How Shirley Jackson exposed the horror of home life

Shirley Jackson was such a badass master of horror. Her story The Witch is about a sweet old man who goes around teaching young boys tales of violent misogyny under the guise of women being witches, and everyone just laughs it off as an old man telling stories, when in fact, he is the witch, indoctrinating children into evil.

These remind me of a horror story my own mother wrote (and published!) where a nurse (mother and breadwinner) goes through her day in the zombie apocalypse, but nothing's changed. Her husband (zombie) is locked away in his room were he'd normally spend his time gaming on the computer alone, and her son (based on me! also, zombie) is in the basement, where he'd usually hole himself up because he's a teen who doesn't want to spend time with his family. She goes to work, does her job, gets food for the family (all brains, of course, aside from herself), and comes home to feed them all and take care of the house. She treats her family completely normally, because, realistically, their dynamic hasn't changed, despite her whole family being undead. The warped but familiar home dynamics just felt similar to me, hearing about Shirley's stories for the first time.

It was called "Just another day" (published in the First Time Dead anthology!) and I'd like to note- while I do still live in the basement, I do spend a lot more time with my mum to make up for being an angsty teen zombie in her story.

Nothing is scarier than 24/7 cleaning and childcare with no help from a partner. shiver

During WWII my mother worked as an editor at Dunne and Bradstreet. My father forced her to quit because she earned more than he did in the Navy. I am certain she resented him throughout raising us. We would have been better off financially instead of struggling in home of five kids

You start to think about how even the female protagonists themselves are only identified by their married status and the last name of the man they married. No first names; they are reduced only to their role.

In The Renegade, I also think it’s thematically significant that the dog everyone is talking about torturing and killing with such normalized glee is female, and called “Lady.”

My mother described herself as passive. What that meant is that she watched me being tortured and she did nothing. She justified herself by saying that she had "good intentions." The road to hell is paved with "good intentions."

I think there is a certain real horror in the fact that men don't seem to be able to see how repressed women are. It's like you see it or hear about it and it seems so obvious, but when you talk about it with your father or brother or boyfriend they're like "Psh! That's not a thing." and you realize that they have no idea, and that they don't want to know.

They're completely dismissive like there's some kind of mental barrier for them to keep them from thinking about how women feel or what they have to deal with. It's not eve "ew, gross, periods" it's "domestic suppression isn't a thing". Like, how do you watch movies like "Pleasantville" and hear about how women couldn't drive or have bank accounts until recently and say that women have never been suppressed?

I used to think "Oh, my father is just older" or "My brother has never really had a long-term relationship", but I have genuinely had conversations with every man in my life, men who I thought had fairly feministic leanings and each of them have said things to me that made me realize that they really don't see it.

i'm a disabled housewife who cannot escape my home. and i can relate to this very much. it is comforting to hear my suffering is not just "all in my head"

Miss ma’am was paid a grand per short story in 20th century dollars?? Man today’s writers really don’t get paid SHIT, huh

Reading Shirley Jackson stories is like being in the company of an intelligent friend who understands certain aspects of the human psyche that might go unnoticed by others. She's totally clued up on the subtle and quiet evil that some humans possess and exposes this in her work. The Lottery was the most unsettling story I've read in my whole life

You wanna know isolation? Be a stay at home mother.
I listen to YouTube people talk and teach me things because there are complete days where i do not speak with another adult.
I rarely leave my home, and if i do, its in service to the rest of my family and taking care of my elderly family members.
Isolation is not having peers and living to serve others without anyone ever taking a single beat to see if you need anything.

The more I learn about Shirley Jackson the more I love her. Its like she was attuned to the blood thirstiness of mankind and its pervasive grip on those around us. How a neighbor can bring you a plate of cookies for a sunday potluck then suggest you murder your own dog in a gruesome way or volunteer at the local church fundraiser, while secretly hoping your name gets pulled from the little wooden box and the delight of picking up the heaviest rock to stone you. I feel the same ick from that reading some of the comment sections under news headlines. The ambivalence some people have about violence upon others. The quietness while witnessing injustice. The grim reality of keeping traditions for traditions sake. My struggle is we learn nothing. Thats the psychological horror for me.

Re: Mrs Harris... I know someone whose parents moved house the same week the wife gave birth to her first child. She spent a week in hospital, recovering from a difficult labour, while her husband dealt with the actual house-moving.

When she returned home with their newborn/firstborn, nothing had been unpacked except the main bedroom's bedlinens, her husband's clothes, and, in the kitchen, one cup, one plate, one fork, one spoon, and one knife.

I grew up in a house of horror. Being a lover of literature, I tried to listen to this but had to leave. My heart is racing.

I’ve been working with children since I was a child. From babysitting to summer camp counseling to museum docent to children’s librarian to teacher, childcare has been an amazing adventure, but often a terrifying one. From worrying about their safety from outside threats (and I’m in America where the outside threats just keep getting bigger and scarier), to listening to the imaginatively unhinged things they say with pure innocence, it can be super unnerving to work with kids. Shirley Jackson articulates this unique horror PERFECTLY.

I was struck by my reaction to hearing, “You’ve got to do something about the dog.” It chilled me to the bone. This has been my life! It’s made me realize that the protection of my innocent animals has been the terror of my life. I’m always worried when my dog “misbehaves” in some way and I feel like his life is in danger from someone who doesn’t love him as much as I do. It’s absolutely the worst terror I can think of and the stuff of my nightmares.

The way you connected a frying donuts in a kitchen as an alienating symbol of safety, confidence, and even power, really reminded me of domestically oriented tik tokers and how that confidence, safety, and power is kind of the allure of the fantasy they're selling. These ideas haven't gone away, still so relevant! Thanks for your analysis, I really appreciate your reading videos even more now!

I recently came across a term describing the female domestic experience, a "tolerable level of permanent unhappiness."

I've read 4 of her books but I've never heard the term "domestic horror." Menace is very hard to convey; it seems like it's a personal trigger and how can a writer even know how to hit that note? Makes her work even more startling.