the shopkeeper threw him out.
When I first read The Witch I was a young mother myself. It never occurred to me that the man might be telling a true story. He clearly heard the boy’s conversation and was echoing it which the boy recognized so he wasn’t frightened. But the mother’s world was turned upside down as he must have known it would be because the mother knew what the child didn’t-that adult men don’t talk like that to children. That, to me, was the horror-the mother’s realization of how easily evil can slip into a child’s life and her weapons are only those she uses where her only power lies which is what she uses for disciplining her child: the wagging finger and the lollipop reward. The boy was correct: he was a witch-a witch being someone who wishes evil on another which has real power of its own, the mother being the object, not the child.
This story terrified me more than all the others.
I enjoy this perspective, thank you
Joe Says: Undoubtedly the old man in the story was a United States Senator with a long and very notable career of influencing others behind him.
I was a young mother when I read it too, and was briefly mad at Shirley Jackson for writing it and scaring me so much. I had the same response to Stephen King for Pet Sematary and swore off his books for life. But with Shirley Jackson, I keep going back. She is the master.
@@catherinecrawford2289,
I still love Stephen King’s books. Pet Sematary didn’t disturb me as much as Misery. That was the first one that I hated.
I think Jackson’s most unsettling story is “ Louisa please come home”, where a missing woman returns to her parents in response to their annual radio broadcasts, but they don’t believe it’s her.
Oh yes that one is dreadful. Imposter Syndrome in a very real way!
Normality! Not "normalcy'.
@@ruthmeb i think you replied to the wrong comment, but just for the record, normalcy is a real word that means the same as normality.
@@ruthmeb, I think you replied to the wrong video. Is your “watch later” list on auto play? If you disable the auto play, it can’t roll over to the next video when you’re commenting.
the witch immediately jumps out to me as a representation of an interaction most women in my life have gone through. i’m a man but i’ve often been told by women close to me of experiences where they’re alone with men that they trust and yet suddenly a switch will flip. a joke will be taken to far, comments will keep being made, looks will be given. they aren’t safe anymore. among friends, lovers, family even and yet just for a moment they realise just how alone they are. i saw another comment talking about how they read the story as being about how men are easily groomed into violent misogyny and im glad im not the only one. even before the man shows up the boy is fantasising about brutally murdering a woman. did he see a witch that needed to be defeated or did he just see an innocent woman in the window? is there a difference to him? that’s why he moves on so quickly. it was just him and the man having fun. just boys being boys. but his mother spent those moments in terror. men often don’t even know nor care that they’re treating these women terribly. the old man was talking about his little sister with love and how he adored her and how beautiful she was and then he killed her. violently. under patriarchy men can see violence and subjugation as a normal or right way to treat those they love. the old man wasn’t a witch. the boy’s mother was, because she was there and the man was a man.
This is so interesting, thanks for sharing - this kind of interpretation seems to be something quite a few people in the comments share - Rosie
Was riding the train the other day and it occurred to me - was the little boy looking out the window, or at the reflection of mother in the glass?
@@unclevlad3357i love that theory
When you brought up the mother’s point of view, what do you say to your 4 year-old son, brought back a memory of a comment from a high school friend of mine. He said that his family had to be careful of his little brother who, after watching the Three Stooges a few times, had started reenacting various scenes. If you were sitting watching TV, he would come up behind you and try to knock you on the head with a hammer - just like Mo - and run off laughing. My horrible thought for the mom in the story, after the boy’s laughing at the man’s story, was can I trust my 4 year-old around the baby? I think part of the brilliance of Shirley Jackson’s abrupt endings is that it allows each person’s own terrible life events combined with their imagination to take her story to places more horrifying than what’s written on the page. Like the man in the story, Shirley Jackson plants a seed, then walks away chuckling. 😱
Hell yeah
I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this, but I think the last lollipop is important--when his mother gives it to him, she prompts him for thanks.
""What do you say?" she asked.
"Thank you," the little boy said. "Did that man really cut his little sister up in pieces?"
"He was just teasing," the mother said, and added urgently, "Just TEASING."
"Prob'ly," the little boy said."
The boys knows how to behave. She's taught him how to behave. He can still perform the duties of higher courtesy--when prompted. But there's been another element introduced, and it can't just be scrubbed clean. I think this is something anyone who feels a sense of responsibility to a child (I don't have children of my own yet, but I have younger siblings I would fight to protect) fears.
Theory: This story is horrendously unnerving because you get to watch a loss of innocence happening not by natural erosion and maturity but all at once, and in a public place, and right in front of a child's guardian, and I can't think of much more terrifying than that. It's so quick and stunning that it's almost...a wicked magic.
I think this point is really important - especially because the man generally seems well mannered, not agitated, and is described looking at the mother "courteously". The way he excuses himself as well - it makes me wonder what exactly the mother could even complain about to the conductor (another man). He was just teasing! No social rules have explicitly been breached.
"The Witch" is too much like reality for me. "The Lottery" is true in the fact that families stone their outcast relatives in other ways, leaving them to die on the street. Shirley Jackson was a realist. She wrote realism, not just gothic horror.
I agree, actually writing another Jackson video looking more at the domestic realism side of her writing - Rosie
And the unfortunate side effect of the expectation that the outcast deserves the ousting….we really aren’t that far away from species that check out fellow creatures status by sniffing a newcomer’s crotch. We can do better, so why don’t we?
Actually it was the US draft. Vietnam War was going on at the time.
@@CT-uv8osYou're more than a decade too early. "The Lottery" was published in 1948. But the horror of friends/family/neighbors turning on you without a second thought can be applied to a lot of real-life situations, then and now. That's partly why the story is a classic.
One of the things I find particularly striking in this story is way Jackson defines the genders. The mother is passive, ineffectual, unable even to protect her child from a stranger. The daughter is, significantly, a baby and helpless even to the point of falling over if not supervised every minute. The boy, on the other hand, is vibrant, assertive, curious. And the man, whose ranks the boy will one day join, when he's old enough to smoke cigars, takes complete control of the encounter, to the point of usurping the boy's loyalty for his mother. This is the way society still works, and it was even stronger back then, when there were no dissident voices protesting the social order.
