the older sister, Constance knows that her psychopathic younger sister Merricat poisoned the family byputting arsenic in the sugar bowl. Throughout the story there is much struggle with the villagers and their cousinCharles, which results in Merricat burning down their mansion in order to kill Charles, but in the end the sisters staytogether. Here Jackson questions the traditional definition of normality, suggesting that the villagers' violence is deviantbehavior, while Merrricat's actions are prompted by a psychological disturbance that should evoke sympathy andunderstanding. "We Have Always Lived in the Castle remains Jackson's most critically acclaimed novel. Secondary CriticismOver the years many critics have wrote articles on Shirley Jackson's numerous work. Many critics had much to sayabout Jackson's most famous short story, "The Lottery". Her insights and observations about man and society aredisturbing; and in the case of "The Lottery," they are shocking. "The themes themselves are not new: evil cloaked inseeming good; prejudice and hypocrisy; loneliness and frustration; psychological studies of minds that have slipped thebonds of reality" (Friedman, 44) Literary critic, Elizabeth Janeway wrote that, " 'The Lottery' makes its effect withouthaving to state a moral about humanity's need to deflect the knowledge of its own death on a victim. That uneasyconsciousness is waked in the reader himself by the impact of the story. Miss Jackson's great gift is not to create aworld of fantasy and terror, but rather to discover the existence of the grotesque in the ordinary world. (Janeway, 58)Fritz Oehlschlaeger, a literary critic, stated that, "a conflict between male authority and female resistance is subtly evidentthroughout "The Lottery." Early in the story, the boys make a 'great pile of stones in one corner of the square," whilethe girls stand aside "talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys." (259) Critic Pe...
