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 ofconversation. The novel satirizes a human condition where gullibility, cupidity, and culpability reign virtuallyunrestrained by moral principle and create a community of the survival of the worst. The satire is not without richhumor"(21). Shirley Jackson's fiction is filled with lonely, desperate women who reflect the disintegrations of modernlife. The is seen quite clearly in Elizabeth Richmond, the disintegrating protagonist of "The Bird's Nest"(1954). "WhileJackson was a lifelong student of mental illness, and all of her novels explore some aspect of the inner life, "The Bird'sNest" is doubtless her most overtly psychological novel. She demonstrates that magical thinking and magical fantasiesby themselves are not only useless but dangerous; to bring happiness, the real magic of the human personality must bepurposefully grasped and wielded with determination"(Kittredge, 4) Jackson in her 1951 novel, "The Haunting of HillHouse", gives evil force not just reality, but personality and purpose. "The supernatural in this novel is neither productnor facet of the main character's mind; it is outside her, and independently real. It does not occupy her; rather, it luresand 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, critics seem to have respected Shirley Jackson as an American novelist, short storywriter, and nonfiction writer. Mary Kittredge writes that "in all the aspects of her life,.....Jackson fought whatev...