Another point to consider is imagery of the witch. A witch is a fairy tale character, and unabridged fairy tales, with their wolves and ogres are actually very useful for childhood learning. From the safety of their beds, children can think about future encounters with dangerous people and decide what to do if they meet one. Have you ever heard a small child respond to a fairy tale like this? "If I ever meet that monster, I'll shoot him, BANG! And I'll cut him up in pieces!" Without foreknowledge of wickedness, an adult who grew up without scary stories is a sitting duck for the first opportunist who comes along. However, in this story, the boy isn't safely tucked up in bed, and the storyteller himself seems like a kind of wicked wolf. It's unlikely that he really did all those things to his sister - it's pretty hard for a kid to dismember a human body, for example, and where would he have found a caged bear to feed the head to? But I think his dual aim in telling this, is to remind the mother that she's helpless to oppose him, and to intrigue the boy with a glimpse into the realm of male dominance that is hi s birthright.
I actually wasn't shocked by the man's anecdote, because this, of course, is a Shirley Jackson story. As soon as he said "Shall I tell you what I did?" I was prepared for something outrageous, so I was a little confused at first when he spoke of rocking horses and lollipops. But that was soon put right when he went on from there, and I found myself back in familiar territory.
I don't think what the mother says sounds like she's addressing a child, necessarily. "What do you think you're doing?" seems like pretty commonplace response when you observe someone hurting something or someone you love. I might say something similar. But I do agree that the man talks to the boy mostly like another little boy, not an adult, which is telling, I think. I think that the story is about two things--the everyday violence with which we surround ourselves and our families (in fairy tales, cartoons, video games, movies, many books, and, in the real world, war and murder and guns, etc.) but the horror and shock we react with when it occurs or seems likely to occur in the real world nearby. Violence is for THEM, not us; it's in stories, not real. But of course, we know we live in a violent world. The story also subtly calls out a sexist subtext--the man joins forces with the male in the group (small as he is), while the jokes and stories all revolve around female victims--sisters and the mother.
Thanks for this, I enjoyed reading your interpretation, and totally agree about the sexist subtext - Rosie
as a female horror author, Shirley has always been a huge inspiration. She was amazing!
I love The Witch and am almost sure my deceased mother-in-law had read it as she took a real joy in telling people and especially children outrageous threats. The first time I read it all I could see was her face as the man. I think she too wanted to see how people would handle it, at my baby shower she didn't bring a gift and stated to my old mom and aunts that she always waits in case the baby is born dead, I had to hear about that for years and the most horrifting thing to the ladies is that she was a labor and delivery RN,
And maybe a sociopath, too.😮
Stranger danger is more of a real threat, than the reinforcement of tales that all Witches are evil mean old hags.
Of course I am biased, as I am a Crone now & still practice my Craft. I'm retired to a very rural, conservative Christian, community. I'm good with animal emergencies & difficult births. I hire local youth to help with chores on Saturdays; teaching safety, self worth, good communication, animal husbandry & foraging skills, while we work together. Every All Hallows Eve families are invited for Seasonal decor & a cauldron brimming with candies.
Not all Witches need to be feared.
Agreed! 🧙♀️- Rosie
I mean, working in L&D, she no doubt saw a number of babies born dead.
I kinda like her. Nurses generally have morbid senses of humour. The rather have to.
Shirley Jackson's writing amazes me. Seemingly effortlessly, she uneases using commonplace actions and things. She respected the intellect of her readers and allowed them to interpret as they saw fit. "The Witch" did surprise me, Indeed. I also find her family writing charming, a precursor to modern Mommy Blogs. I wish she lived longer. I would have enjoyed watching her writing evolve.
Yes I love her family stories too! Life among the Savages ❤
Yes, she is amazing at making the domestic unsettling. It would’ve been interesting to see what else she would have written. Thanks for watching - Rosie
Popping in here late, but wanted to say that my read on The Lottery makes me think of how in our capitalistic society, there will always be a hierarchy and thus a needed sacrifice, usually being someone who is marginalized in some capacity (gender, race, class etc). Like the elders in the village, we are also told much of the time that “it was always like this” and “nothing but capitalism works.” All while we watch people die unhoused and without healthcare. It’s also interesting how the mother is the one to be sacrificed, and how gleeful the sons are to be spared over their mother. It very much feels like Jackson, who writes a lot about feminist issues (even if she didn’t identify as such at the time), wrote it to be the mother chosen for the lottery very pointedly, as it’s often the case that women are the scapegoats for the faults of society.
This story reminds me of a short story by Saki called "The Story-Teller". There's a similar setup, with several unruly children travelling on a train with their aunt, and a gentleman tells them a story about a good little girl who ends up being devoured by a wolf. It does have a payoff, though: the indignant aunt tells him off, and he replies that his story at least kept them quiet for 10 minutes, which was more than she could do.
I was reminded of that story too. Thanks for mentioning it. It's one of my favorite Saki stories.
I wish more people read Saki these days. I loved his stories when I read them.
How i can get the novel "Hangsaman" by shirley jackson? Please somone answer me♥️
Actually, I’ve just checked Amazon, and found it!@@rayenmellah8977
This is EXACTLY what I was thinking of!
I see it as a lesson as the benignity of evil. The sun is shining, children playing, etc. And yet,evil is there just under the surface.
Agreed! - Rosie
Thank you, I didn’t know about The Witch. In college I gave an oral presentation on Jackson, specifically about The Summer People. In preparation for that presentation I learned she said she was, in a way, proud The Lottery had been banned some places because this told her those people, at least, understood it.
When I first read the story I wondered if the old man was imaginary, representing the boy's inner thoughts and feelings about his sister. I wondered if his reflection in the window was the witch he saw. I wondered if the boy was having a conversation with himself out loud.
