“Once you have read “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” (including the afterword by Lethem) and “The Lottery” (Links to an external site.) , please spend as much time as you need to discuss the dominant Themes in the two works by Shirley Jackson. If the New Yorker link doesn’t let you read it for free try this link instead: https://fullreads.com/literature/the-lottery/Links to an external site. This type of Social Commentary in the form of Fiction has a long history in Literature. By creating a world that is at once familiar and strange authors are able to highlight aspects of the societies in which they live in a deep and meaningful way. Lethem points out in the Afterword that many of the themes in Jackson’s work are drawn from her own life experiences and personal psychology. But many of the themes are more broadly connected to ideas that we have discussed in this course and the previous one. Also of note is the fact that Jackson’s work has been seen as highly controversial, especially when it first was published. Readers have often felt complicit, as Lethem has said, simply due to the fact of having been witness to the events that Jackson’s narrators relate. With all this in mind, “write” at length about the themes you think are most compelling in the works we have read by Jackson. What was your gut reaction to each story? How do you feel about our narrators and the other characters? How do the themes of each relate to each other? What is Jackson saying about American Society in each work? What connections do you see to other works we have read in FI? Please cite specific passages from the texts in support of your responses to the prompt.”
link to reading: https://fullreads.com/literature/the-lottery/
