shirley jackson short stories?

Question

does anyone have any input/reflections/interpretations of some of Shirley Jackson's short stories (other than The Lottery). I'd be interested to see what people think the meanings are.

Answer 1

I always liked "One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts' about a couple who deliberately go out to make trouble or to do good deeds. Some people live to stir up trouble, consciously or not, and it was just sort of a shock to realize at the end that there was someone who was doing things to make other people upset or angry almost as an experiment. Most real life troublemakers seem to do things just out of selfishness or thoughtlessness or to get satisfaction out of seeing someone else angry or tearful, but these two were almost clinical. Yet they kept the world in balance: one did good deeds, one did bad. Then they switched roles. I don't know if Jackson wanted to illustrate cosmic balance on a human scale (likely) or if she just wanted to point out that we have a choice of what kind of person we want to be, a conscious choice that we need to make.

On a different note, have you read her semi-autobiographical books, Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons? I was astounded and delighted by what a sense of humor she had.