That's a cool idea
Mouse the cat reminds me so much of my cat, Kat. She was such a sweetheart. The only thing she ever wanted was to be with me and in my lap. I miss her so much, but I appreciate that I was able to have known her.
The story of the Lottery , upon a second reading, revealed that Jackson had foreshadowed to the reader what was about to happen. Some of the families needed the oldest son to draw the lottery, which meant the father was probably the winner in a previous drawing.
Wow. I had never thought of that. Chilling.
we read the lottery in the 7th grade, and to this day, 5 years later, i simply have never forgotten it. it was just that deeply unsettling
I agree, very unsettling, Jackson is the master of discomfort. Thanks for watching - Rosie
Yes, I thought that was disturbing. I can't imagine reading this story in school!
Why the hell would a teacher introduce Shirley Jackson to 7th graders? High school seniors would be much more able to deal with her work.
I'm glad we read it in Grade 6 or 7. It made me pay attention to literature that was not just about dull people living dull lives.
We read The Lottery in 7th grade, too, along with several other short stories including The Scarlet Ibis and The Most Dangerous Game. I couldn't believe that assigned reading could be so much fun, even though The Scarlet Ibis left me crying.
Shirley Jackson is a classic! I vividly remember reading “The Lottery” for the first time and being captivated as a young teenager. Jackson was a genius, no question.
Recently purchased this collection remembering "The Lottery" from high school English...and realized that I'd completely forgotten reading "The Witch" in the same class, and being just as shocked and unsettled by it then as now. It's a great little story. Both of them are frightening but for different reasons. I'd never picked up on the "motherly" tone of the mother scolding the man until now. I always read the story as a spooky look into how the same words or tone are received so differently depending on who shares them. The child shares his fairy tale story (to himself), and the man echoes the tone and words in his own story. As he keeps talking, it does seem unlikely that he actually did all those things...but we're still freaked out by it. It's not necessarily the content that's scary; it's the way he takes on a voice and role which is inappropriate in every sense of the word. Isn't it fascinating to realize that what frightens us is first "Did this guy murder his sister?" but then becomes "Who the hell says this kind of stuff to a CHILD, IN PUBLIC?" Presumably someone who is capable of much worse things. The child's response is fascinating too - while at first he responds positively to the man's attention, he appears to end the encounter by demonstrating a child's most profound and unsettling characteristic: absolutely withering insight. Love this gem.
I see the man’s response as “Oh, you want to talk about witches?” And then he lays the reality of adult life in the world on him and makes a joke of it to show that you cannot just freeze up because the world is horrific. The mother shows that she will protect her own by threatening the man. This highlights a difference between her and the strangers of the world. When the boy finally turns on the man after playing along, he is recognizing that the man is the monster for attacking his own. I believe the man really does represent the witch of aggregate humanity that will commit crimes that many of its members would never commit alone.
This story reminds me of the times where you hear people making really not okay jokes and statements, but you’re the only one in the room that thinks they’re not okay, so you just nod your head and chuckle halfheartedly
An aspect of terror and horror in this story that I haven't seen people touch up on as much is the baby. The baby sister(s) in the story become one and the same to me. One cannot help but imagine the baby in front of the boy being the one that's being mangled and destroyed. This, added with how the baby is already hurt before in the story: when his brother goes to comfort her and she reacts positively, clearly trusting him. However, once the man sits down, she's only mentioned to show she falls sideways, yet again delicate as babies are and in danger. While we're focusing on the old man (who clearly is a threat to the boy), the boy and his mom, all I can think about looking back is WHERE IS THE BABY?! Not only in the subconscious idea of "Did this man grab her? Clearly he has a fantasy he's not afraid to speak out loud nor is he disgusted at of hurting young girls." But also, because she has bumped her head before. What if she falls? What if the strap suffocates her? The dismissal of the baby continues until the end of the story. The last time she's mentioned is mid conversation between the boy, the old man and the woman, as stated before. This means one cannot check-in on her, and even leaves place for the fantasy of the-old-man-as-witch, having kidnapped the baby as witches often do.
I appreciate your mention of historical context, and its importance to understanding the author's intent - in this case, 'The Lottery'. Shirley Jackson (one of my all-time favorite authors) wrote many excellent, and rather chilling short stories, examining the social, mental, and emotional lives of women in post-war America, using the Gothic convention. I also loved your observations on 'The Witch'. Jackson was so good at distilling what seems a simple scene, or series of action in the story, down to just a few pages, but which leaves the reader with a myriad of questions and interpretations. She actually wrote a very insightful essay on the crafting a short story, 'Notes For a Young Writer', in which she speaks to the use of 'economy' in writing, I think is included in a posthumous collection of stories and lectures, titled 'Come Along With Me'. Thank you for a very well-done piece, and I'm happy to subscribe. :)
Thanks very much, and thanks for the reading suggestions, will certainly check them out ❤️ - Rosie
I didn't discover Shirley Jackson until I was in high school, so when I eagerly dived into her novel "The Bird's Nest" I thought "Oh, this is Jackson's very good fictional treatment of "The Three Faces of Eve" - the main difference being that Lizzie has four personalities, and Eve only three. BUT THEN years later I noticed an oddity - THE BIRD'S NEST was published in 1954, and THREE FACES not until 1957, so Jackson's story is actually the original here. (Of course THREE FACES was made into a very good movie with Joanne Woodward, while BIRD'S NEST was made into a much less well-known film called LIZZIE, with Eleanor Parker and a cameo by a very young and totally hot Johnny Mathis singing "It's Not for Me to Say.") But now I'll probably go to my grave wondering if EVE's authors plagiarized Jackson.
Thank you for sharing this.
The Three Faces of Eve was based on the case of Christine Costner, a famous real-life multiple personality, who had many more than three "faces". I'm not sure what Jackson's sources were for her story, but there were accounts of multiple personality out there. Christine Costner's case is fascinating, and complex and worth checking out, if you're interested. She wrote several memoirs, most of them more or less exploited by other people, including the psychiatrist who had been treating her (to little effect). Another cultural spin-off was the Siouxie and the Banshees single "Christine" - "the Strawberry Girl" and" Banana-Split Lady" were other alter egos of Costner.
