FX1STENTIALISM lN SHIRLE Y : AC~SON'S LAST NOVELS

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Master a: Ar t s

Florida Atlantic University

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DecemlJer lY8J @ Copyc:-igh t by Gu y Argenziano 198 3

ll EXISTENTIALISM IN SH I RLEY JACKS ON ' S LAST NU:ELS

by

Guy Arg enziano

This the sis was p r epared unde r che direction of lhe candi­ date ' s thesi~ a dvisor , Dr. Ann Peyton, Dep a rtmen c of Engl{sh, and has been approved by the memb c~·s of h i s supervisory committee. It was s ubmitted to che f a cul ty £ the College of Humanities and was accepteJ in partLal fulfil lment of the requirements for the deg ree of Masrer of Arts.

SUPERVISORY COi'!:;"1l1TEE ·

-~ - ~~ --- Thesi s Ach i .-;t)::\ ·

of English

,((, "!.t~ "-.-­ of Huma nities

~ ~ -- - ~,- L qg_3_ _-- - - Studies Date iii F'o r Luke .

lV ABSTRACT

Author: Guy Argenzian o

Title: Existentia lism in Shirley Jackson's Last Novels

Institution: Florida Atla ntic University

Degree : Ha ster o f Arts

Year: 1983

The existential philosop hy o f the post-war per i o d i s re - fle ted i n Shirle y Jackson ' s l a s t novels. The Sun di al mirrors the anguish 1.nJ intellectual aliena t ion of a f21nil.v

1 tryi ng L o come to cerm.s vj ch che a nnihila tion of t- H"ir world. The H.:wnLing of Hill Ho us e deals with t he fo.clo::-; ' - ness and emoti onal alienatio n that result from t he di~crv- ery tha t man i s comp l eteLy alone beca use there i s n o God.

We Have Always L"ved in he Cas tle i s concerned wi th c e psychologica l a l ienati on and the despair that ari s e f r ont the rea lizallon :::hat the potential for happiness i s l i mj Led by man's s e lf- de stru ctive tendencies. Examined togetr er, these novels presen t a n e xi s tential viewpoint thac c orre- sponds to the ~ urmo i l of the pos t-war world.

v Table of Contents

ABSTRACT . . . v

INTRODUCTION. l

Chapter I. THE SUNDIAL . . ll

II . THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. 30

III. WE HAVE AL\VAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE. 44

CONCLUSIO N. . 58

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 6.')

vi Introduc t ion

Shirle y Jackson lS an unacknovde

and a ma jor Arne r i ~....a n nove 1 i ~ t. Thou gh '"e 11 known for her

short stot y "The LctteL"v" ( l9tf8), t he rest of her work

tends either to be forgot L~n o:- di smissed as unimportant.

Ironically . it may be tLe popuL1rity o f that story which acco unts for the fact thJ.t.. other "-''orks of Jackson ' s have faileJ t u achie,,e critic...al. a~tention. "Th e Lottery, " however, doe s not en Le r into cuns i dera t ion h ere because it does not contain the existenLLal theme s found in her last three no\ els, The Sunc:Ld (l95b), Tne Haunting of

Hill House ( 1959) , and We Have Always Lived in the Castle 1 (1962) . It is the purpr) ~;e H this thesis to examine

Jackson's treatment of existential themes in these books.

To define her work in terms of existentialism wi ll prove that she is nLlt s imply an "entertaining" author, but an important one \-Jhu s e \v o rk mir:..-ored her turbulent times.

The roots of existenti alism are buried deeply in the

1 References to these •xo rks will be cicecl jn the t e xt as Sundial , Hous_§_ , and Castle .

l 2

ruins of the post-war world, and critical to any discussion

of existenti alism are t he c o ncepts of dread and despair,

anguish and absurdi ty, forlornness and alienation . The s e

themes a r e c entral to the ac tion of The Sundial , a nihil ­

istic account of nine isolated people waitin g for an apoc ­ alypse from wh ich they a lone, out of the entire world, a r e

to be spa.red. The dominant theme in this novel is alien- ation. T~e inhabitant s of the Halloran house are alienated physically fro m the surrounding v illage, a nd emot ionally and intellectually from each othe r . Characters in the novel mo ve and speak in a dream-like state a nd find lt impos sible to communicate 1.vi th one another. The re s i dent s of the Hu 'loran house are a lone and looking o ut for t hem­ selves; there is no sense of loyalty or l ove a mong the family memb ers. Mrs . Halloran murders the son who stands to inherit her house, and i s murdered in turn by her grand- daughter. Furthermore , Mrs. Willow is willing to prosti- tute her two da u ghter s in return for personal physical com­ fort, and Aunt Fa nny pleasurably a n ticipates the destruc ­ tion of the world to prove to her sister-in-law that her prediction is correct.

Traditionally , one of the first actions of the 3

existentialist has been to make each individual aware of what he is, thus making him fully responsible for his ex­ istence (Sartre 16). Consequently , the themes of awarenes s and responsibility are important in The Sundial, for when neurotic Aunt Fanny foretells the apocalypse, the Hallorans choose to believe her without reservation. Even so, with this choice comes an anguished awareness of the responsi­ bility the Hallorans have for the villagers who are to be destroyed. When Hiss Ogilvie tries to intervene, her ac­ tions are misinterpreted a nd descend into absurdity . Essex descends into a worlJ of introspection and guilt, yet ln spite of their awareness, there is no hope and little mourning for the old world.

Despite its surface pessimism, existentialism can be a doctrine of hope, and there appears to be a tenuous shreJ of optimism for a new world built on the ashes of the old.

The old world in Sundial is corrupt and beyond redemption, reflecting a world ravaged by genocide, global battle and cold war. The new world may have potential, but uncer­ tainty lurks; that uncertaint y is underscored by the in­ scription on the Halloran sundial: WHAT IS THIS WORLD?

(Sundial 15). 4

With the characteriza tion of Elea n or Vance, the nov -

el's lonely , repressed heroine, Jackson takes t he theme of emotional alienation a ste p further in The Haunting of

Hill House (1959) . Here, Eleanor' s emotional alienation

from the other characters , c ombined with the themes of forlornnes s and hopelessne ss that darken the book, create an existential world in which everything is futile.

The characcers in Hill House gather in a remote, walled country manor ostensib l y to inves t igate p syc hic disturbances , but they soon b ecome victims of their own awarenes s of their capaci t y for e v il . The Haunting of Hil l

House is a novel about the consequences of fr e e will in a chaotic world . Characters make their choices a nd stub - bornly stick by them in a world of haphazard e vents. As in

The Sundial, there i s a drea~y quality to mu ch of the ac- tion in Hill Ho u se, punctuated by scenes of stark, terri - fying reality . The characters a re aware that by choosing to remain in a "haunted " hou se they are responsible for the consequences. Dr. Montague says :

"I think we ' re incredibly s illy to stay . I think that an atmosphere like this can . . break us apa rt in a matter of day s. We have only one defense, and that is running away. When we feel ourselves endangered, we can leave, jus t as 5

we carne . " (H ouse 89)

The characters' awarenes s of their respon s i bi l ity, combined with their freedom , crea t es an unbearable anxiety which foreshadows an impendin g doom . When disas ter does strike, there is no one to blame.

One of the fundamental questions of philosophy is whether or not l i fe i s worth l iving; the existential que s ­ tion may often be reduced to the question of s uicide

(Camus 3). Alone and hopeless, Eleanor chooses t o die; her last conscious thought as she aim~ her car at the great tree at t he end of Hill House' s driveway echoes he r aware­ ness of responsibil i ty : .,.,vhy am I doing ~his? '" (Hous~ 1?Ll ).

As in The Sundia l , Jackson does not offer hope f or s better worl d i n Hi ll Hous e. The c ombi nation of personal freedom coupled with per sonal re s ponsibi lity conspires to create a world s o oppre ssive an d overwhelming that Jackson offers death as the only a lternative for Eleanor . Even in death, however , J ack son does no t offer hope for pea ce or tranquility . There i s no sens e of s pirituality or mention of a deity in any of Jackson' s novels; Eleanor Vance is condemned in death to a world as shadowy and lonely a s life . The novel concludes darkly: 6

Hill House, itself not sane, stood against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty y ears and might stand for eighty more. Wi thin, its walls continued upright, bricks met neatly , floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; s ilence lay steadily agains t the wood and s tone of Hil l House, and whatever wa lked there walked alone. (1::!. ouse 1 74)

Alienation i s a l so the dominant theme of Jackson's

last novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle ( 1962) , but

the alienation here is p sych ologi cal, and through it

Jackson makes a strong statement on the impossibility of

hope in the modern world. De spair a l so plays an i~p ortant

part in Castle , however here the despair y ields to perver-

sity, and the result is a novel more completely absurd than

the other tr,.;ro.

