Novelist, short story writer, and nonfiction writer, Shirley Jackson was an American gothic horror fiction author. She was best known for her short story "The Lottery," a classic short story originally published in The New Yorker. A story about the grotesque prejudices hidden in ordinary life, “The Lottery” established Jackson's central themes that would continue throughout his work. Jackson's stories exemplify the universal evil, desperation, and societal madness that lie just beneath the surface of ordinary life, blurring the line between reality and fiction. Hence his ability to transform and shock his readers, manipulating their expectations of his work and the world around them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The psychological lens is the optimal critical lens to use when analyzing Shirley Jackson's short stories. Based on the principles of Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, psychological criticism examines the patterns of personality, virtue, and behavior of an author and his characters. Critics focus not only on the minds of the characters, but on the actions and choices they make in relation to the society around them. In her contemporary literary criticism of Jackson, Granville Hicks, American novelist and literary critic, states in “The Nightmare in Reality,” “well informed about the opinions of the Freudians and other schools of psychology, Miss Jackson was never interested in theories psychological". for themselves but only for the literary use that could be made of them”. Using psychological theory as a tool in his work, Jackson repeatedly bases his societies and characters on recognizable patterns of human behavior and universal human problems. By writing his fiction as a psychological study, Jackson is able to develop characters and plot in a much more realistic and meaningful way. If Jackson enjoyed using psychological theory as a writing tool, then viewing his work as a form of psychological inquiry is more effective. A common theme shown in many of Jackson's stories is the concept of dreams, or more specifically, the conflict between reality and imagination. In Freud's principles, the “dream,” or in Jackson's case commonly the “nightmare,” contains symbolic clues to the self's subconscious motivations and themes. Psychological investigation is an attempt to study human nature and its behavior from an external perspective, a perspective of which the subject is not fully aware. Jackson's work reflects this investigation perfectly. As Elizabeth Janeway states in a New York Times book review of Jackson, “Jackson's imagination is of the other kind. He begins from reality and his metaphors and analogies always start from a living center... In his stories, the border between the world and the dream shifts and varies; the dream transpires and colors reality”. With this comes Jackson's gift: he does not create a world of fiction and terror, but rather discovers, or investigates, the existence of terror and madness in the ordinary world. This is seen most clearly in his classic American short story, “The Lottery.” Set in the present day, "The Lottery" depicts a perfectly ordinary city, the environment is comforting and friendly, and, when the people of the city begin to gather, the atmosphere is calm, almost carnival-like. The boys collect stones while the girls chat and gossip together. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a high summer day; the flowers bloomed profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began togather in the square... Soon the men began to gather too. watching their children, talking about plantations and rain, tractors and taxes... their jokes were calm and they smiled rather than laughed...". The village created by Jackson represents an ideal and happy American community. Friendship, trust and good wills are evident everywhere in its members. Like many of Jackson's stories, however, happiness and perfection are not all they seem. To maintain paradise, good citizens must ritually sacrifice one of their members each year by stoning him to death. Every year a barbarity like this is carried out by lottery: a family is chosen by lot and within that family a person. This is where the reader begins to see Jackson's psychological horror. The event is set up to be a normal routine and, according to tradition, by the description given by Jackson and the dialogue of the characters. This was something that the villagers repeated closely, so the reader would not suspect anything out of the ordinary. As Jackson writes, “the lottery was conducted – as were the square dancing, the teen club, the Halloween program – by Mr. Summers. who had time and energy to dedicate to civic activities...". By establishing a happy, perfect, civic atmosphere, Jackson deceives his readers by luring them into a façade of ordinary life. They find comfort in what seems like an ideal friendly community. This aspect of Jackson's writing allows her to blur the line between reality and fiction. By the end of the story, however, the reality the reader has connected to is rooted in violence and prejudice. In psychological criticism, characters are often analyzed to portray real-life counterparts. Jackson takes advantage of this phenomenon: the stonings are committed by the common people of the town, those whom Jackson had previously perceived as pleasant, often good people. Yet, without hesitation, they turn their backs on the facade and indulge in an act of such violence and cruelty. Their nature has been enshrined in tradition and superstition, and thus their judgment of right and wrong has been clouded. In “The Lottery,” Jackson works with the idea of ​​the possible. In his narrative he continually asks questions: what can society, the ordinary world, be capable of? What are humans capable of? What cruelty hides beneath the surface of reality? Stories like “The Lottery” push the reader to question the society around them. Acting as a basis for psychological inquiry, "The Lottery" allows the reader to analyze how a small, ideal, friendly city could be rooted in such a barbaric tradition. His stories, again and again, strive to illustrate these details: what humanity might be, and the madness that lurks just beneath the surface of reality. Jackson's fiction, in addition to reflecting analytical technique, also deals with the psychology of groups and society. Often, the decisions and outcomes in his stories are driven by mob mentality, where people are influenced by their peers and surrounding society to adopt certain behaviors. By treating society as its character, psychological criticism can focus on the motivations, desires, and conflicts of a specific group, rather than an individual. As stated in Carol Cleveland's critical review, Shirley Jackson, "in Jackson's world, the culprits are not greedy or mad individuals, but society itself acting collectively and intentionally, like a mildly concerned lynch mob." Consider Jackson's "The Lottery" again. In "The Lottery", the final moments of the story reveal that the "winner" is stoned to death by the rest of the village. THEThe city's citizens