Everyone else has shared all the positivity regarding your content and analysis itself, so I’ll just chime in that the little set and background you’ve created is lovely and whimsical
Yeah, that's something I noticed, too. It's very charming compared to the typical garishness seen on other channels.
Normally I just hear these kind of videos but one glance of the folded papers hanging gave me ideas for my own room!
as a millennial my frame of reference for decontstruction of gender is the 90s anime Revolutionary Girl Utena, and i can't help but think of it with The Witch. In shirley jackson's story, the old man quickly brings the boy on "his" side, against his mother and sister, a microcosm of gender enforcement and misogyny. In the anime, a recurring theme is how every character is forced into gender roles, and how the titular character tries to navigate being "a girl who is a prince". in fact, an iconic line is "a girl who cannot become a princess is doomed to become a witch", and "in a way, all girls are Rose Brides, in the end". the show shows how all women are vulnerable to all men, just like this story pits a small boy against his adult mother.
You spooked me when you touched a floating book and it began to sway. I thought it was a bookish design on the wallpaper
Both stories remind me of the quote by Voltaire that "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
When I was a kid, I loved reading Shirley Jackson’s memoirs about her family: Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons. If you prefer humor to horror, read these. She could write anything.
I read somewhere once that there are only two genres that can tell a story about family: comedy and horror.
The gentleman on the train is speaking to the little boy's ambivalence towards his baby sister. One might surmise that up until her arrival, he had been his mother's one and only. now She is taking up his mother's time and attention. What first born child has not, at one time or another, daydreamed of doing violence to the infant sibling.
An interesting interpretation, not one I’d thought of. Thanks for watching! - Rosie
I agree completely!!
Absolutely. The story speaks to the violent impulses we all have, but thankfully, most of us do not act on. (I speak as an oldest child with a good memory!) It is oddly reminiscent of Saki's much less terrifying, but also subtly unsettling, short story, "The Storyteller", in which a stranger on a train tells two children what seems at first to be a typically moralistic late Victorian tale about a very, very good little girl, but then she ends up getting eaten by a wolf. The children's governess is shocked, but the children love it.
The Lottery is Jackson's masterpiece. She takes the ancient notion of the scapegoat and joins its primitive roots in human sacrifice directly to an utterly believable modern setting. It is uncomfortable because it does not let us tell ourselves that we are too civilised, too modern, to do such things. Written the the McCarthy era, it is an equally disturbing read in the "Hang Mike Pence" Trump era.
I think both stories remind us that Shirley Jackson is discussing the ways that misogyny permeates society The first story, The Lottery is about women losing power once they become less attractive and less fertile. That the mother is outspoken is interesting. The 12 year old on the other hand is just starting that life cycle, and has more perceived value in society.
The second story The Witch has symbolically shown the narrative of fear about women’s wisdom with the boy exclaiming he just saw a witch. The baby has no power because it is not close to being fertile and is therefore devalued by society. Look at criminal convictions if a parent murders their child, the offense is not taken nearly as seriously as if they murdered an adult. I’m not sure how the mother fits in other than misogyny is being taught to her son and she has no power to control it nor contain it and it’s being taught to her son in a very immature language. What’s scary is that the man has embraced that hatred so young and is now imparting that doctrine on her son so young as well in a most heinous way.
I had a similar experience to “The Witch” quite awhile back while waiting for the bus. An old man started commenting on a woman who was shouting in hysterics about something no one around understood, but we knew it was family related. I can’t recall much on that conversation’s nonsense, but the most notable of it being the man’s blatant misogyny as he said “woman are such emotional creatures” and me staring at him with such violence, as the kid that sat beside him had no idea what he was in for and was just so confused! I couldn’t help but pity him. Here I thought this man was trying to strike up a good conversation, then all of a sudden I was screaming murder for him to shut up and leave me and the kid alone! He truly was a witch, and I wanted him gone for good. Beautiful video.
I forgot that Shirley Jackson wrote “The Lottery”! Absolutely one of the best horror short stories ever, and made a deep impact on me, along with Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
I didn't realize how much history I needed to know as a reader until I took my first English class in college. The context and history of the time is almost a character in some of the better prose we read. I've really enjoyed your vlog. It's been a fascinating study of the gothic.
“Two old women” is the name of a book written by First Nation writer from Alaska. It’s about a “ lottery” type
Situation that more than likely took place at one time. Great little read.
I read Two Old Women many years ago. I have to disagree with the interpretation that it had anything to do with a 'lottery.' The Inuit tribe was in desperate times, and the tribal leaders required that they should leave behind the titular characters to fend for themselves in the wild because they were slowing down the rest of the group who were unable to feed and take care of them anymore. This happens even though they are all very ashamed of it. Ultimately the two women do fend for themselves very well, because they knew it was a life or death situation, and they had strong wills, and each other to depend upon. In the end, it was not a death sentence for the two women. I thought it was a very inspiring story about the resilience of the human spirit. Obviously the (very rare) practice of leaving the elderly behind when they were not useful to the tribe anymore did not always end so well, but it is important to point out there is a massive difference in the way victims are chosen in The Lottery. It is completely random and no characters feel shame or guilt whatsoever. There is ultimately no reason for it, except the underlying implication that the whole town are dark occultists.