As wi th Sundial and Hill House, the setting for Castle

is a large, iso l ated mansion, walled from. and in conflict with, the outside world. The "castle," as the house is

called by Ma r y Katherine (Merricat) Blackwood, was the

scene of a sensational mass murder severa l y e a rs earlier;

the entire Blackwood family , with the exception of Merricat and her sister , Constance , was poisoned by a massive dose of ars enic in t he heirloom s u gar bowl . Constance was ac - cused and a cquitted of the murders , but the v illagers are 7

so malicious and unforgiving that the two sisters choose

to wall themselves up in the castle rather tha n confront

the townspeople.

Black humor, associated with existentialism, abounds

in Castle, alon g with an overwhelming feeling of despair.

The Blackwood sisters, prisoners out of choice , have no

hope. The true absurdity of the situation is obvious when

Jackson reveals that Merricat is the murderer, and that

Con stance chose to shoulder the blame for her sister, ruin­

ing her own chances for a happy, "normal" life.

One of the most ironic aspects of Castle, and the most

darkly humorcus, is that Jackson makes the horror of mass

murder at the dinner table less prominent than the cruel

treatment of the sisters by the villagers . Later, when the

villagers ritualisti cally destroy the house, the sisters'

anguish increases with their awareness of the horro rs of

the "outside" world . As a result, they i solate themselves

in the c 2s t le even more firmly than before, constructing a

fantasy world which stands in harsh contrast to the "real" world outs ide. Lost in their constructed reality, the sis-

ters eventually find what they consider to be happiness,

built on t he guilt the villagers assume for their deed. Of 8

course, the happiness of the Blackwoods is absurd on a rational level, but the Blackwoods have left the rational world far behind .

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is Jackson's las t novel and her least optimistic. The wor ld Jackson has c re­ ated is so horrid, and personal choi ce s so ca tastrophic, that the only alternatives are madnes s and fantasy . The

Hallorans evade harsh reality through rationaliza tion in

The Sundial; Eleanor Vance tries to e s ca pe through suicide in Hill Hous e , and the Blackwoods escape into the shadows of absurdity and fantasy, but in the end they imagine them­ selves happy, never realizing that Constance's happ i ness is dependent on complete lack of contact with anyone who could challenge her fantasy, or that Merricat's happiness is the obsessive fantas y of a psychotic mind . "Oh ,

Constance," she tells her sister, "we are so happy"

(Castle 174 ) . The reader knows better .

Existentialism has been defined as recognizing that modern man exists first and defines himself later, after the scene is set (Sartre 15). The Blackwood sisters define their existence in terms of the choices they have made, and become reflections of their times. With their heads in the 9

sand, ignoring the facts, they are able to believe that life is good, even as they don't dare to examine that

"goodnes s " too closely .

Whe n t he l a st three novels of Shirley Jackson are ex­ amined t oge t her, the exis tential theme s in each become mo re clear as che p atterns are set. There are common themes running t hrough these novels. For example, all are set in large , i s ola ted homes tha t are in subtle conflict with the outside world. The main characters are alienated from each other, and are painfully aware of their responsibility in a world in which events are willy-nilly. Supporting the theme& of alienation in the novel are overwhelming feelings of anguish , despair, and anxiety . What little optimism

Jackson s eems to offer in Sundial has evaporated by the time she finishes Castle, while absurdity grows in inverse proportion .

Thematically, Jackson's last three novels are a world apart f rom the famous story "The Lottery," but her ne­ glected works, when scrutinized, prove her to be an impor- tant writer. Her style reflects clarity of vision and precision . Furthermore, her wo rks are very entertaining and she proves her skil l a t plo t structure and 10

characterization. These qualities alone, however , do no t

make her "important." What is importa n t i s that J ackson is

able to tell a good story while s till making a statement.

Her husband, critic Sta nley Edgar Hy ma n , writes that

Jackson's visions " of dissocia tion a nd ma dnes s . . a r e

sensitive, f aithf ul s ymb ols f or our distressing wo rld of

the concentration camp and the Bomb" (Post 8 2) . The

existential theme s in her l a st novel s are a legiti mate re ­

flection of t he mid-twentieth century , and aptly s ymbol ize

the fragmentati on a nd the concerns o f the pos t - war wo rld.

To recognize the s e t h e mes i s to recognize that Jackson' s works are a commentary f or her times, a nd tha t she is an important novelis t who deserves to endure. Chapter 1: The Sundial

The Sundial, Jackson's fourth novel, is the first to present an existential world-view, and at first glance would appear to support the definition that existentialism can be a doctrine of hope. The Sundial is the account of nine isolated people waiting for an apocalypse from which they alone a re to be spared. The cataclysm itself is to be dreadful, but Jackson offers a glimmer of hope for the fres h new world that is to follow for t he resident s of the

Halloran ma ns ion, a land of "fruit trees, heavy wj th fruit, small figures, at some distance, bathing along the edge of a stream , and a pack of horses running in g lorious freeJorn"

(Sundia l 164 ). It bec omes c l ear very soon , however , that any hope for a better world wi ll be futil e .

The description of the house in Jackson 's last novels serves to set the theme of isolation and alienation, and the Halloran mansion assumes a pivotal role in the story.

The immediate impression of the mansion is of its isola­ tion:

The Halloran land was distinguished from the rest

11 12

of the world by a stone wall, which went com­ pletely around the estate so that all inside was Halloran and all outside was not. (Sundial 16)

The house itself is old, a reflection of a placid, more

stable time ; its builder, the first Mr. Halloran, " a prac-

tical and a vain man" (Sundia l 13), built his house to be

symetrical and ordered, t o mirror his ordered world. The

house had :

Twenty windows to the left wing of the house, and twenty windows to the right; because the great door in the center was double, there were forty-two windows on the second floor, and forty- two on the third floor. . On eithPr side of the door the terrace went to the right fo r eighty-six black tiles and eighty-six white tiles, and equally to the left. There were a h undred and six thin pillars holding up the marble balustrude on the left, and a hundred and six on the right· (Sundial 14-15)

Mathema tical pe rfection, however, has no place in the real world, fo r it is beset with its many imperfections. Thus,

the Halloran sundial becomes the focal point of both the mansion and the novel, a symbol of imperfection offsetting

the symmetry of the house: "Intruding purposefully on the

entire scene, an inevitable focus, was the sundial, set badly off center and reading WHAT IS THIS WORLD?" (Sundial

15) . The sundial is a constant symbol of imperfection, and 13

Mrs . Halloran reflects :

I am earthly. . . I am not inhuman ; if the sundial were taken away I, too, would have to avert my e y e s until I s aw an imperfection , a substitute sundial -- perhap s a s tar. (Sundi a l 17)

With the sundial t he c o n s t a nt f ocus of t h e Hallo ran

house, the characters are consta ntly reminded o f the un-

certainty of their world. The inscription on the face of

the dial , WHAT IS THIS WORLD ? unders c ores this uncertainty .

The inscri p t ion is f rom Ch a u c e r, a passage t hat a ptly sums

the role of mo de rn man : " What is this \vorl d? Hhat a sketh man to have ? Now with his l ove , now in his c olde g r ave,

Allone, with - o uten any c ompany e " (Sundial 16) . The anxiety

of man's place in the p os t-wa r worl d i s s e l fo r th even more clea rly by Essex:

"The path gets narrower and s traighter a ll the time," Es s e x said. "The y e a rs pres s i n. The p a t h becomes a knife edg e a nd I creep along, holding on even to that, the years clos ing in on either side and overhead . " (Sund i a l 11)

The theme of alienation which is so dominant in The

Sundial is most obvious in the interaction the Hallorans have with each other. There is little communication be- tween the characters ; they move in their own individual 14

circles , and the circles tend not t o int ersect. Communi-

cation is difficult at best and often impos s ible. After

Aunt Fanny foretells the apocalypse that is to destroy

humanity, she tries to explain t o Maryjane what wi ll happen

and why . Aunt Fanny states:

"Evil and jealousy and fear are all going to be removed from us. I told you v ery clearly this morning. Humanity as an experiment has failed. " "Well, I'm s ure I did the best I could,'' Maryjane said. (Sundial 45)

Later, Aunt Fanny tries again, but still i s not able t o ge t

through to Maryjane:

"Those who survive this catas t rophe," she s aid, will be free of pain and hurt. They will be . . a kind of chosen people as it were. " " The Jews?" Maryjane said indifferently. "Weren 't they chosen the last time ? " "I wi sh you would take me s eriously," Aunt Fanny said , her voice sharpeni n g . (Sundial 4 7 )

Commun ication i n the novel often reaches absurd levels of misunderstan ding, with characters failing completely to understand what motivates others or why. When Gloria

Desmond a rrives at the Halloran house, Mrs. Willow ques- tions her about her father . Mrs. Willow asks:

"Where did he go, your father ? " 15

"Africa." "What for?" "To shoot lions, of course." "What on earth for?" said Mrs. Willow blankly. "Some people shoot lions , " the girl said pleasantly, "and some people do not shoot lions . My father is one of the people who do." (Sundial ?4)

The inability of the Hallorans to communicate with each other constructs the climate of intellectual alienation that complements the phys ical aliena tion of the characters from the rest of the world.

