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Her Planchette
An Exploration of Shirley Jackson's Work
Welcome, if you dare.
If you are not willing to face yourself, leave now. If you are not willing to be scared, leave now. If you are not willing to grow, leave now.
But if you dare...
Come Along With Me!
This is your last chance to leave unscathed!
As a child, I grew up watching horror movies. No, I mean it; as a c-h-i-l-d. I was 5 years old when I watched The Ring. Let’s postpone judgment on my upbringing and keep an open mind, for a moment, please.
Horror equipped me with a set of tools that I do not see in most people. I do not have “fear,” conventionally. This is a form of resilience in my opinion. Withholding fear; it is a form of strength constructed through enduring and enjoying rated R horror films in Kindergarten. Despite the disapproving eye rolls regarding my parents' approach to censorship, at least I am not a scaredy cat. If you judge me, so be it. I bet you’re just a scaredy cat.
Facetiousness and sarcasm aside, I do believe that horror equips you with a unique set of tools that many people lack; and as such, I think horror should be emphasized in society. We do not make people watch horror movies because they are scary. It is as if we force people into almost anything but horror; we think that it is not fair to make people scared. Scared is a feeling just like any other: love, happiness, laughter. Societally, we say that we shouldn’t force people to be scared. Well, rom-coms perturb me more than the entire Saw franchise, so what’s that about?
I began this project because I have a parasocial relationship with Shirley Jackson. I think she is one of the most brilliant, awe-inspiring authors of the 20th century. But what I must emphasize is that horror in text is different from horror in film. Horror in film shakes you to your core, you have nightmares about the face of Mama or Bagul from Sinister. Horror in text haunts you in an entirely different way.
Shirley haunts you by creating an unknown that is so certainly real but so uncertain plot wise that you are unsettled. It is not a scathing fear. It is an unsettling. But why do I think this is important? Why should we read these books in school?
Shirley’s novels elicit fear because they feel real; the supernatural is psychological. We do not know if the haunting exists, or if it is in the character’s head. We fear being these characters and having these things in our heads. We fear the realness.
I think we fear her writing so much because we are uncomfortable with the reality of fear. We can watch a romance movie and imagine being in love and everything is rainbow and sunshine and it all could be real. But the thought of our deepest fears becoming real? No we musn’t subject people to that.
I think that facing our fears is much more important than facing love. If we cannot face it, we are sure to have it.
I wrote analyses of three of Shirley's important works: The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and The Lottery. I wrote about their subsequent film adaptations, as well. I did not write a literary analysis in its classic form, no. I wrote in a style that is my own, inspired by Shirley.
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This style is intended for readability, and it is intended to scare you. It is present, fleeting, and it assumes a great deal of familiarity. I wanted you to read these analyses, even if you have not read Jackson's work, and to feel what horror can reveal to you, about yourself.
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I hope I succeeded; you can be the judge of that.
This is an introduction to what is beginning. If you are ready, I will take you to the hauntings, and you can find out for yourself...
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Why Shirley, why horror?
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The Hauntings
hirley Jackson's horror remains pertinent today. It is much simpler to see why for yourself than it is to let me explain.
Please open each book and delve into a world of peculiar, unsettling fate. And reality. And don't forget, you can always come home...
The Haunting of Hill House
Here you will learn about Shirley's Hill House, the novel and its adaptations. Remember, this novel follows Nellie; start at the beginning, or wherever you please. I would recommend starting at the beginning, if you dare.
Ruminations on Themes from an Opening Paragraph
Reality, Adjacent
Planchette
Psychological or Supernatural?
Belonging, Eleanor
Theodora
Hill House and I
The Haunting, 1963
The Haunting of Hill House, 2018
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Meet Constance and Merricat, who live in the Castle. Two sisters, no family; plagued by death by arsenic! Sometimes it seems that the things that are the least...haunted...are the most, might I say, peculiar? Please start at the very beginning, if you dare.
Merricat’s Opening
Who Lives in the Castle?
Merricat’s World
Haunted
Belonging, Distorted
The Castle
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, 2018
The Lottery
Here you will learn about Tessie Hutchinson and why you should think twice before hating her...
I read this story in 7th grade, and I surely hated Tessie.
But there are more Tessie's than not.
Are you afraid to read? Are you afraid you might...be her?
A Small Village
Tradition, Old Man Warner
Mrs. Hutchinson
The Lottery, 1969
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WHY SHIRLEY, WHY NOW?
hirley wrote her novels in the mid 20th century, she died in 1965. So why her, why now?