Amazing video!!! I’m an Australian student about to graduate from uni with an English major and I particularly love Australian gothic esp in short story form, as I feel it really subverts the common tropes of European gothic. If you take requests at all, I’d love to see you cover Barbara Baynton’s ‘The Chosen Vessel’, which is my favourite short story of all time about a woman alone with her baby in the bush. Deeply unsettling! The Baynton Bush Studies anthology is brilliant and gives such an interesting insight into how frontier and then post colonial australian settler life acted upon European literary tropes. Slightly off topic but I also remember writing an essay Henry Lawson’s ‘The Bush Undertaker’ in my first year which is another iconic piece of australian frontier settler gothic. Some very interesting discussion to be had about how Indigineity is rendered in much Australian gothic (obviously in quite a racist and problematic way, but it is interesting that most of these older works have a sense of the inherent Aboriginal presence in the land and the way that Australian Aboriginal culture is intimately tied to and inherently found within the land), and I have also noticed that real estate is a big factor in some more modern Australian works which in a way reflects the older subversion of the kinda Poe-esque idea of the gothic house Victorian haunted mansion type thing into the corrugated iron shacks of settler Australian life. Yeepers sorry for the paragraph, but yeah you have earned a new sub and I reckon it would be so interesting to see you cover Australian gothic particularly from the settler era!
Oh wow, thanks for the recommendation! I know absolutely nothing about Australian Gothic but I’m fully intrigued now, I’ll check out the story - Rosie
I was recommended your channel after looking into more about Shirley Jackson and I'm so glad I found you! what a lovely insight into Shirley's writing and I love how you present your videos. I feel like I'm listening to my favourite English teacher x
Aw thank you so much, that’s lovely to hear 🥰 pleased that you enjoy our content - Rosie
This is one of my favorite stories. 6th grade was never the same after my honor’s English discussion about this story. We had a reading specialist who loved hearing out ideas.
We dissected the story about its commentary on the society. We discussed how there is an naïve element about the community. It’s not brutal to them because the lottery is based on chance. The oresence of the old men is an illustration. We thought it served as a kind of justice system. Like the “Hunger games”.
We (6th graders) thought she was stoned to death.
I’m 39 and I still think about this
It seems to be the kind of story that really sticks with a person after they read it. I agree, to the community it’s just another part of life that’s based on chance, so not brutal. That’s interesting about it being a kind of justice system - do you mind elaborating on that?
Thanks so much for watching and for your comment! - Rosie
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Are you a bot? @@sleepyjoe4359
@@sleepyjoe4359 off subject.
@@jamesholland8057 King of Kings and Lord of Lord. God and Lord of all creation. The Name of the Most High, Jesus Christ, before Whom all powers of the enemy are rendered void. ✝️
I love all things Shirley Jackson. Probably have read We Have Always Lived in the Castle six times. The Lottery too. Another brilliantly disturbing story is One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts. Also memorably chilling is the Daemon Lover. I love her autobiographical books, which are hilarious.
Thank you for covering The Witch. Jackson once again catches us in her web of ordinary life, only for the spider of fear to pounce. What I love is that the horrible man and his behavior COULD be any evil or malignant stranger’s, and the violence the little boy joins in could be rather typical, and the mother’s uncertainly as to how to respond seems normal-but the final line and title suggesting the man was a witch is truly chilling. It’s pulling the cover back a tiny bit to see a darker, scarier reality that we’re not sure we can believe in or trust. She was SO GOOD!
Thanks for sharing this, it really is a chilling ending. I looove We Have Always Lived in the Castle! And also writing something on The Daemon Lover - Rosie
I love her short stories and am onto the novels now.
And i have to say, I almost forgot about this one. I have these kinds of weird situations with random strangers in my old hometown. I don’t find it that shocking; just very revealing...
Thank you for this! 🧙🏾♀️
You’re very welcome! - Rosie
i was playing a game on my phone as i was watching/listening (i have the video in a window) and hearing what the says made me gasp. At this point 16:44 i paused the video, as i had to digest what he said. The raw shock and fear i felt listening to this story is quite incredible. Her writing is amazing
The boy goes back to his seat, and looks out the window. "Prob'ly he was a witch."
...
The mother opened her mouth to say something, to point out that there were no such things as witches but, as the boy stared out the window and seemed to have given the encounter no further thought, she folded her hands in her lap and stared at the door to the compartment. She ran the words the old man had said through her mind over and over until finally she could sit still no longer and stood, walked to the door. She looked back at the boy.
"I'm going to get us something to drink," she said. "And...and maybe some snacks. Would you like that?"
The boy turned his face from the window and nodded.
"Then take care of your sister while I'm gone. I'll only be a minute, ok?"
The boy nodded again. And smiled.
I actually commented this first on a later video of yours - When I was in 6th grade, they showed us "The Lottery", I love horror, but I have never been the same.
However, I also found it to be a karmic tale, because one of the strongest proponents of the Lottery, before the results were known and there was little danger, instantly did a 180 when she became the victim of her own belief.
As a gay kid watching the film in the 70s in school, I totally got that people you trust will turn on you. I got it.
I tried reading Shirley Jackson's anthology of short stories when I was a teenager, got confused by "The Demon Lover" and gave up. When I saw this video posted, I went and dug out that book that I still had and began reading it again. I can appreciate the "domestic horror" so much more now. Jackson's horror is creeping and insidious and subtle. It's the slow build of unease that never gets released with a jump scare or a confrontation.
One thing that really caught my attention in "The Witch" that this video didn't mention was how the little boy seemed to be a little suspicious of the man from the first. When asked his age, he gave silly answers that couldn't possibly be true and when asked his name he says, "Mr. Jesus." (Absolutely fine and even praiseworthy, in my 21st century opinion.) Yet the mother corrects his answers and tells the man the boy's true age and name. She trusts this stranger right away and only later loses all trust. Meanwhile, the boy gets over his mistrust even shares some hilarity over frightening his mother. I think that's interesting but I don't know yet what to make of it.
Thanks for this! Did you take another run at 'The Daemon Lover'? - Rosie
@@books_ncatsI did, and it makes a lot more sense now!
Writing is my jam. Cats are my jam. Subscribed.
The most frightening part of this story is the seed the okd man planted in the little boy, and how quickly it grew roots.
The movie The Haunting seen at 12, remains with me still. Newest version is great also. Incredibly scary.
Oh yes!!! Loved that film absolutely THE SCARIEST
That movie terrified me as a kid and I don’t use that word lightly.
