Gossip says she hanged herself from the turret on the tower, but when you have a house like Hill House with a tower and a turret, gossip would hardly allow you to hang yourself anywhere else.
Shirley JacksonRead
I took my coffee into the dining room and settled down with the morning paper. A woman in New York had had twins in a taxi. A woman in Ohio had just had her seventeenth child. A twelve-year-old girl in Mexico had given birth to a thirteen-pound boy. The lead article on the woman's page was about how to adjust the older child to the new baby. I finally found an account of an axe murder on page seventeen, and held my coffee cup up to my face to see if the steam might revive me.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the absurdity and heaviness of real life, contrasting mundane details with shocking events.
Shirley Jackson's quote presents a scene that juxtaposes the normalcy of morning routines with startling news stories about childbirth and violent crime. It highlights the surreal nature of life where extraordinary events occur alongside everyday activities, prompting a reflection on our desensitization to both joy and horror in the world around us. The speaker's attempt to seek comfort in coffee while reading these jarring headlines suggests a struggle to cope with the harsh realities of life.
Themes
LifeAbsurdityRealityMaternityViolence
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about life's unpredictability, this quote emphasizes how normal life carries on amid shocking events.
More from Shirley Jackson
All quotes →It watches," he added suddenly. "The house. It watches every move you make.
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There had not been this many words sounded in our house for a long time, and it was going to take a while to clean them out.
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Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
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I can't help it when people are frightened," says Merricat. "I always want to frighten them more.
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I was pretending that I did not speak their language; on the moon we spoke a soft, liquid tongue, and sang in the starlight, looking down on the dead dried world.
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