Shirley Jackson was never pretty. Her mother’s wishful thinking of having a beautiful, smart daughter never came true. Shirley had strong interest in magic, witchcraft, and the occult. Since Shirley didn’t fit in she was treated harshley. Often Shirley wrote of cases where a person has difficulties dealing with things.

Shirley Jackson was born in 1919. She grew up as a child in California. Her mother was a housewife and her father worked for a lithographer.  As a child she was very interested in writing and at the age of 12 she one poetry contest. Throughout high school she kept a diary of all her writing progress. After high school she attended Rochester University. She only attended a short time because of a severe case of mental depression. She cured herself by staying at home and writing around 1000 words a day.

            Shirley’s mother hoped for a beautiful daughter and Shirley was not. Her mother worried when she married Frank Hyman, a Jewish writer. Shirley was never one to base her love on such things. She had four children, who she took care of during the day, and wrote her stories in her spare time. She was the opposite of what a normal 40’s housewife would have been.  Her stories usually were about a troubled woman, with the men in the story being diseased, disabled or dead.  The public disliked what she wrote about at the time but lately she’s been making a new scene.

Shirley’s Work

Novels

The Bird’s Nest

The Hangsaman

The Haunting of Hill House

The Road Through the Wall

The Sundial

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Children’s Works

The Bad Children

Famous Sally

The Witchcraft of Salem Village

9 Magic Wishes

Some Short Stories

After You, My Dear Alphonse

Charles

The Daemon Lover

Little Old Lady

The Lottery

My Life with R.H. Macy

            The story by Shirley Jackson that we read in class was, “The Lottery.”

In the story a town gathers in the central square for the annual drawing that goes on every year. People were standing in the square chatting until the time the drawing started. Someone from every family draws a slip of paper out of the old black box that had been used year after year. They were looking for the black dot which indicated a winner. Mrs. Hutchison had to draw the slip of paper for her family because she didn’t have a man to represent her. Mrs. Hutchison drew the slip with the black dot. She was then stoned by the villagers. She screamed protesting but her words made no difference.

            The story “The Lottery” is the effect of a town ritual upon a woman. The story is written in third person. The reader’s response to the story we read was shocking. We couldn’t believe that the town had a ritual torturing every year.  At the beginning of the story when kids were picking up rocks we thought nothing about it, only that they were being children. To the reader a lottery meant winning money, and we were totally shocked when the winning of the lottery meant you were going to be stoned. The townspeople thought it seemed normal, but to us we know from wrong and d and torturing anyone is wrong. The story came to show how people hold on to things because it’s always been done like that, even if it is wrong or there is a better way to do it.

            The short story that I read on my own was a story titled “Charles”. “Charles” was about a boy Laurie. He stared kindergarten and the very first day he started telling his parents about a boy named Charles. Charles would act up in class by throwing chalk, kicking people, telling children to say bad things, and beating up his classmates. Later Charles changed and he started being the teacher’s helper by handing out papers and picking up books and such. Laurie’s parents didn’t think Charles could change like this all of a sudden they didn’t believe that it was real. The PTA meeting was the next week Laurie’s mom wanted to meet Charles’ mother to ask her what happened to Charles. As his mother looked for a woman that might be Charles’ mother she found no one. She approached the teacher telling her how much Laurie liked kindergarten. The teacher commented on how they all like Laurie but he had a little trouble adjusting the first week, but no he was a fine little helper. Laurie’s mother suspected Charles as the influence. Come to find out, there was no Charles in the kindergarten class.

            When I read the story Charles it made me think of when I was younger and the kids who acted this way. Also, when I was younger and I didn’t make up fake people. The story did surprise me when I found out Charles did not exist and it was actually Laurie. The story was very easy to read, and I found it in an eighth grade literature text book. This story to me doesn’t reflect Shirley Jackson’s type of writing. But she wrote so much she sure to have a wide range of stories.

            The story teaches us that something can be going on and we may not even notice it. The story is told in first person point of view and is told by the mother. The story Charles is the effect of how parents raise their kids upon the kids. It’s written in first person. The problem is Charles who is teaching Laurie all these bad things and Laurie’s parents don’t think that he is ready for kindergarten. Later Charles starts acting better and the family starts showing signs of Charles. The climax is when Laurie’s mother goes to find out who Charles is. This is resolved when she finds out Charles does not exist.

            The story “Charles” can be found in the text book Elements of Literature Second Course, published by Holt Rinehart Winston.