@@CJG1419 I understand.
I read that story as part of my English literature lessons at a quite young age, maybe 11 or 12. I've only read it once and I'll likely never read it again, I'll never need to I'll remember it forever.
I am totally incapable to analyze a story like the Witch. I've read that story in her book Come Along with Me. I didn't have a clue what it meant or if it meant anything. Thank you so much for you insight and intellect. Being able to read doesn't mean insight.
Ah thank you, that’s nice of you to say ☺️ - Rosie
There is something in the unwavering loyalty to ritual in ‘The Lottery’ that I felt in my first reading of it in high school that has always intuitively linked it to the grim bloodletting of Innsmouth and the mythos of Lovecraft. I do not believe there is any real world connection between Jackson and ol’ HP, but in my head, there is a subtext of uncanny, warped community hysteria that exists in both.
I forget the title, but she wrote a really beautiful book about a girl who goes to college and has a psychotic break. It plays on the whole Gothic Trope of "is this insanity or is this happening" but it really gets dire and frightening.
Oh if you ever remember the title please share. I'd love to read it!
Are you maybe thinking of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar?
Are you talking about The Hangsaman?
Ooh I don’t know that one - please do share if you remember! - Rosie
Hangsaman is my absolute favorite by her.
Just found this channel and it is SUPERB! ❤
Thanks so much! Glad you like our stuff ❤️
Ditto
I remember The Lottery being shown to our class in school when I was in junior high. I’m 60 years old now and I’ve never forgotten it!
Same. In that era of bad educational films (excuses for the teacher to have a smoke break), The Lottery was a gut punch and left me shaken.
First video I’ve watched of yours.
Mouse the cat is so precious…I think I like it here lol
You had me at Mouse the cat! I love our feline companions but have always felt they lean notably toward the aloof and acerbic. Mouse would love the sardonic wit in their name!
My daughters once had a rabbit they named, for reasons unknown, “Puppy”.
I adore Shirley Jackson and loved her writing from childhood. I'm 70 and had a pathologically eccentric family who felt if something was worthy of being published it was worthy of reading. ( they didn't judge age, only intellect, as a result I couldn't get to the bathroom without flipping on lights )
She was born in the Burlingame area of San Francisco. She recalled an eerie sort of realm in a particular location and this inspired her eerie writing. We had a home in the same area and indeed I found something strangely unsettling about this place.
Imagine my surprise learning Shirley Jackson observed this when I read her biography a few years ago. She moved to New England while still in school so I always thought she was a native New Englander.
That’s fascinating! Can you say more about the Burlington eeriness?
The winding streets all basically in view of the bay make you feel like spirits are watching you and then you think you've seen something out of the corner of your eye. Then when you really look nothing is there and you think your eyes are playing tricks. Read her biography "Shirley" I read it a few years ago and that is where it mentions her feeling in Burlingame.
Wow, thanks for this, very interesting biographical info - Rosie
Jackson was so amazing at distilling anxiety & helplessness for me.
This story reminds me of a roommate coming home from work, she worked at a retail store with tall aisles. She could only hear a child saying so pleasant and sweetly "I shot you, mommy! I shot you!"
I think the story that freaked me out and stuck most in my memory was one about a shy man who loved his apartment. Another apartment dweller comes to visit him, and displaces him. She basically talks and shares a drink and then shoos him out of his own space, and he is stuck trying to settle in to her gross, unsettling unit.
It's such a surreal and silly sounding horror that it really bothered me! It makes absolutely no sense, because you know legally, this isn't really going to happen. Yet the feeling is that somehow she enchanted or changed reality so that she took over his comfortable, tidy and lovely home and he will never be able to get back to a good place.
I know the story! I also found it freaky, it’s so subtle in the way it disturbs. A soft displacement of power that leaves the shy man locked out of everything he holds dear - Rosie
I always thought the lottery was rigged. Mrs. Hutchinson knows she's been unpopular this year. She's pretty sure it's going to be her and that knowledge is where her "it's not fair" comes from.
Hmm interesting! - Rosie
It's an interesting thought, but I have to disagree. Mrs. Hutchinson showed up a little late to the proceedings because, as she explains in the story, she forgot what day it was, then remembered as soon as she noticed her children's absence. She was doing her dishes around that time, as she told her husband later, and wasn't going to leave until they were done, a detail that reveals that she's a person who likes things kept in order, which probably includes maintaining order in a community by respecting its rituals and traditions. Once her chore was done, though, as she told Mrs. Delacroix, she "came a-running" to the village square. She's just as invested in maintaining the ritual of the annual lottery and participating in it as all of the other villagers present. Until it gets personal, anyway. That's when she reveals her hypocrisy and the ugliest, cruelest, most self-serving part of human nature, crying out that the drawing that day - not the lottery itself - was unfair, then demanding that her married daughter Eva draw with the Hutchinson family to decrease the odds that she, Mrs. Hutchinson, will draw the paper with the black dot during the household drawing. We can assume she didn't scream about the unfairness of the lottery, or its results, in the years preceding the story, and she wouldn't have spoken up about the injustice of it all if a Delacroix or a Martin or a Jones had drawn the black dot, so there was no one to speak up for Tessie Hutchinson when the lottery finally came for her life.
I had to read The Lottery in school, but I honestly don't remember how old I was, it could have been 8th grade or sophomore year, I genuinely don't know. I am excited to watch this video and re-learn about it.
The "horror" that Jackson reveals in many of her works is amplified by the ordinariness of its setting. Both "The Lottery" and "The Witch" exemplify it. It was a rather perverse reaction, I believe, to her early publications about her children and family life, where she turned the drudgery and frustrations of the "housewife" into something charming, cutesy, and meaningful. In "The Witch", she reveals that even "innocent" children aren't quite what they purport to be. Stephen King, later on, learned from Jackson that lesson and its why he often uses children as being capable of evil or being used by evil. I think its fascinating, as well, to look at the sixties television sitcom "Bewitched" as an attempt to sanitize the supernatural and yet, it still used the character of "Tabitha" as a reminder that a 'witch" could be the baby in the carriage in the park.