commit murders without hesitation or questions. Murder has been part of their tradition for centuries, and they stick to pleasure, as everyone else does, and everyone else has done for centuries. This is a direct example of mob mentality. Cleveland continues in his criticism: "Crime, even murder, is constantly committed in his world, but there is usually no one innocent enough to bring the guilty to justice." Everyone in the city of Jackson's fiction is equally responsible for the horror of the story, as each individual contributes to the stoning, not second-guessing their actions, turning a blind eye to mercy and morality. Consequently, there is no reason to bring the culprit to justice. In "The Lottery", the society portrays the outlaws as feeling that what the village is doing is wrong. The crimes committed are not illegal or wrong in the city, because society does not consider them illegal. The old saying about the event is: "Lottery in June, corn will be heavy soon." In the story, the society kills the literati, but it is justified by the mob mentality in the city: the expenses of a few will bring prosperity to the many. From every summer sacrifice comes a positive harvest in the future. At the end of the story, Jackson writes, “although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use the stones. The pile of stones that the boys had made earlier was ready... Tessie Hutchinson was now in the center of a clear space, holding out her hands desperately as the villagers approached her...". Tessie Hutchinson's last words are "It's not fair, it's not fair." Yet, what is about to happen to her is perfectly right and perfectly right compared to the logic and mentality of her community that has guided the country's actions up to that point. It is only when Tessie is forced to imagine the lottery from the point of view of the victim, chosen for sacrifice, that the lottery becomes unjust and immoral. This prospect has been repeatedly shunned by her and the rest of the village. Clouded by the fact that sacrifice brings prosperity, the “Lottery” society has lost its vision. At the end of the story, Tessie pays the price for this lack of vision, and the total lack of perspective and sympathy in her community. Other Jackson stories, such as “The Lottery,” also focus on the psychology of society. In Shirley Jackson's short story “Colloquy,” originally published in The New Yorker, Mrs. Arnold, the main protagonist, is driven to consult a psychiatrist due to her confusion and shock at the changes in the world around her. He lost, and Ms. Arnold says, “A world where a lot of people also lived and they all lived together and things went on so smoothly….” Her psychiatrist tries to push her to accept “reality” and its changes, as he describes the world as having “rapidly disintegrating cultural models”. However, Mrs. Arnold refuses to accept the reality around her and adapt to the doctor's confusing world. The story ends with Mrs. Arnold leaving the doctor's office, but readers sense the greater price Mrs. Arnold will pay for her inability to change. In “Interview,” the rest of society's definition of reality, represented by the doctor's opinion, will lead her down a path of loneliness and madness. “Before the doctor could stop her, she went to the door and opened it. 'Reality,' he said, and walked away” (Jackson 45). Here Jackson uses another example of mass mentality, but in “Colloquy” society is represented as a force that destroys the opinion and reality of those who cannot accept it. John G.Parks clearly states this phenomenon in his critical analysis Chambers of Yearning: Shirley Jackson's Use of the Gothic: "...the concern of most of Jackson's fiction...is to reveal and recount the indignation...arising from violation of the self by a broken world…” many of her stories, the society in “Conversation,” the external world, limits the internal self. Mrs. Arnold has failed to harmoniously accept the changes in the society she has observed and, therefore, sinks into desperation. In contrast to "The Lottery", Jackson represents the reasonable side to the reader, Mrs. Arnold is already described as crazy and mad. Her dialogue is purely incomprehensible, while the doctor's statements are based on facts and observations. There, however, a simple problem that drives her to madness: she cannot see her inner self reflected in the world, and therefore her expectations about the world should be unfulfilled. The “interview” illustrates a fundamental problem in human and group psychology: it is not possible to adapt the world according to one's own meanings and expectations, since society is too complex and collective. The aging of society in Jackson's stories represents a collective force. It cannot move to serve an individual's opinion. As Parks continues in his analysis, "most of Jackson's protagonists are emotionally violated and must struggle desperately to overcome their estrangement and dislocation, and most of them fail." By the end of the session, the reader is expected to sympathize with Mrs. Arnold. Society has hurt her, and readers, being part of that collective force, feel sorry for Mrs. Arnold. The society that they and everyone else have accepted seems distorted in Mrs. Arnold's perspective. But this problem can be reversed. It is clear that the gap between Mrs. Arnold's reality and that around her has no hope of compromise, because she is most likely walking a path of madness. However, because Mrs. Arnold is inherently “broken” and incapable of changing, she continues to perpetuate a broken society. Broken people creating a broken world. From this perspective, the madness into which Mrs. Arnold will sink is not the fault of society, but the fault of Mrs. Arnold herself. The reversal of blame creates a shift in psychological study: the motivations and virtues of the individual are the creation of the problems in a society. It is not surprising that Jackson's fiction also displays traits in this focus of psychology. “The Possibility of Evil,” one of Jackson's many short stories, acts as a psychological study of individual character. Unlike “The Lottery” and “Interview,” the psychological lens can be used to study the internal motivations and morals hidden within the characters in a story. Miss Adela Strangeworth, the protagonist of "The Possibility of Evil", lives alone in a house on Pleasant Street in a small town. As Jackson describes, "He knew everyone in town, of course... he had never spent more than a day out of town in his long life...". Like a database, Miss Strangeworth seems to have a backlog of all the things that happen in her town, whether it's her business or not. Like most of Jackson's fiction, however, nothing is ever as it seems. Miss Jackson may live in a perfect town, but her perfection has a consequence: For a year now, Miss Strangeworth has been sending letters to various citizens brutally attacking their lives and personalities. Afterwards, and without signing, he addressed each letter and delivered it at the end of the night. In his eyes, his duty was to alert his city to “possible evil lurking nearby.” As long as the evil persisted.