In addition to the physical and intellectual aliena- tion of the Hallorans, they are emotionally alienated as well. In a pathetic quest for affection , Aunt Fanny pleads piteously for Essex to unlock his bedroom door for her;

Essex, however, closes his eyes and dreams silently of death. Mrs. Halloran cold-bloodedly murders her only son to prevent him from inheriting her house, and does not bother to deny it. Later, she is murdered by her granddaughter,

Fancy, who is as callous about murder as her grandmother was. Emotional alienation in the novel runs deep, encom- passing all levels of family life. Aunt Fanny talks around her brother, Richard, without ever quite talking to him, and Mrs. Halloran regards her husband with barely concealed contempt : 16

Mrs. Halloran . . stood behind her husband's wheel chair, looking down on the back of his head with no need , now, to control her boredom. Before Mr. Halloran had become permanently established in his wheelchair, Mrs . Halloran had frequently fo und it difficult to restrain her face, or the small, withdrawing gestures of her hands. (Sundial 8)

Fraternal love is also s hallow in the Halloran house.

Julia and Arabella Willow squabble f itfully throughout the novel , arguing about petty childhood wrongs the night b e- fore the apocal y p se:

"I wore the patches," said Julia spitefully. "Arabella never had any trouble just mak i ng do with any old thing so long as it was brand new and cost twice as much as we could afford. " (Sund i al 179)

Maternal love does not run deep either, and Mrs . 1;1Jillow is willing t o prostitute her daughters in return for physical comfor t for herself. Mrs. Willow says to Mrs. Hal l or an:

"I don't f i gure there's any way you can come right out and give us some [money ] but people as rich as you are must know other people as rich as you are and somewh ere along the line there must be someone you can help us get a dime out of. Marriage would be best of course . It better be Belle, though; she's prettier and if you tell her anything enough times she'll do it eventually . Besides, if Belle married money the chances are good I could e ase a little of it out of her; with Julia, I could whistle." (Sundial 62) 17

The levels of alienation the characters bear lead,

inevitably, to forlornness and a sense of anguish in the

more acute and perceptive of the Hallorans. Aunt Fanny is

the first to experience this sense of aloneness, and her

experience in a harsh world becomes almost archetypal of

the existential crisis of modern man:

Stwnbling, Aunt Fanny went forward, hands out, and touched marble, but it was warm and she took her hand away quickly; hideous, she thought, it's been in the sun. Then she thought, why, this could only be the summer house. . This :;.. s certainly the summer house and its silly of me t o cry and stumble and be frightened. . I shall wait until the mist clears a little . . I have been in fogs many times worse than this and not been frightened. . I must not fall down, she thought, because I shall not be able to get up a g ain . (Sundial 29-JO)

In the existential world Jackson has created in The

Sundial, eve~ a walk through a garden explored since child- hood is lonely, fraught with unexpected dangers; nothing can be relied upon.

Like Aunt Fanny, Essex too is subject to spells of bottomles s despair as the date of apocalypse approaches and he examines his role in the current world and the new world to come. He tries to explain his feelings to

Arabella Willow, but as happens so often in the novel, she 18

is incapable of comprehension. Essex remarks:

"You are not familiar, I think, with a kind of unholy , unspeakable longing ? . . It is a longing so intense that it cannot endure any touch of correction; it creates what it desires; it is, as I say, unspeakable. . The sight of one's own heart is degrading; people are not meant to look inward-- that's why they ' ve been given bodies, to hide their souls . I am filthy, sickened, beastly. I have seen my self plain . . I am rotten; that is why I am so frightened - - I am terribly afraid that this hope which Aunt Fanny--" "Aunt Fanny," said Arabella, "you're talking about Aunt Fanny? But I thought all your un­ speakable thoughts were about me." (Sundia l 82-BJ)

In addition t o the personal crises of the cha racters, another factor contributing to the overall effect of alien- ation in the novel is the dreamy quality of much of the action. The Hallorans move and speak in a trance-like state, a nd there is a choppy, disoriented feeling to much of the action. Julia Willow tries to run away from the

Halloran house and gets hopelessly los t in a thick fog on a hilly path far, she thinks, from the house, but the fa- miliar and the unknown are in curious contact:

She hit her foot against another rock and stum­ bled, and twisted against a tree ; this is really too much, she thought, tears in her eyes, and stepped ahead and knew as she put her foot down it was a mistake; she was over the edge into the 19

river because her foot went down and down and never felt the ground, and she fell and rolled wildly downhill ; this is really more than I can endure, she thought deliberately, and fell unend­ ingly, wracked and bruised, lying against the great iron gates with the elaborate H worked into the scrollwork on either s ide. (Sundial 159)

Also dreamy a re t ransit i onal scenes throughout the novel;

Jackson doe s not introduce new characters so much as she conj urs them. Consider, for example, the "introduction" of Gloria De s mon d:

Essex said rather sternly, "Aunt Fanny is not a medium or a charlatan, Mrs. Willow." "Lord, dear, I never said she was. I'm curi­ ous is all, there' s a lot more I need to know about this. And who the devil," she went on, "are you ?" "How do you do ?" Mr s . Willow's voice had been so level that no one h ad turned , accustomed by now to her grass­ hopper speech; when they heard another, a strange voice, answer, all of them were startled and wheeled t oward the doorway, all except Miss Ogilvie who immediately assumed that Mrs. Willow had . . raised an a ppa rition. (Sundia l 72 - ?J )

The dreamy qu a lity of so much of the action and dia- logue in The Sundial becomes closely aligned to the char- acters' various beliefs as the day of apocalypse approaches and tension mounts. The critic John Parks writes that the

"comic apocalypse" became very popular in American fiction 20

as a response to nuclear war and ecological disaster. The

Sundial, he says, deals with the nature of personal belief in trying to deal with a harsh rea lity ("End" 74). One of the basic tenets of existentialism has traditionally been to make man aware of his ultimate responsibility for his actions (Sartre 16); with this awareness comes, inevita- bly, feelings of guilt, despair, and anguish. The

Hallorans are well aware that they are believing Aunt

Fanny's prediction out of choice, and that they made their choice with few reservations:

"Essex," Mrs. Halloran said. She stopped by the sundial and put her hand down gently; under her fingers the letters said WHAT IS THIS WORLD? "Essex, I am not a fool. I have gone for years disbelieving most of what people have told me. But I have never before been requested to take an immediate opinion on the annihilation of civilization. I have never known my sister-in­ law to get any message accurately, but I cannot afford to ignore her." (Sundial 50)

By choosing not to disbelieve Aunt Fanny, the Hallorans are choosing to believe her, and with the belief in the coming apocalypse, they must, of necessity, challenge their belief in everything else they had been used to regard as solid and steady: 21

"Reality ," Essex said. "What is real, Aunt Fanny? '' "The truth , " said Aunt Fanny at once. "Mrs. Willow, what is real ?" "Comfort," said Mrs. Willow. "Mi s s Ogilvie , what is rea l ?" "Oh dear -- I couldn't rea lly s a y , not having had tha t much experience. We l l . Food, I gues s." "Mary jane," said Esse x , " what is reality? " "Wha t ? " Mary j ane s t a red with h er mouth open. "You mean something real, l i k e something not in the movies ? " "A dream world , " Arabella s up plied. Julia laughed. "Es sex," she s aid, "what i s real?" Es s ex bowed t o her g rav e ly . "I am real," h e said. "I'm not a t all s ure about the rest of you." (Sundi a l 70)

The preceding dia logue i s s ignificant for the way it de- fines the belief s of the individual c haracters as it under- scores their alienation from each other . As Essex say s, modern man can be sure of no one but hims elf.

It is in the realm of personal be lie f a nd individual choices that Jackson paints herself mo s t clearly as an existentialist. The trauma s of corning t o g rips with faith that the characters experience as doomsday a pproaches re- fleet vividly the trauma of modern man as he tries to come to grips with the post-war world after the realities of

Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Auschwitz. Jackson philosophizes: 22

The question of belief is a curious one, partak­ ing of the wonders of childhood and the blind hopefulness of the very old; in all the world there is not someone who does not believe in something. It might be suggested, and not easily disproved, that anything, no matter how exotic, can be believed by someone. On the other hand, abstract belief is largely impossible ; it is the concrete, the actuality of the cup, the candle, the sacrificial stone, which hardens belief; the statue is nothing until it cries; the philosophy is nothing until the philosopher is martyred. (Sundial 41)

As the Hallorans become more aware of what their roles in Aunt Fanny's new world will be, and as they become more involved ln refining their areas of belief, the awarenes s of their responsibility to the outside world is increased.