I think for me the impact of The Witch is heightened by how eerily in line it is to experiences I have had on trains. While I was studying I regularly traveled 12hrs by train to visit my family and strange things like this happen. One instance found me sitting next to a rather bedraggled older man who was altogether to insistent that I should sleep on his shoulder, he told me of how I reminded me of his mother, and he loved her cooking, all of a sudden the tone shifted to how vitriolic his hatred for her was, and he began miming how he would beat up animals in far to much detail "just for looking at him" the whole time laughing as if he were telling a great story. Another trip I taught a young boy to tie his shoelaces, and played 4+hours of eye spy like games, to distract him from concocting plans in grotesque detail about how he would kill his elderly Nanny who sat beside him seemingly unbothered by his imaginings of elaborate Rube-Goldbergesque traps with levels of violence that were so unsettling to hear from a child.
I vividly remember reading “The Demon Lover” (I believe that’s what it was called) and being shocked by the ending of it. It’s nowhere near as shocking as the last story mentioned, but I remember that similar awkward feeling at the end. Shirley Jackson is a wonder!
I didn't know that Shirley Jackson wrote the Lottery! I read it in middle school English class
I read that, yrs back, an interviewer asked S. King why he wrote the type of material he did.
His reply supposedly was, "What makes you think I have a choice?"
"The Lottery" is not specifically about the evils of tradition such as sacrifice or witch trials. While those things are manifestations of what is at the heart of the story, they are specific sorts of crimes on their own. What happens in "The Lottery" is a more pure, nonspecific demonstration which plays out a terrible truth of human existence which is that while some may pretend that activities such as public executions are oh just terrible things aren't they, if one is announced, people will turn out to witness them in droves and really enjoy the spectacle.
The criticism in the story is directed both at the people who assemble because they can't wait to enjoy seeing someone else killed in a painful and dehumanizing way and also those who organize such spectacles -- which do not have to be big deals staged by royal pigs like Henry VIII who got a sexual thrill out of seeing the heads of his wives who could not please him sexually bloodily separated from their bodies, the sadism that people enjoy inflicting upon others, often consensually "as a group," which makes it OK, can be small-scale as well. Over and over you hear stories of girls in middle school who will gang up on one in their group that may be looked at as weaker or less attractive than others and throw her out of their little social gang with public humiliation or psychological assassination via social media.
The truth is that some people enjoy being part of a larger group that makes it OK by virtue of their numbers (or self-declared power) for them to psychologically and physically destroy a sometimes totally random person JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT, and possibly because they share the illusion that being able to do so makes them stronger.
The reason isn't necessarily important though or always the same. "Witches" can be created by a simple accusation as can be enemies of the state. It doesn't matter what the ostensible crime is supposed to have been. What matters is the power felt when the pain is inflicted upon the victim and the ability to be able to witness that. And if it is true that the victim in the display of blood and humiliation is NOT GUILTY of any serious crime, that just adds to the potential enjoyment in the situation as the victim pleading for his or her innocence and the knowledge that it will be in vain just makes their death screams that much more enjoyable.
What "The Lottery" says is absolutely terrifying because its message is that any group -- your church, your school, your government, even your family -- can just decide ARBITRARILY they want to make a spectacle out of your painful destruction at any time, if it wants to -- for any reason, even the slightest, for possible self-empowerment or JUST TO HAVE A BIT OF SADISTIC FUN at your expense, or possible loss of blood, mental health, or even life.
Anyone who has ever been targeted this way knows exactly how cruel other humans can be AND OFTEN ARE as they assemble in groups then choose their victims.
Humans are one of very few species on Earth that actually will kill each other just for the sake of killing. I think there may be some particularly vicious species of tiger that does this, I forget what they are but it's rare. There have also been some ancient species of human that would leave imperfectly-born babies out to die on hillsides but that's not exactly the same thing as what The Lottery is about. Which involves a victim who is not somehow "unfit" or necessarily culpable in any way, chosen by a group which may ostensibly have something to say that justifies that person's prolonged and horriific murder such as a promise of a good crop season to come, who the goal is to mentally destroy and kill painfully and enjoy the spectacle they have created and feel blameless about having helped make happen.
Torture porn movies seem to have run their cycle but they replaced public executions for a while. Now race-based and other selective murders seem to have replaced them and the direction of blame and murder-desire really escalated as reasons to justify random murders in the form of war as well seems to be on a sharp increase.
You can still watch a lot of public execution/"Lottery" type death stuff on CZcams as well; people are making video after video on such subjects, often on the topic of the deaths of cruel rulers, but still, the beheadings of Anne Boleyn and burnings at the stake and hangings of "witches" as well as nazi camp guards etc. are getting a LOT of views.
As I said though the really terrifying thing about "The Lottery" compared to other comparable tales is that the victim in the situation is selected ARBITRARILY and KNOWN to be innocent, not only does she know this herself, but everyone involved does, but they all continue to pick up stones.
That's the core of the story, right there. That even her little boy will throw one when given the opportunity.
Thanks for sharing this, I agree that the arbitrariness is terrifying. So much of Jackson’s writing has to do with innocent people (often women) being arbitrarily selected for some kind of cruelty - Rosie
Does anyone remember a short story about parents trying to hide their child’s deformity and the townspeople finding out and the child was thrown into a pond to drown? I remember this when I was in elementary school. It was horrifying to me because I have birth defects. The Lottery reminds me of this.
I spent a semester studying Shirley Jackson for one of my classes at University, specifically The Haunting of Hill House, but I also did a quick read of a few of her other novels to get a feel of her. I read The Haunting of Hill House over 10 times that semester, and I watched the 1963 version of the adaptation of the book probably just as many times. It’s the version that’s most faithful to Jackson’s novel. I was familiar with The Lottery because, like most Americans my age, I had been assigned it in middle school to study. I feel like I’m someone who knows and loves Shirley Jackson really well. I had never heard of The Witch and I didn’t expect it to take my breath away, but it sure did. I am shocked by your reading. And it kind of makes me happy that she still can do that to me.
