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Shirley Jackson. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. Born 1916 – Died 1965 Childhood in California Graduated Syracuse U Married Stanley Hyman literary critic Wife, mother, writer. Jackson’s Work. N ovels S hort stories Poetry collections Children’s stories Memoirs BEST REMEMBERED: The Lottery
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Born 1916 – Died 1965 Childhood in California Graduated Syracuse U Married Stanley Hyman literary critic Wife, mother, writer
Jackson’s Work • Novels • Short stories • Poetry collections • Children’s stories • Memoirs BEST REMEMBERED: • The Lottery • The Haunting of Hill House • We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Publication of “The Lottery” • 1948 • Published in The New Yorker • Immediate outcry • Jackson resists requests to explain story
Jackson on “The Lottery” Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.
Jackson and Anti-Semitism • 1948: North Bennington, VT • Stanley Hyman – Jewish • Anti-semitic comments • Swastikas soaped on family’s windows • One potential example of such “inhumanity”
Sources • http://shirleyjackson.org/ • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Jackson • http://northbennington.org/jackson.html#