The Hallorans feel their responsibility to the doomed vil- lagers in various ways . Miss Ogilvie, in particular, feels a keen sense of guilt for the ill-fated townspeople, but her attempts to help are misinterpreted and quickly descend to absurd levels as, once more, misunderstanding is the result of attempts to communicate.

Miss Ogilvie first tries to rescue the aged Misses

Inverness, never dreaming that they might not choose to be rescued:

"Aunt Fanny," Miss Ogilvie said, "Miss Inverness and Miss Deborah have always been so 23

kind . . so thoughtful. Would it not be an act of friendship to include them in our future ?" "I confess I had thought of it ," Aunt Fanny said, "but I do not think it will offend Caroline and Deborah if I point out, frankly, that . our little group must include builders and workers as well as--" she blushed faintly-- "the mothers of future generations." "I am sure," Miss Inverness said with some stiffness, "that neither my sister nor I has any desire to be looked upon as a worker, and it is long since we gave up any notion of breeding children. I am astonished, Frances Halloran, to hear you talk so coarsely ." (Sundial 95)

Later , at the ball Mrs. Halloran gives for the villagers the night before the apocalypse, Miss Ogilvie is over- whelmed by a sense of responsibility for the villagers and her guilt i n letting them face their deaths. Weep ing,

Miss Ogilvie says to the villagers:

"Will you just trust me? I don't want to see you die, not any of you, and you just simp ly will not understand, and how can I tell you? . Please, please listen," Miss Ogilvie said, but Mrs. Halloran said, "Music," to the little or­ chestra and the music began again. "But you must not g_Q," Miss Ogilvie cried, and Mrs. Halloran, laughing, said to Fancy, "I have known hostesses like this, who could not bear to see the end of their parties." (Sundial 232)

Miss Ogilvie is an example of responsibility turned to guilt; the other characters react differently to their awareness of their responsibility. Mrs. Halloran is 24

callous, Maryjane indifferent, Mrs. Willow, frankly antic- ipatory: "It's a world well lost, if you ask me," she says bluntly. "I've seen all of it I can take, and that's no lie" (Sundia l 2 39 -240). Mrs. Willow goes so far as to take her anticipation for the apocalypse to perverse ends: Whe n a villager c omments to her on the excellence of the barbe- cue the night before the catacly sm, she slaps him genially on the shoulder. "You'll never eat better again, so go at it, my boy , " s he say s ( Su nd i a l 21 7 ).

As the day of annihilation approaches, the absurdity in the novel g r ows , and the humor gets bla cker. In a p a r a - graph that seems particularly apt today, Jackson describes the absurdity of a modern world on the brink of collapse:

A woman in Chicago was arrested for leading a pol ar bear clipped like a French poodle into a large downtown department store. A man in Texas won a divorce from his wife because she tore out the last chapter of every mystery story he bor­ rowed from the library. A television set in Florida refused to let itself be turned off; until its owners took an axe to it, it continued, on or off, presenting inferior music and stale movies and endless , maddening advertising, and even under the axe, with its l a st sigh, it died with the praises of a hair tonic on its lips. (Sund ial 208 )

Increasingly, too, the mood at the Halloran mansion gets 25

blacker as the end nears. The apocalypse which Aunt Fanny

promised would end in a bright, new wo rld for the Hallorans

is continually darkened by Mrs. Halloran's increasingly

autocratic ways. This trend in her conduct was established

early in the novel when she ordered all 10,000 volumes of

the Halloran library burned in t he barbecue pit because

there would be no need for them later: "Not a first edition

among them," says Mrs. Halloran (Sundial 126). As doomsday

draws nearer, she orders a crown for herself, explaining

to Mrs. Willow that:

"You have not perceived, then, Augusta, that I wear a crown on August twenty-ninth to emphasize my position after Augus t thirtieth." Mrs. Halloran smiled obscurely. "I shall probably never remove the crown," she said, "until I hand it over to Fancy." (Sundial 180)

Later, she issues an explicit set of instructions governing

the conduct of the Hallorans on the first morning after the

destruction of the old world . The rules of conduct will

serve to cool the ardor of the chosen few in their bright new world:

"Are there reeds in the stream?" the captain asked. "We will make Fancy here a flute and she will pipe for us." Fancy giggled. "You will have to follow me 26

and dance," and Maryjane added shyly, "We can put flowers in our hair, those red ones, and dance under the trees." "Pagan abandon," said Mrs. Willow indulgently. "Pagan abandon, indeed," said Mrs. Halloran dangerously from the doorway . "Can you not real­ ize that you are already breaking my laws?" (Sundia l 205-206)

The scene Jackson i s s etting is becoming increasingly clear: there will be no "bright new world" for the

Hallorans; even while the old world still exists, shades of totalitarianism are darkening the would-be Utopia.

It is often pointed out that existentialism is not a necessarily gloomy doctrine, that it does permit the possi- bility for hope of human improvement. As Jackson begins the novel, it appears that she does indeed hold out hope for a better world to rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old. It is implied that through annihilation, the "black fire and red water" (Sundial J4) which Aunt

Fanny prophesizes, a new world, clean and unsullied will be formed. The theme of purification through destruction has assumed many forms in literature, but for the existential- ist, it has been said that "as terrible as the threat of annihilation is . . it often becomes a paradoxically benign agent" (Sp anos 7) . This sentiment is echoed by 27

Essex as he tells Arabella that his worst fear is his

"longing for annihilation" (Sundial 81). Still, Jackson offers a measure of hope for the future .

This hope is upheld by Mrs . Halloran, but it is a personal one, and her increasingly dictatorial manner leaves little doubt about how the future will be. Mrs .

Halloran's plans for her role in the new world become clear in her dealings with the True Believers, a sect that, like the Hallorans, believes the end of the world is near. The

True Believers, though, plan on escaping to a higher level of being on Saturn. Mrs. Halloran firml y refuses their offer to flee earth; her plans are set. Mrs. Halloran states:

"So you see, . we shall have to make our own destinies, in addition to which I cannot possibly hope to persuade my little group to leave this planet for another. Perhaps--after you have gone, of course--we may hope to inherit this one. Perhaps we may even come to like it·" (Sundial 109)

Jackson's existential philosophy is very clear here. By

"making our own destinies," the Hallorans are willingly choosing a future of their own construction, and are will- ing to bear the consequences for it.

The tragedy of The Sundial is that the future will not 28

be Utopian . Whatever possibility may have existed is

dashed on the night of the apocalypse when Fancy murders

her grandmother by pushing her down the stairs, killing her

in the same way Mr s . Hallora n killed her son . The charac­

ters reac t impassively to the death, carry ing the body out

to the sundia l and propping it up in the midst of the whirlwind , a t the me r c y of the elements. The sundial,

like the Hallo ran mansion i t s elf, is destined to remain ,

the l as t r e maining r elic of an old world where time and

events were on ce o r derly, des tined to be an anachronis m in

the new world. With the murder o f Mrs. Halloran, J a ckson

kills whatev e r vestige of hope s he may have been h o lding

for the n ew wo rld . The Hallor a ns' bright new world , like

Eden, is marr ed by calculated, unlamented murder. Hope i s

lost for t he Ha lloran s ; their new world will not be di ffer­

ent because t h e y person ally wi ll be the same after the

catacly sm.

Outs ide , in the s t o rm , Mrs. Halloran's body is

propped agains t the sundia l ; WHAT IS THIS WORLD ? it asks.

The question is answered through implication: there will be no certainty or order or hope in the world to come because

people, essentially, do not change. Jackson's ultimate 29

opinion of humanity is voiced by Fancy, the child whose first act as the Hallorans enter the new world is one of murder. Fancy says to Gloria:

"Aunt Fanny keeps saying that there is going to be a lovely world, all green and still and per- fect . . that would be perfectly fine with me, except right here I live in a lovely world, all green and still and perfect, even though no one around here seems to be very peaceful or happy, but when I think about it, this new world is going to have Aunt Fanny and my grandmother and you and Essex and the rest of these crazy people and my mother and what makes anyone think you're going to be more happy or peaceful just becau se you're the only ones left? . You all want the whole world to be changed so ~ will be diff er­ ent . But I don't suppose people get changed any by just a new world." (Sundial 171) Chapter 2: The Haunting of Hill House

The existential themes of alienation and for lornness which Jackson began in The Sundial are continued in The

Haunting of Hill House with the characterization of Eleanor

Vance, the lonely, fragmented protagani s t who becomes an archetype for the modern, existential e v eryman.

Eleanor Vance comes to Hill House at the invitation of Dr. John Montague, an anthropologi s t , o s tensibly to help him conduct psychic research in a hous e rumored to be

"haunted"; she is selected on the bas i s of a childhood poltergeist experience which she has forgo tten . Completing the group at Hill House are Theodora, a woman of tested gifts of ESP, and Luke Sanderson, the h eir to the house.

