Story #17: The horror of domesticity
A close reading of Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson is best known for writing “The Lottery,” a short story that most of us study in high school. Her work is often described as gothic fiction or horror fiction, but I think that’s unfair. She’s also wickedly funny and a keen observer of everyday life. These qualities really come through in her two memoirs, Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons.1
I’m reading Raising Demons right now and finished Life Among the Savages in February. Today, let’s look at one sentence from Life Among the Savages—how it works and why it’s a sentence that only Jackson could have written.
The story
This is the opening sentence of the second chapter of Life Among the Savages.
I believe that all women, but especially housewives, tend to think in lists; I have always believed, against all opposition, that women think in logical sequence, but it was not until I came to empty the pockets of my light summer coat that year that I realized how thoroughly the housekeeping mind falls into the list pattern, how basically the idea of a series of items, following one another docilely, forms the only possible reasonable approach to life if you have to live it with a home and a husband and children, none of whom would dream of following one another docilely.
It grabbed me immediately. Or rather, I had to grab it. It felt like a horse galloped by with just enough time for me to grab the reins before it thundered toward some distant point that only it could see, zigging and zagging as I tried to keep from falling off.
First, there is the sheer length of the sentence, which takes up almost the entire first page of the chapter’s title page. This sentence is 102 words long and it contains nine commas, one semicolon and one period. If the sentence weren’t so tightly constructed, it would feel disorienting.
But this is Shirley Jackson.
Why it works
This sentence takes the reader on a ride. It starts off with a simple statement—Jackson believes that women think in lists. But then she meanders into a short scene about her summer coat pockets and lands on the futility of trying to find order in domestic chaos. Jackson also says that “women think in logical sequence” and then delivers a sentence that unfolds in a stepwise, logical fashion.
Let’s look at how she does it.
Logic, lists and order
She starts by declaring what seems to be her thesis statement (that women are logical thinkers), and then connects it to a second sentence with a semicolon. The semicolon is important because it gives the two pieces equal weight, even though the second part is much longer.
I believe that all women, but especially housewives, tend to think in lists; I have always believed, against all opposition, that women think in logical sequence…
If we take out the parenthetical bits, we get this simplified sentence:
I believe that all women tend to think in lists; I have always believed that women think in logical sequence.
This distillation helps us see that Jackson is using repetition to double down on her assertion. In addition, she’s adding weight to her statement—this isn’t a new thing, she has always believed this.
When we return to the full sentences, we can see Jackson addressing the stereotype of women as emotional, rather than logical, thinkers. She backs this up with her diction (word choice), using words like opposition, logical, thoroughly and reasonable approach throughout the sentence.
I believe that all women, but especially housewives, tend to think in lists; I have always believed, against all opposition, that women think in logical sequence…
From there, Jackson uses but to append another idea. But is doing two things here. First, it’s showing us a different perspective, likely a contrasting point of view—and doing it while keeping this new idea on the same level as the existing ones.
I believe that all women, but especially housewives, tend to think in lists; I have always believed, against all opposition, that women think in logical sequence, but it was not until I came to empty the pockets of my light summer coat that year…
A summer coat—and chaos
So far, Jackson has given us sentences with perfect control. She’s used a semicolon, which is a formal punctuation mark, far more formal than a comma. She’s used but to indicate things are about to take a detour. So far, everything is orderly and constrained.
But then there is this odd scene about emptying the pockets of the light summer coat. The language here is more colloquial, and it’s the only part of the sentence that gives us a scene—we picture Jackson at the closet, riffling through her pockets (and as we learn further on in the essay, finding a to-do list of unfinished tasks from the previous year). It’s a break before what comes next.
Jackson takes that reprieve about the summer coat and appends the short phrase that I realized. The ensuing pileup of words without punctuation or pause mimics the flood of realization that comes to her.
