Do you know who I am? : contextualising Shirley Jackson

Abstract

This thesis attempts to broaden the current critical approach towards Shirley Jackson by discussing her work within the cultural, social, literary and historical contexts of America during the 1950s. This is the first time that such a perspective has been adopted whilst discussing Jackson’s writing, whose work has, since her death in 1965 generally been evaluated from within a fixed set of critical perspectives - primarily feminism, the psychoanalytical approach, and in relation to her status as a writer of gothic fictions. Therefore, although the relationship between Jackson’s work and the period in which she produced most of her writing has been largely ignored, this thesis will challenge this oversight by arguing that Jackson actively engaged with many of the most prominent preoccupations and anxieties of her age.