Eleanor chooses to accept the doctor 's invitation without qualms; alone and lonely, there i s nothing to tie her down at horne. Indeed, the most obvious early quality about her is her alienation from the rest of the wo rld :

The only person in the world she genuinely hated, now that her mother was dead, was her sister. She disliked her brother-in-law and five year old niece, and she had no friends. (House 7)

30 31

Like Essex in Sundial, Eleanor is painfully aware of her alienation from others and longs to form relationships.

However, her life has been so dismal that isolation has be- come the norm for her, offering a measure of security:

She nearly stopped forever just outside Ashton, because she came to a tiny house buried in a garden. I could live there all alone, she thought, slowing the car to look down the winding garden path. . No one would ever find me there, either, behind all those roses , and just to make sure I would plant oleanders b y the road. (House 18)

Elea nor regards her stay at Hill House as a fresh start, a time when she can begin life again, leaving the last eleven years, spent caring for an invalid mo ther, behind her. Eleanor's life, until her mother ' s death, was a misery :

She could not remember ever being truly happy in her adult life; her years with her mother had been built up devotedly around small guilts and small reproaches, constant weariness and unending despair. (House 7)

She is very conscious of the responsibility she bore her sick mother, and carries strong guilt feelings for the role she played in her mother's death: 32

"It was my fault my mother died," Eleanor said. "She knocked on the wall and called me and called me and I never woke up. I ought to have brought her her medicine; I always did before. . It was going to happen sooner or later, in any case," Eleanor said. "But of course no matter when it happened, it was going to be my fault." (House 150)

She is unable to escape the past, however, and it is sig- nificant that she feels the burden of her mother's death

so keenly . Her guilt becomes the dominant force in the nove l as she tries desperately to escape her past and con-

struct a new world for herself. In the process, she lies

to Theodora about her place "back home":

"I have a little place of my own," she said slowly . "An apartment, like yours, only I live alone . Smaller than yours, I'm sure. I'm still f urnishing it--buying one thing at a time, you know, to make sure I get everything right." (House 63)

Like the Halloran mansion in Sundial, Hill Hou e is a

throwback to the Victorian era. Built to the specif1ca-

tions of an eccentric owner in a calmer time, the house

somehow went bad, becoming a symbol for the modern world .

Dr. Montague says that the house,

" . has been unfit for human habitation for upwards of twenty years. What it was like before 33

then, whether its personality was molded by the people who lived here, or the things they did, or whether it was evil from the start are ques­ tions I cannot answer." (House 51)

That the house, like the modern world, is currently bad is beyond argument. The suspicion that Jackson plants is whether the house, like the world, has a lways been bad or

if the various individuals and their cataclysms in the last twenty years or so had made it bad. Regardless of how the house happened to become " unfit" for human habitation, it has always been str angely unbalanced, again par alleling the post-war wo rld . Explains Dr. Montague:

"Every angle . i s s lightly wr on g . Angles which you assume are the right angles you a re accustomed to, and have every right t o ex­ pect a re true, a re actually a fraction o f a degree off in one direction or another. . Of course the result of all these t iny aberrations of measurement adds up to a fairly large distor­ tion of the house as a whole ." (House 76)

As in the modern world, appe arances cannot be trusted a t

Hill House, nor can anything be regarded as s table .

The residence in Hill House, as in a ll of Jackson's last three novels, is tied closely t o the plot. Hill House is a gloomy but comfortable country estate, isolated from the nearby village. The doctor writes in his instructions 34

directing Eleanor to Hill House that,

I am making these directions so detailed because it is inadvisable to stop in Hillsdale to ask your way. The people there are rude to strangers and openly hostile to anyone inquiring about Hill House. (House 14)

Far from the setting of Hill House being mere window- dressing to the story line, the house manifests a distinct personality of its own, becoming almost a separate charac- ter. However, unlike The Sundial and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, in which the house is portrayed as a neutral zone in a harsh world, Hill House is pres ented as a malev- olent force in a malevolent world:

Hill House seemed awak e, with a watchfulness from the blank windows and a touch of glee in the eyebrow of the cornice. Almost any house, caught unexpectedly or at an odd angle, can turn a deeply mischievous look on a wa tching person . but a house arrogant and hating, never off guard, can only be evil. This house . . reared its great head back against the sky without con­ cession to humanity. It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for love or for hope. (House 26)

It is obvious early in the novel that Eleanor, trying to escape the world, will find no refuge at Hill House. She is aware of this from the moment she sees the mansion: 35

She turned her car onto the last section of straight drive Leading her, face to face, to Hill House and, moving without thought, pressed her foot on the brake to s tall the car and sat, staring. The house was vile. She shivered and thought, t he words coming free l y into her mind, Hill House is vile, it is diseased; get away from here at once. (House 25)

Eleanor choos e s to stay, however, although she is immedi- ately aware of the implications . With that choice, she chooses all the events that are to follow .

Just as Hill House symbolizes the modern world, the sense of anxiety that assaults Eleanor as soon as she enters the house symbolizes the individual's anxiety in the shaky post - war world . Eleanor's introduction to Mrs.

Dudley, the housekeeper, sets the tone for the anxiety and forlornness which follow:

"I don 't stay after I set out dinner," Mrs . Dudley went on. "Not after it begins to get dark. I leave before dark comes." "I know," Eleanor said. "So there won 't be anyone around if you need help." "I understand." "We couldn't even hear you, in the night." "I don't suppose--" "No one could. No one lives any nearer than the town. No one will come any nearer than that." "I know," Eleanor said tiredly . "In the night," Mr s . Dudley said, and smiled 36

outright. "In the dark," she said, and clos ed the door behind her. (House 29)

From the start, she understands that by staying at Hill

House, she is on her own.

Eleanor is not alone in comprehending the implications of her stay at Hill House, h ow ever; the other characters are aware of the possible ramifications of their choice as well. Dr. Montague says:

"I think we 're incredibly silly to stay. I think that a n atmosphere like this one can find out Lhe f laws a nd faults and weaknesses in all of u s, and break us apart in a matter of days. We have only one defense, and that is running away. . When we feel ourselves endangered we can leave, just as we came." (House 89)

The characters of Hill House make their choices and stub- bornly stick by them in a chaotic world; the result i s an almost unbearable anxiety as they uneasily wait for the disas ter which they sen se must be on the horizon:

Eleanor felt, as she had the day before, that the conversation was being skillfully guided away from the thought of fear, so very present in her own mind. Perhaps she was to be allowed to speak occasionally for all of them so that, quieting her, they quieted themselves and could leave the subject then; perhaps, vehicle for every kind of fear, she contained enough for all. (House 70 ) 37

By acknowledging her individual anxiety, Eleanor acknowl- edges her responsibility to the group and thus, by exten- sian , to all mankind , underscoring the existential doctrine of universal responsibility that Jackson first explored in

Sundial. Later, reflecting the modern tendency to analyze every emotion, the nature of Eleanor's anxiety is explored:

"Fear," the doctor said, "is the relinquish­ ment of log ic, the willing relinquishment of reasonable patterns. We yield to it or we fight it, but we cannot meet it halfway." "I was wondering earlier," Eleanor said. "Wh en I am afraid, I can see perfectly the sen­ sible, beautiful, not-afraid side of the world; I can s ee chairs and tables and windows staying the same . . But when I am afraid I no longer exist in relation to these things. I suppose because things are n ot afraid." "I think we are afraid of ourselves," the doctor said slowly. (House 113)

The summer residents of Hill House, creatures of free will, have no one else to fear.

While the inhabitants of Hill House wait for the events that they sense will come to alter their precari- ously ordered world, they experience a pleasant, somnolent sense of time which parallels the dreamy quality in Sundial:

Time passed lazily at Hill House. Eleanor and Theodora, the doctor and Luke, alert against terror, wrapped around by the rich hills and 38

securely set into the warm, dark luxuries of the house, were permitted a quiet day and a quiet night--enough, perhaps, to dull them a little. (House 106)

However, this pleasant, dreamy state does not last forever .

It is punctuated, seemingly at r a ndom, by scenes of star k, terrifying reality. First, Eleanor and Theodora a re held captive in their room by an unknown force in the hall:

So suddenly that Eleanor leaped back against the bed and Theodora gasped and cried out, the iron crash came agains t the door, and both of them lifted their eyes in horror, because t he hammer­ ing was against the upper edge of the door, higher than either of them could reach, higher than Luke or the doctor could reach, and the sickening, degrading cold came in waves from whatever was outside the door . (House 93)

Soon after, a message to Eleanor is found written in chalk in the hallway, then again in Theodora's room in b l ood:

"HELP ELEAN OR COME HOME ELEANOR" (House 110) . Afterwards , an earthquake shakes Hill House, throwing the characters around like rag dolls, but no damage is visible the next morning. The harsh reality of these scenes is moderated by the lack of physical evidence afterwards, and increases

Eleanor's anxiety as she questions the nature of reality versus her own sanity. 39

Jackson writes that "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality"

(House 1), and increasingly, as the characters become in- volved in events over which they seemingly have no control, events which continue to fragment their personalities, they are more clearly defined as existential beings. By s tub- bornly refusing to leave Hill House , in blatant disregard for the facts, they select disaster, simply because they choose not to avoid it. In this way, Jackson make s Hill

House into a harsh commentary on the consequences of per- sonal choice in an irrational, indifferent world.