I believe that all women, but especially housewives, tend to think in lists; I have always believed, against all opposition, that women think in logical sequence, but it was not until I came to empty the pockets of my light summer coat that year that I realized how thoroughly the housekeeping mind falls into the list pattern, how basically the idea of a series of items, following one another docilely, forms the only possible reasonable approach to life…
In less expert hands, this section could be confusing. But Jackson sets out some breadcrumbs to help the reader follow along. The repeated how sets up a parallel structure—the pattern and repetition is especially important in such a dense sentence. The more rules we can discern, the better we can follow.
…but it was not until I came to empty the pockets of my light summer coat that year that I realized how thoroughly the housekeeping mind falls into the list pattern, how basically the idea of a series of items, following one another docilely, forms the only possible reasonable approach to life…
Why is this so effective? The first half of the sentence starts and stops with punctuation. She uses a semicolon and but to hold several ideas with equal weight. We get the sense that she is in control.
But then the summer coat section functions like a pivot point. Jackson draws attention to it with the pileup of words without punctuation. As she realizes why women take to lists, she goes into deeper and deeper detail. Structurally, she does it through a series of nested phrases (dependent clauses, if you must know) that hinge off the discovery of her summer coat.
That is, the first half of the sentence holds ideas at the same level, mirroring the relative control of Jackson’s mind. But once she starts to realize why women take to lists, the sentence structure changes, which has the effect of appearing more chaotic and less controlled.
The reveal and the real story
And now we’re getting close to the truth. First she elaborates on why logic is the only “reasonable approach to life:”
…how basically the idea of a series of items, following one another docilely, forms the only possible reasonable approach to life if you have to live it with a home and a husband and children, none of whom would dream of following one another docilely.
There’s the sly mention of “a home and a husband and children” which is, surprise! a list embedded in a sentence about lists.
…how basically the idea of a series of items, following one another docilely, forms the only possible reasonable approach to life if you have to live it with a home and a husband and children, none of whom would dream of following one another docilely.
There’s a cute repetition here, too, in the verbatim echo of “following one another docilely.” We get the mental image of a list, maybe a grocery list, and the satisfied feeling of putting pen to paper and organizing your thoughts. And that’s followed up by the image of a home and a husband and children (Jackson had four) and how comical and unlikely it would be for them to be equally as orderly. There’s also the notion of docile—that a shopping list is easy to commandeer, but that compliance is much harder won from one’s family.
If we simplify this sentence, we can also see that this isn’t a sentence about lists—it’s about Jackson trying to assert control in her chaotic family life.
…how the idea of a series of items forms the only possible reasonable approach to life if you have to live it with a home and a husband and children.
What it means
As I was trying to understand this sentence, I turned to Building Great Sentences by Brooks Landon. It’s not my favourite book about craft—it gets a bit lost in the forest for the trees—but it has good examples of sentences that wend and wander (technical term: cumulative sentences), and why they work.
Landon distinguishes between loose and periodic sentences. A loose sentence is one where the thesis is said up front, and the rest of the sentence appends ideas like a stray dog following you home. In contrast, a periodic sentence puts the main idea at the end, which creates suspense and climax.
With that in mind, I think of the Jackson sentence as a long con. At the start, she sets it up like a loose sentence. You read it and think, okay, she’s going to explain why she thinks women like lists. But as you keep reading, you realize that’s not really what the sentence is about at all—much like last week’s discussion of the situation and the story —and that it’s actually a periodic sentence, landing with the bit about how her family is chaotic and not docile.
This kind of bait and switch is also consistent with Jackson’s fiction. She has a way of taking a mundane situation and twisting it just so to make it into something quietly horrific. One of her key themes is the horror of domesticity: tales of women who either wilt under society’s expectations of how they are meant to behave, or those who chafe and cut and run. Both types of women face the consequences and neither fares particularly well. Read into that what you will.
I also looked to The Writer’s Portable Mentor by Priscilla Long. Her explanation of sentence craft really helped me dissect the Jackson sentence—and importantly, helped me connect the structure of the sentence with the meaning it creates. Long says:
The most gratifying way to work with the sentence is to make the form of a sentence perform its own meaning.2
I think the Jackson sentence does this expertly. From the carefully controlled opening to the discovery of the summer dress that leads to the flood of realization and the chaos it unleashes, the sentence performs Jackson’s meaning. Her extreme attention keeps the sentence from devolving into pure chaos—toward the end it seems like it should topple over like a stack of blocks, but it sticks together because Jackson is a master of her craft.
