at "it is a nicely woven novel, where imagery and technique work together well. Through the use of various motifs, such as the house imagery, references to time, Jackson is able to juxtapose character, theme, and incident in startling and ironic ways. As in her other work, Jackson employs a deft kind of cinematic focusing, creating a simultaneity of effect and capturing well a roomful of conversation. The novel satirizes a human condition where gullibility, cupidity, and culpability reign virtually unrestrained by moral principle and create a community of the survival of the worst. The satire is not without rich humor"(21). Shirley Jackson's fiction is filled with lonely, desperate women who reflect the disintegrations of modern life. The is seen quite clearly in Elizabeth Richmond, the disintegrating protagonist of "The Bird's Nest"(1954). "While Jackson was a lifelong student of mental illness, and all of her novels explore some aspect of the inner life, "The Bird's Nest" is doubtless her most overtly psychological novel. She demonstrates that magical thinking and magical fantasies by themselves are not only useless but dangerous; to bring happiness, the real magic of the human personality must be purposefully grasped and wielded with determination"(Kittredge, 4) Jackson in her 1951 novel, "The Haunting of Hill House", gives evil force not just reality, but personality and purpose. "The supernatural in this novel is neither product nor facet of the main character's mind; it is outside her, and independently real. It does not occupy her; rather, it lures and seduces her away from the pains and problems of the real world into a ghostly existence as another haunting spirit. In "Haunting", the evil is developed to the point of winning the conflict; there is no happy ending for the heroine, because her character is too weak for the battle. She does not choose madness, but is overwhelmed by it." (Kittredge, 15). Throughout all her work, cri...
