‘Charles’ is a short story by the American writer Shirley Jackson (1916-65), first published in the women’s magazine Mademoiselle in 1948 and included in her 1949 collection, The Lottery and Other Stories. The story is about a young boy who, upon starting kindergarten, picks up bad habits which he attributes to the presence of Charles, a boy in his class.
Shirley Jackson
The Symbolism of Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ Explained
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Lottery’ is a famous 1948 short story of the American writer Shirley Jackson. The story focuses on a village where an annual lottery is drawn, with the fate of the person who draws the ‘winning’ slip only revealed at the end of the story. Jackson’s story is about a dark side to human behaviour which had become fully exposed during the horrors of the 1940s, especially in Europe.
Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’: Key Themes Explained
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Lottery’ by the American writer Shirley Jackson (1916-65) was first published on 26 June 1948 in the New Yorker magazine. The story was initially met with anger and even a fair amount of hate mail from readers, with many cancelling their subscriptions to the magazine. What was it within this dark and terrifying story which not only unnerved so many readers, but actively seemed to repulse them?
Key Quotes from Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’ Explained
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
What are the most important quotations in Shirley Jackson’s well-known 1948 short story ‘The Lottery’? This deeply unsettling story about a village which annually selects a blood sacrifice from its inhabitants in the hope of bringing about a good harvest is widely studied and discussed, but it deals with some big ideas and moral questions.
A Summary and Analysis of Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Witch’
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Witch’ is a short story by the American writer Shirley Jackson. The plot is very straightforward and the story runs to only a few pages, telling of how a mother travels on the train with her young son and baby daughter, and how a strange man strikes up a conversation with her son and tells him a macabre story.
But what is it that makes ‘The Witch’ so unsettling? Before we come to an analysis of the tale, here’s a quick recap of the plot.