What we can learn from it
I love this sentence, especially from the vantage point of having taken it apart. I got here by literally copying out the sentence, longhand, and referring to the stack of craft books on my shelf. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s the literary equivalent of infinite repeat. I’m still not sure that I have it completely right, but I definitely have a better understanding than I did when I started.
Copying—literally copying—is an old trick that I rarely practice but should do more regularly. There is something alchemical about stepping into someone else’s prose, as if I am putting on their skin. I notice details that aren’t apparent from reading. Why this comma? Why that word? It makes me pay attention to the minute decisions that the author needed to make. And frankly, it makes sense. There are writers far more talented than me, and copying their work is an excellent way to figure out how they worked and to extract lessons for what I’d like to bring to my work.3
I learned a lot in this analysis, chiefly the difference that sentence structure can have on style. The key difference between the first and second halves of the sentence lies in the sentence structure—at first, Jackson uses coordinate conjunctions (the semicolon and but) to join her sentences. Coordinate conjunctions connect ideas and hold them with equal weight. In contrast, once she gets to the coat and the realization of why she likes lists, she uses subordinate conjunctions (how, that) to connect ideas. Subordinate conjunctions connect ideas but hold them “below” another—they modify or elaborate an existing idea. And she puts this long, piled-up phrase—the only scene in the sentence—when she makes the switch. It makes the first part of the sentence feel controlled and orderly, and the latter part feel chaotic and out of control.
I mentioned how the sentence isn’t just masterful, it’s indicative of Jackson’s ability to spin the mundane in new, often unsettling ways. There’s a comical aspect to the sentence, a cuteness to the notion of husband and children lining up docilely—but there is also a darker tone to it, the notion that Jackson is struggling against the constraints of her life and just managing to hold it together.
Jackson struggled with her mental health for most of her life, notably anxiety and depression, and also experienced panic attacks later in her life. We can get a sense of this anxiety in this sentence, how lists are a way for her to assert some control in her life.
It’s remarkable to me that so much of Jackson’s work can be encompassed in one sentence. She has a distinctive voice that is hers entirely, and beyond the mastery that’s needed to keep such a dense, complex sentence in check, she’s written one that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Not even close.
Here’s the other thing about Jackson that I love: she uses her domesticity to her advantage. As a working mom, it’s challenging to find time to write or think, or on some days, do anything beyond cajoling a preschooler to put on pants. But reading Jackson has been illuminating, in her ability to take the everyday and use it as material. In her essay “Experience and Fiction,” she says:
It is much easier, I find, to write a story than to cope competently with the millions of daily trials and irritations that turn up in an ordinary house, and it helps a good deal—particularly with children around—if you can see them through a flattering veil of fiction.
This quote captures the sanctuary of writing, both the process and as a lens through which to view the domestic life. And you need not be a working mom to appreciate the underlying wisdom here: that life is chaos, and we can simply get through it. Or we can accept it and use it.
You get to choose.
Did you like this? Share with a friend. Did you hate it? Share with an enemy.4
I appreciate Jackson’s sense of humour and, let’s face it, honesty in naming these memoirs.
The musical equivalent of this is text painting, when the words of a song mirror what the music is doing. I talked about this in my analysis of Billy Joel’s “Pianoman,” in which the chords of the song go round and round without resolution, which mimics the stuckness of the piano man and his audience.
My favourite variation on text painting is from Taylor Swift’s Folklore. In “Illicit Affairs,” at the 0:24 mark she sings “keep your eyes down.” When she sings “down,” the melody line hits a high note, which is the opposite of I would expect. It makes me smile every time I listen to it, like a shared musical joke.
The key point, of course, is that this is copying with the aim of learning, and not copying with the aim of plagiarizing.
See also Austin Kleon’s take on copying poetry when you feel stuck and finding new meaning as a result.
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