As events escalate at Hill House, with Eleanor as the continual focus, her sense of isolation and emotional al- ienation increases. She is aware that she is falling apart, but recognizes that she is powerles s to help her- self even while she despairs of anyone else h e lping her:

"I am always afraid of being alone," Eleanor said, and wondered, am l talking like this? . Am I making more g uilt for myself? . "Look, there's only one of me, and it's all I've got. I hate seeing myself dissolve and slip and separate so that I'm living in one half, my mind, and I can see the other half of me helpless and frantic and driven and I can't stop it . . I could stand any of it if I could only surrender--." (House 114) 40

Eleanor wants desperately to capitulate, but realizes that she cannot because she is fighting herself. As the doctor said earlier, she can yield or she can fight, but she can- not meet her feelings halfway.

Eleanor ' s fragmentation increases as she realizes that there will be no safe and sane way out of the world she has chosen. She quarrels bitterly with Theodora several times, and Theodora a nd Luke taunt her like children as they be- come aware of their own capacity for malice. Eleanor spends hours wandering alone through Hill House, seeing and observing people and events, but not participating, and her personality becomes more closely aligned with that of Hill

House until she eventually precipitates her own doom by climbing the crumb ling staircase to the house's tower:

Climbing the narrow iron staircase was intoxi­ cating--going higher and higher, around and around, looking down, clinging to the slim iron railing, looking far, far down onto the stone floor. Time is ended now, she thought, all that is gone and left behind. (House 164)

She is rescued by Luke, but in the end is coldly and imper- sonally exiled, ostensibly for her own good, but really be- cause she has become a threat to the group. Once more, she is on her own. 41

As Eleanor faces the implication of her banishment from Hill House, where she is not wanted, into the outside world, where she has no refuge, the tra gic consequences of her alienation and forlornness become mo re clear. "For- lornness" has been defined as the recognition that there is no God, and that there is no externa l force to help an individual (Sartre 21) . Vulnerable and s tripped of her facade, Eleanor is forced to face squarely the fact that she is a lone, a nd she crumb les. She explains to Theodora:

" I haven 't any home, no place at a ll. And I can't go back to my sister' s because I stole her car. I haven't any horne. . no home. Everythin g in all the world that be longs to me is in a carton in the back seat o f my c a r. So you see , there's no place you can send me." (House 169)

Nonetheless , the residents of Hill House are implacable in their decision to send Eleanor away . Even n ow, however, she is a b le t o exercise her f reedom of choice:

But I won't g o, she thought. they can't make me leave. . "Eleanor, you can't stay here; but I can," she sang, "but I can; they don't make the rules around here." (House 173)

Eleanor chooses to yield instead of fight.

Suicide has been seen as the ultimate choice for the 42

existential being (Camus 3), the last option in a world gone wrong. Eleanor reflects this as she purposefully aims her car at the great tree at the base of Hill House's driveway. Her last c onscious thought reflects her aware- ness o f her responsibility for her death as well as her f orlornness that no one can help her: "In the unending, crashing second before the car hurled into the tree she thought clearly, Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this?

Why don't they stop me? " (House 174). For Eleanor, suicide becomes an optimistic act as she tries to leave a bad world in hopes of finding peace in a better one. Earlier, she r eflected:

Peace, Eleanor thought concretely; what I want in all this wo rld is peace, a quiet spot to lie and think, a quiet spot among the flower s where I can dream and tell myself sweet stories. (House 137)

There will be no p eace for Eleanor, however, now or ever.

Just as there is no hope for a better physical world to come in Sundial, Jackson offers no hope for a better spir- itual world in Hill House. There is no mention of a deity or hint of spirituality in any of Jackson's novels, and

Eleanor is condemned in death to a world as shadowy and 43

lonely as her life. The novel concludes darkly that ''si-

lence lay . steadily against Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone" (House 174).

Shirley Jackson takes her existential world- view a

step further in Hill House than she did in Sundial. The

characters in Sundial a re participants in a world-wide ca­

tastrophe and destroy their chances for Utopia. Hill House

focuses , narrowly , on the individuals moving dreamily yet purposefully through a world in which events are irrationru, haphazard, and dangerous . The wo rld Jackson creates in lliUl

House is so oppressive a nd overwhelming, and the combina­

tion of personal choice coupled with personal responsibil­

ity is s o catastrophic, that even death is an alternative, but not an escape. The modern world which Jackson portrays

in Hill House is one of oppression and horror, and no guid­ ance is available for the individual who may need it. The

tragedy of Hill House is the disaster of Eleanor's life combined with the denial of a tranquil afterlife. The consequences of free will are ominous enough, but the knowl­ edge that this temporal life is the limit of man ' s poten­

tial is truly ruinous. Chapter 3: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

The themes of alienation and despair are central to

Jackson's last novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, however in this book, the alienation is psychological and the despair gives way to perversity, resulting in a novel more absurd and darkly humorous than the two preceding it.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle completes Jackson 's ex- istential world view . In it, she makes a strong statement on the impossibility of happiness and the inability to trust anyone in the modern world.

As with Jackson's other two existential novels, the house in Castle assumes a dominant role in the wo rk . Un- like the residences in Sundial and Hill House, however, the

Blackwood mansion is not merely walled from the rest of the world, it is completely unapproachable. Mary Katherine

(Merricat ) Blackwood, who narrates the tale in the first person, describes the house:

Our father had put up the signs and the gates and the locks when he closed off the path; be­ fore, everyone used the path as a short cut from the village to the highway four-corners where the bus stopped. Our mother disliked the sight 44 45

of anyone who wanted to walking past our front door, and when our father brought her to live in the Blackwood house, one of the first things he had to do was close off the path and fence in the entire Blackwood property . (Ca stle 2 7)

The Blackwood house is even mo r e i sol a ted n ow than it was when Merricat's parents were a live . The house was the scene of a sensational mass murder six y ears e arl ier, when the entire Blackwood family with the e xcep tion of Merricat and h er sister, Constance, was poisoned ther e b y a massive dose of a rsenic mixed with the sugar in t he f am i l y ' s heir- loom s ugar bowl. Constance was accus ed a nd a cquitted of t he murder s, but the townspeople a r e s o malicious and un- for gi v ing that the sisters choose v i rtually to bury them- selves a live in their home rath er than face the villagers .

One major way in which Cas tle d iffer s from Sundi a l and

Hil l House is that in the t wo e arlie r n ovels t he homes were isolated from the adjoining towns bu t only i n subtle con- flict with them. In Castle, howe v er, the residents of t h e

Bla ckwood house are in open conflict with t h e village.

Merricat, for example, who must go into the village for necessities once a week, is taunted mercilessly by a v il- lager while she tries to drink a cup of coffee : 46

"I'm not bothering anybody, Stell. Am I both­ ering anybody ? I'm just asking Miss Mary Katherine Blackwood here how it happens that everyone in town is saying how she and her big sister are going to be leaving us soon. Moving away. Going somewhere else to live. . I was saying to people only this morning it's t oo bad when the old families go. Although you could rightly say a good number of the Blackwoods are gone already ." (Castle 20-21)

Merricat is too proud to respond to the taunts of the vil- lagers, but her hatred for them is a real thing inside of her:

I would have liked to come into the grocery some morning and see them all, even the Elberts and the children, l y ing there crying with the pain a nd the dying. I wo uld then help my self to the groceries , stepping over the bodies, taking whatever I fancied from the shelves, and go home with perhaps a kick for Mrs. Donnell while she lay there. I was never sorry when I had thoughts like this; I only wished they would come true. (Castle 15 - 16)

After the trauma of a trip to the village, Merricat's return t o her home and her sister is a return to her only haven in a harsh world. Mericat has always idolized her sister:

When I was small I thought Constance was a fairy princess. I used to try to draw her picture, with long golden hair and eyes as blue as the crayon could make them, and a bright pink spot 47

on either cheek; the pictures always surprised me because she did look like that; even at the worst time she was pink and white and golden, and nothing has ever seemed to dim the brightness of her. (Castle 29)

In spite of the affection Merricat has for her sister and

her house, however, the world in which she lives is a po-

tentially dangerous one, where even the most innocuous

appearing things have a capacity for evil. Merricat's aged

Uncle Julian, wh o wa s poisoned by the ars enic but did not

die, describes t h i s wo rld, saying that "It c ould b e said

that there is dan g er everywhere . . danger o f p o ison,

certainly . . Garden plants more deadly than snakes and

simple herbs that s lash through the lining o f y our belly"

(Castle 41).