There is something about Shirley that is timeless. Horror and haunting are timeless, but so are our psychic manifestations. Mental health, perhaps is a better way to say it.
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Shirley was plagued by demons of the mind, and she used horror as a way to communicate these mental demons. The common ones that were, and are, thrust upon women. She was vulnerable in a time when people weren't. But she concealed this vulnerability through the supernatural to fool those who wouldn't understand.
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I think Shirley is now for many reasons; maybe a different reason for everyone. But I think it could be useful to think about quarantine.
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Our mental demons, well for many of us they came to light during quarantine. Too much time with the self. Shirley was an agoraphobic; see the connection? Books like Castle are reminiscent of the time we spent locked away in our houses. Fearing a plague. But what is much deeper than that is the uncertainty of our minds.
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I'm not sure any of us have recovered from the lockdown days. I think everyone changed, a little. We were confronted with our innermost demons, without a busy schedule and a busy street to distract us from our own minds.
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Shirley wanted us to look at our own minds far before COVID-19.
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She was ahead of her time, almost anticipating what was to come. She knew we were all running, hiding from ourselves. She knew that horror wouldn't let you hide from yourself. She knew that many people avoided horror as a genre. She used horror to make us look at ourselves.
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Shirley was not uncomfortable with the unknown; the reality of cruelty. She wrote safely in cruelty. We are drawn to her because she is unapologetically cruel and righteously demonic. We can't look away when we want to. We want her to give us a finite ending, but she will not. She will leave us with exactly what we do not want. Uncertain cruelty. Not everybody is good, and not everything has an answer. No heaven nor hell, good and evil are not yin and yang. They are not measured on a moral scale, they just are. And is there anything more frightening than that?
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I wrote a short piece, inspired by the style of Shirley.
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If you dare, keep scrolling to see my attempt at a contemporary Jackson-style haunting.
hen Shirley came upon me,
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My Attempt
I wanted to learn about her. I wanted to imagine a modern day Shirley that I could replicate today.
If you ask me, Shirley is the moment.
Reflections
Are you scared?
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I honestly doubt that you are. You felt a chill once or twice, or you thought, "this isn't so bad." It wasn't like that one time your friends made you watch a scary movie and you covered your eyes with a blanket, barely daring to peak at the boogeyman on the big screen. But now you feel...lost? Uncertain? Maybe even uncomfortable, or if you're like me, frustrated.
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Horror in film serves a different purpose than horror in text. This, I would argue, is not necessarily a result of the medium itself; rather, I think that the beauty in horror has been distorted in many films. Horror films make you J-U-M-P. Horror novels make you confront yourself.
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Why is that so?
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I think that our greatest fears lie within ourselves; Shirley, and writers like Stephen King and Poe, allowed us to confront ourselves in a way that is so terrifying that we are forced to question everything. I wonder, perhaps, if filmmakers did not know how to replicate this form of introspection. Maybe, they didn't think it would bust the block office. Or, maybe, they were scared of approaching such taboo topics: our minds, our reality, our pain.
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Let's pivot. A liberal arts education, a societally accepted treasure that many seek to achieve. Some say the liberal arts are useless. Some say they allow for the breadth and depth of study in multidisciplinary fields in order to better educate yourself in a well-rounded way to prepare for any career of your dreams, as I see on every liberal arts college's website.
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But I am not really being sarcastic; I do see value in expanding knowledge and being well-versed in many disciplines. This is where I ask, where is horror's place? If we use a magnifying glass and narrow in on the philosophy of a liberal arts education, we see that it is fundamentally based on being well-rounded. So, if we are thinking of an English Literature class, and we value its being well-rounded, why do we not read horror? Why do we only read white male authors in our cannon? Why don't we hear the history of the oppressed, rather than that of the so-called victors? Who filters our learning?
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Horror is a small piece of the puzzle. Education allows us to grow and understand ourselves and our place in the world. I worry, all too often, that education has been convoluted into a gigantic job search process. A degree is a milestone for the value of the diploma rather than the education that got you there. I have been working towards a career in law since I was 12; do I want to be a lawyer? What have I sacrificed in terms of my education to follow that goal? What did I miss? Horror seemed unimportant, a bizarre interest of mine. Not tactically useful until I began to question, what makes certain disciplines more useful than others?
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So, sometimes I read horror and I think that I understand Shirley and her fears and her qualms with society. She taught me more than I honestly wish to know; ignorance, as they say, is bliss.
Now I want to ask again, are you frightened?
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