ABSTRACT
Mid-century American women often represented the dichotomy in their writing, and the result was the resurgence of a female gothic with characters and themes that sought to subvert the ideal of the showroom suburban home. The many meals of Castle reveal a deep anxiety about normalized mid-century gender roles and womanliness, manifested in Constance and her near constant preparation of food. Shirley Jackson was a master storyteller, one who crafted such beautiful tales of unsettling horror that her work has influenced writers from Stephen King to Allison Bechdel. In The Sundial, Jackson looks ahead towards her last two novels in theorizing food and eating as constantly in tension, navigating the anxieties of mid-century life – a commodity and a relationship, a necessity and a luxury, and a ritual. Jackson brings the sensory richness of food out of fantasy and into the world in We Have Always Lived in the Castle, her final and most fully realized novel.