Constanc e, too, recognizes that the " o ut s ide" world

is an evil, haz ardous place, and that the h ou s e has been a

safe refuge for the last six years, but increasing ly, she

is becoming aware of her responsibility in making recluses

of her sister and herself, and she worries that the choice was an incorrect one:

"I've been hiding here," Constance said slowly, as though she were not at all sure of the order of the words. . "It's all been my fault," she said . "I didn't realize how wrong I was, 48

letting things go on and on because I wanted to hide. It wasn't fair to you or Uncle Julian." (Castle 96-97)

With Constance's awareness of her respons ibility, the scene

is set for a change in the Blackwood lifestyle, but

Merricat's precariously ordered world totters dangerously

at the thought of any change. Merricat is unnerved when

Constance so much as ventures to the end of the garden to

meet her:

"Merricat," she said, smiling at me , "look how far I came today ." "It' s too far," I said. "First thing you know you'll be following me into t he v illage." "I might at that," she said. Even though I knew she was teas ing me I was chilled, but I laughed. "You wouldn't l ike it much," I told her. (Castle 29)

Unwillingly, Merricat is led to the c onclus ion that there has been a change in Constance's outlook and that as a result , her safe, well-ordered world is coming to an end:

On Sunday morning the change was one day nearer. . The air of change was so strong that there was no avoiding it; change lay over the stairs and the kitchen and the garden like fog. (Castle 65)

The change that destroys Merricat's world comes in the form 49

of a distant cousin, Charles Blackwood, whom the sisters had not seen since the murders . Incredulous at the pres- ence of an outsider in her house, Merricat at first refuses to believe in him:

"Cousin Charles is still asleep," she [Constance] said, and the day fell apart around me. I saw Jonas in the doorway and Constance by the stove but they had no color. I could not breathe, I was tied a round tight, e verything was cold. "He was a ghost," I said. (Castle 77)

Merricat is aware that Charles has the ability to destroy her well-ordered world . A malevolent force,

Charles has come to the Blackwood estate to try to bilk

Constance out of the f ortune hidden there, and he makes no secret of the fact tha t Merricat is in the way. Charles says to Merricat' s cat, in her presence:

"Where would poor Cousin Mary go if her sister turned her out?" Charles asked Jonas, who listened quietly . "What would poor Cousin Mary do if Constance and Charles didn't love her?." (Castle 95)

Recognizing what Charles is doing, Merricat's only re- cource is to try to take action into her own hands to re- store order to her world. It is in her dealings with 50

Cousin Charles that the existential side of Merricat's nature is most clear, and her parallel to modern man is most obvious. She i s willing to take drastic, irrational measures to put her world back together, and is willing to live with the consequences of those measures . The novel's humor i s also at its blackest as Merricat and Uncle Julian try to come to terms with Charles' presence.

The theme of mass murder at the dinner table is re- current in the novel, but the characters' blithe discuss i on of the horrid event reduces it to an absurd, darkly humor- ous level . The Bla ckwoods a re able to be matter-of- fact about the murders, but the subj ect is morbidly fasc inating to almost everyone else. Earlier in the novel , a r a re visitor to the Blackwood house, Mrs. Wright, i s "hopelessly lost to decorum" (Castle 42) as Uncle Julian des c ribes the trust they had in Constance's cooking:

"Constance can put her hands on a bewildering array of deadly substances without ever leaving horne. . She might have made a marmalade of the lovely thornapple or the baneberry . Deadly nightshade is a relative of the tomato; would we, any of us, have had the prescience to decline if Constance served it to us, spiced and made in to pickle? . " "What was wrong with Mrs. Blackwood doing her own cooking? " "Please." Uncle Julian's voice had a little 51

shudder in it . "I personally preferred to chance the arsenic." (Castle 46-47)

Later , Uncle Julian makes sport of Cousin Charles:

"Charles is intrepid. Your cooking, though of a very high standard, indeed, has certain disadvantages." "I'm not afraid to eat anything Constance cooks," Charles said. "Really?" said Uncle Julian. I congratulate you. I was referring to the effect a weighty meal like pancakes is apt to have on a delicate stomach. I suppose your reference was to arsenic." (Castle 81)

Merricac, too, is continually reminding Charles of the pos sible danger inherent in something usually as safe and dependable as foo d, with a blackly humorous result. This exchange occurs during dinner:

"Amanita pantherina," I said, "highly poi­ sonous. Amanita rubescens , edib l e a nd g ood. . The Apocynum cannabinum is not a poisonous plant of the first importance, but the snake­ berry--" "Stop it," Charles said, still quiet. (Ca stle 110)

In spite of the efforts of Merricat and Uncle Julian, however, Charles steadfastly refuses to leave even after

Merricat fouls his bed with mud and stones. Charles's subsequent ranting and raving only increases Constance's 52

sense of guilt for her role in Merricat's lifestyle:

"It's my fault, all of it," Constance said. I thought she was going to cry . It was unthinkable for Constance to cry again after all these years , but I was held tight, I was chilled, and I c o uld not move to go over to her. (Castle 111)

Finally, in despair, Merricat p ushes Ch a rles 's lit pipe into the wastebasket in his bedroom s tarting a fire which de- stray s the entire upper part o f the Blackwood house, fi- nally precipitating Charl e s ' s e x it. None t h e less , t h e pri ce is a steep one: the Blackwoo d s only r e fuge in a harsh world is destroyed.

With the destruction of her hou se, Me rricat ' s wo r ld is more unba lanced than e v er, a n d threatens t o come apart altogether as she rea l i z e s tha t e v e n after the tragedy of the destruction of her house, the vi l lage rs a re s till un- able to leave Constance and her in peace. Her f i rs t reac- tion is one of shock that the vi l l a g e rs are d isappointed the fire is out:

"It ' s going out," someone said. "Under control , " another voice added. "Did a lot o f damage, though . " There was laughter. "Sure made a mess of the old place." "Should of burned it down years ago . " "And them in it." They mean us, I thought. Constance and me. 53

(Castle 126)

Once the fire is out, Merricat is horrified when the vil-

lagers ransack the house, destroying whatever was untouched by the fire . Abandoning themselves to the joy of wanton

destruction, the villagers catch sight of Merricat and

Constance, and chase them:

"There they are," someone shouted, and I think it was Stella . "There they are, there they are, there they are," and I started to run but Constance stumbled and then they were all around us , pus hing and laughing and try ing to get close to s ee. Constance held Uncle Julian's shawl a cros s her face so they could not look at her, and for a minute we stood very still, pressed together by the feeling of people all around us. (Cas tle 129)

The spree of destruction and haras sment continues until the villagers discover the body of Uncle Julian; ashamed at last, they leave Merricat and her sister in peace , but

Merricat vows vengeance:

I said aloud to Constance, "I am going to put death in all their food and watch them die." Constance stirred and the leaves rustled. "The way you did before?" she asked. It had never been spoken of between us, not once in six years. "Yes," I said after a minute, "the Tvay I did before." (Castle 132) 54

We Have Always Lived in the Castle becomes even more clearly defined as an existential work with the revelation that Merricat is the murderer of her family. With the knowledge that she chose to shoulder the blame for her sister during the trial and in the years that fol lowed,

Constance can no longer be seen as an innocent victim of a situation she could not control . With her decision to accept the blame for a crime she did not commit, the events of the succeeding years, and the cruel treatment of the villagers become products of her choice. While Constance's motives for protecting her s ister are unclea r, t he conse- quences of that protection are solely hers. Constance her- self ruined whatever chance she might have had for happiness or a "normal" life.

Like Constance, Merricat is also a product of her free will. As a child of twelve, she premeditated the murder of her entire family and allowed Constance, "the most precious thing in my world" (Castle 29) , to assume the blame. Six years later, she becomes solely responsible f or the de­ struction of her house, her only refuge in the world, and the total alienation that follows. Through the actions of

Constance and Merricat, Jackson makes a strong statement 55

about the hazards of trusting anyone, even a "loved one,"

and underscores the self-destructive impulses of modern man.

In this way, by exploring the willfully self-destructive

tendencies of the Blackwood sisters, Jackson make s a harsher statement on the horrors of modern life than she did in Sundial or Hill House.

After the destruction of their home, the t o t a l aliena-

tion of the sisters from the outside world becomes mo re painfully apparent as they barric ade their hous e f r om the villagers :

I brought piece a f t e r piece from t h e p ile of junk . . on our f r ont porch, and heaped t he broken boards and furniture. It would no t really keep anyone out, of cours e; the children could climb over it easily, but i f anyone did try to get past there would be enough noise and falling of broken boards t o give plenty o f t ime to close and bolt the kitchen door. (Cas tle 158)

With their complete isolation from the outside world, the sisters lose themselves to despair for a while before they are able to f ind what they consider to be happiness. Iron- ically, a portion of this happiness is constructed on the guilt the villagers assume for the destruction of the house.

