gothicmonsters:“These feelings of dread and panic, paired with the desperate hope that the... gothicmonsters: “These feelings of dread and panic, paired with the desperate hope that the deluded crowd will snap out of it and come to its senses, lie at the heart of what makes Shirley Jackson’s work unforgettable. Tapping into her own frustrations and agonies, she painted one exquisite portrait after another of that precise juncture where blustery confidence yields to helplessness and terror. The sinister forces the heroine perceives are real, but they’re just ephemeral enough, by design, to make her doubt herself repeatedly. In the end, the self-possessed woman becomes the possessed.” —HEATHER HAVRILESKY, “Haunted Womanhood” May 12, 2021 at 07:14AM

gothicmonsters:

“These feelings of dread and panic, paired with the desperate hope that the deluded crowd will snap out of it and come to its senses, lie at the heart of what makes Shirley Jackson’s work unforgettable. Tapping into her own frustrations and agonies, she painted one exquisite portrait after another of that precise juncture where blustery confidence yields to helplessness and terror. The sinister forces the heroine perceives are real, but they’re just ephemeral enough, by design, to make her doubt herself repeatedly. In the end, the self-possessed woman becomes the possessed.”

—HEATHER HAVRILESKY, “Haunted Womanhood”

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