Her short story, The Lottery haunts me still after 50 years! I think of it after mass shootings in our country that claims a very thirsty tree of liberty.
Jackson hit a nerve!!
I read The Witch for the first time today. Some of the other stories haven't really impressed me (The Villager) and I was sleepily reading. I got to the Witch and GASPED. This one really puts you on your ear.
One of the reasons people did not comprehend The Lottery is that, in 1948, speculative fiction had been ghettoized in the pulps for thirty years. Most people, especially of lit rags like The New Yorker, simply did not know how to read it. It's a learned skill when the whole background isn't spoonfed to the reader, and Jackson writes too well for that. It's not like the old days when specfi could turn up in Godey's Ladies' Book.
A Shirley Jackson story that really stuck with me was "The Possibility of Evil" I think what struck me about it is that it presents you with an objectively unlikable person, but at the end of the story when she finally get what's coming to her, it doesn't feel cool, it feels... weirdly twisted. (spoilers) all that happens is that her beloved rose garden gets destroyed, but it's written in such a way that it feels like you just witnessed a death, like they had killed her baby or something instead of just a bunch of flowers. Even if they are just flowers and even if she was an awful judgmental person, the end is just written with such a fill-in-the-blanks finality that you feel like it ends in an execution, and socially speaking, it kind of does.
Yeah honestly what I remember from Shirley jackson
@limelatern5637 I agree completely. “The Possibility of Evil” has a seething and sinister nature to it. What I found most disturbing is that no one suspected the seemingly pleasant old woman to be spreading malicious and pointed gossip until near the end of the story.
Both stories sound really interesting, but my first reaction to the talk from "The Witch" is - "just another day in customer service", cause weird talks happen a lot with that job
I cannot believe how much work you put into these videos! they're great, absolutely deserve more views!!!!!
This lady gives off a very comforting vibe
Oof, I'm just halfway trough the video, but the synopsis of 'the lottery really hits home. Even for a working mom in 2024 I feel this way. I feel even held responsible for making sure my husband does half of the housework. I'm being called when my kids are sick at school or at after school care... And while husbands are celebrated of they take their kids to an appointment, when I do it, I'm told I'm not doing it right... Al the while working like the man that doesn't have these worries... And like Shirley Jackson I love my husband and children dearly and wouldn't trade them in for an easy life...
I remember well, reading The Lottery in school. Such a good story, what a shift, from the description of the town, the people, and then the horror of being chosen. Never read The Witch it now I will. Love your style! I subscribed.
The Lottery and Other Stories is one of the greatest collections of short stories ever published! It’s up there with some of the short-story collections by Ray Bradbury, Richard Mathewson, and Stephen King.
This was bananas great. What a super entertaining presentation
What a marvelous commentary! Thank you!
Thank you! - Rosie
I just watched your other video in Jackson. Brilliant content! You're energetic, clever, and you're offering up great analysis. Love your work!
The person writing in asking where they can go to watch the lottery really said “May the odds be ever in your favor.”
Sounds like a good story! Sacrifice for the crops has been a trope since writing began! "Dark Harvest" is a movie that I watched around Halloween that is kind of similar! Thanks for the info!
When I said out loud "What the fuck." during the narrative of The Witch. Then, you said what the fuck. And I got even more spooked.
I really enjoyed your look at Jackson’s work, thank you.
I first read this brilliant story several months ago and was so pleased, having watched your video on the horrors of home life, to see that you had commented on "The Witch". To me, "The Witch" tells us simply that witches are real and that they can take any form. Well - I say simply, but my stomach dropped within several seconds of reading the last few lines. Thank you for highlighting Jackson's remarkable skill.
The Lottery reminds me of the Aztec civilization that willingly went to death as sacrifice to the gods.
I rather think the slaves and captured warriors from competing tribes weren't so willing,.
I read “the lottery” in high school. The name of the character that got stoned didn’t stick in my memory so I forgot it.
Now it’s 20 years later, and I’m married, with a new last name.
Hutchinson.
I’m Mrs. Hutchinson. 😳
FYI, We Have Always Lived in the Castle also has a Netflix adaptation
Adore her writing! Always surprises me.
I was not familiar with this short story! Thank you so much for sharing!
Jackson is my favorite author. Her ability to just show a mirror to the world is way more unsettling than pure fiction or monsters in the closet.
I've been familiar with "The Lottery" for decades, but it suddenly strikes me that thematically, it and Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" are the same story. The one difference is that Le Guin's universe contains people who refuse the system of vicarious suffering and leave.
Ooh interesting, I’m planning a video on Omelas - please would you be able to explain what you mean in more detail? - Rosie
@@books_ncatsBoth stories revolve around the idea that someone must suffer in order for the community to be safe and prosperous. Everything is fine! and beautiful! in our world! as long as you don't look too closely at that child in the dark cellar, or that strange annual ritual with the pieces of paper in a box. And surely the lottery is fair because the lot could fall on any of the villagers; the suffering of the neglected child is justified because it couldn't really appreciate a good life, could it, now that it's been locked up for so long?
In the preface to the story "The Day Before The Revolution" in her collection _The Wind's Twelve Quarters_, Le Guin speaks of Odo, the founder of the anarchist society of Anarres, as "one of those who walked away from Omelas". The chief principle of Anarresti society might be that no one suffers alone; either they all eat together, or they all starve together. I hope these thoughts are helpful!
Something that I took away was that the first time anyone loudly objected was Tessy, after she had been chosen. It reminds me of how some people can be so loudly pro-life/anti-choice, and then when they find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy, they start making 'excuses' about how they should be the exception to the rules they want everyone else to follow.
oooooh for sure!
A voracious reader, I read the Lottery when working as a page in the local library. It became a part of the underpinnings of my life-view, though not consciously, when the awakening of the civil rights movement suddenly made the connection.