In an anguished sense of awareness for their responsibility, the villagers try to expiate their guilt by bringing baskets 56

of food to the sisters:

Once or twice there was a note in the basket: "This is for the dishes," or "Sorry for your harp, " or "We apologize about the curtains." We always set the baskets back where we found them, and never opened the front door until it was completely dark and we were sure no one was near . (Castle 167)

I n the end, the Blackwood sisters discover what they think is peace and c onsider themselves happy. Completely isolated, they are unaware that their happiness is based on the fantasy world they hav e created for thems elves far away f r om the harsh realities of the "real" wo rld . They do no t cons ider that Constance' s happiness depends on lack of contact wi th anyone who could upset her fantasy , o r that

Merricat ' s happiness is the obsessive fantas y of a psy- chotic mind . Their happiness is, of course, absurd on a r ational plane, but the Blackwoods have left the rational world far behind. They are even able, in the midst of the reality the y have constructed for themselves, to look dis- paragin g l y a t the outside world and the guilt of the vil- lagers:

"Poor strangers," I said. "They have so much to be afraid of." "Well," Constance said, "I am afraid of 57

spiders." "Jonas and I will see to it that no spider ever comes near you. Oh, Constance," I said, "we are so happy." (Castle 173)

The tragedy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle is that the Blackwoods, in spite of what they have lived through, and choosing to totally disregard the facts, con- sider themselves happy. In this way, Castle becomes

Jackson's harshest indictment of the impossibility of hop e or happiness in the post-war wo rld . For modern man, as for

Constance and Merricat, any hope or happiness must be the product of an unbalanced or obsessive mi nd ; a "rational" mind, and the villagers are presumably rational, is unhappy and guilt ridden. For Jackson, happiness becomes the fan- tastic construction of the individual ' s mind. The Blackwood sisters, like the world they reflect, are able to cons ider themselves happy as long as they ignore the past and do n ot question the future; they will be safe only so long as they do not think about the responsibility they know they have for their reality. Conclusion

Arland Ussher writes in Journey Through Dread that

"Existentialism starts where every religion starts .

in an anguished awareness of Evil" (12). The awareness

man has of his capacity fo r evil is the starting point in

each of Shirle y J ackson's last novels and sets the stage

for her trea tment of existential themes in them. When ex­

amined t o g ether, thes e novels present an existential world­

view tha t b ecome s a s evere indictment of the twentieth­

cent ury pos t-war period.

There a r e s evera l common themes that predominate in

these nov el s. Perhaps the most obvious is that they are

all set in larg e, walled mansions isolated from, and i n

conflic t with, the adjoining villages. These houses are

all old, relics of a calmer, more ordered time that con­

trasts sharply with the disorder of the modern world. The

inhcbitan ts of these houses are lonely, isolated people who

are p a i n f ully aware of the consequences of their free will

in an indifferent world. Jackson's characters are intel- ligent and educated , and r ealize that they a re respons ible

58 59

for the realities they have created for themselves. With the awareness of their responsibility comes an almost un­ bearable sense of fragmentation and alienation, which leads to a tendency towards introspection and unhappiness. They are unable to experience true emotion because they cannot share with anyone else; as a result, there is a lack of affection in the novels, and no real sense of love or even of friendship . For Jackson, family love is minimized, and the theme of familial murder appears in all three books:

Mrs. Halloran murders her son; Eleanor Vance withholds medicine from her mother; Merricat Blackwood poisons her encire family . Unsurprisingly, then, emotion within

Jackson's families does not run deep. Marriages, in par­ ticular, are shown in poor light, casting a shadow of in­ stability over an institution that had traditionally been regarded as the cornerstone of society. Jackson's treat- men t of lonely, alienated married couples is a legitimate reflection of her times as well as a harbinger of the years to come.

The lack of emotion which Jackson ascribes to her characters leads to a dreamy, confused sense of time in which individuals tend to remain in their own little worlds, 60

finding communication with others difficult. Donald Barr writes that Jackson "substitutes the middle class emotion of embarrassment" for passion, and that "passion is treated embarrassingly" (4). For Jackson, however, embarrassment is an outgrowth of emotional alienation and the insecurity that goes with it; her treatment of emotion reflects the changes in inter-personal relationships in the twentieth century.

Aside from the familial theme s which dominate in

Jackson's existential works, the dichotomy of good versus evil is a lso strong l y prevalent. William Peden writes in his review of The Sundial that Jackson ' s world i s one

"deficient in common sense, kindness, and Aristotelian magnanimity" (18). Jackson's characters want desperately to live in a kind, just world, but human nature always prevails, destroying visions of Utopia . The Hallorans yearn for a "golden world" (Sundial 51), but foul it with their greed, pettiness, and ambition. Eleanor Vance longs for a place where she can "dream and tell myself sweet stories" (Hill House 137), but finally chooses death when it become apparent to her that such a place is unattainable.

The Blackwood sisters retreat from the horrors of the real 61

world and construct an absurd world for themselves in which kindness and love are possible so long as they are not questioned.

Jackson further underscores her existential vision of

society through the use o f ritual, which parallels the heinous rituals of the World War Two era. The Sundial deals with ritualistic book burning, The Haunting of . Hill

House examines the self-flagellation of guilt , and We Have

Always Lived in the Castle is concerned with the hysteria of the mob that ritualistically destroys the Blackwood house. These ritualistic extremes mirror the excesses of a world dominated by Nazism and Fascism, and emphasize that modern man is as prone to ritual as the ancients, with the difference that he is conscious, and therefore accountable .

The conscious evil of modern man is Jackson's most severe criticism of her world.

Jackson's characters also demonstrate self-destructive tendencies that correspond to the self-destructive tenden­ cies of their society. The suicide of Eleanor Vance is the most obvious of these tendencies, but other of her charac­ ters become victims of themselves: Mrs. Halloran, for example, contributes t o her own downfall with her ambition. 62

Aunt Fanny is a victim of her self-importance. Merricat

Blackwood destroys her sanity to preserve her fantasy world.

Perhaps the most dominant theme running through

Jackson's last novels is the lack of hope for a better world to come. Although existentialism can be regarded as a doctrine of hope, there is no hope in Jackson's world for any kind of emotional, intellectual, or spiritual happiness .

Sensual pleasure is as much as Jackson's characters can rightfully expect out of life, and there is a strong empha­ s is on the physical pleasures of eating and drinking . An­ other common theme in the novels is absurdity and a strong emphasis on black humor, underscoring the futility of man's role on earth. Absurdity has been defined as a "confron­ tation between the irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart" (Camus 16); the discrepancy between the obviously irrational aspects of modern life and the desire for a Utopian fantasy world is dominant in these works and become a legitimate reflec­ tion of the hopes, fears, and dreams of the twentieth­ century world.

More than anything else, Jackson's characters, like the members of the post-war generation they represent, are 63

very conscious that they are products of their free will, and therein lies Jackson's basic tie to the existential genre. The combination of free will and personal respon- sib ility in a harsh world results in her characters' im- pulse s to try to flee their realities. The Hallora ns try t o escape through the rationalization that they are s omehow

" diff erent;" Eleanor Vance tries to escape through s uicide.

The Blackwoods consider themselves happy, but are only able t o do so bec a use they construct an absurd, fanci f u l world for themse l v e s . Their happiness is Jackson's mo s t b itter commentary on the potential the post-war generati on has fo r personal h a ppiness.

The role of modern man in his shaky, fragmented wo r ld was imp o r tant to Shirley Jackson. The import ance o f her nove l s , s p e cifica lly her last novels, has been ecli p s e d b y the fame of her s hort story "The Lottery," and her treat- me nt of existential themes has been overlooked. The exam- inat i on of these themes, however, proves that Jackson i s not merely an "entertaining" author but an important one whose works mirrored her own turbulent times. Recognizing that Jackson is an unacknowledged existentialist proves that her works are, as her husband Stanley Edgar Hyman 64

said, "sensitive, faithful symbols" (Post 82) for the turmoil of the post-war world as well as important contri­ butions to the genre of American existential fiction. Bibliography

Primary Sources

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------Come Along with Me. Ed. Stanley Edgar Hyman. New York: Viking Press, 1968.

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"Fame." The Writer, August, 1948.

Hangsaman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Co., 1951.

------The Haunting of Hill House. New York: Popular Library, 1959.

------Life Among the Savages. New York: Farrar, Straus and Co., 1953.

------The Lottery, or The Adventures of James Harris. New York: Farrar, Straus and Co., 1949.

------The Magic of Shirley Jackson. Ed. Stanley Edgar Hyman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ~66.

------Raising Demons. New York: Farrar, Straus and Co., 195 7.

------The Road Through the Wall. New York: Farrar, Straus and Co., 1948.

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65 66

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------The Short Story in America. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1952.

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