Hangsaman

by Shirley Jackson

consciousness—how the mind reacts to, adjusts, embraces, or recoils from experience.

She brought herself away from the disagreebly clinging thought by her usual method—imagining the sweet sharp sensation of being burned alive—and turned expectantly to her father.

OCD validation

Too many words, Natalie, and I think you became intoxicated with the first half of the sentence, and only tacked the second half on to make it come down the way it went up. It could be said more neatly, I believe. But it’s sound, very sound.

reminds me of that one George Orwell quote

She would be unable to account for the blood on her hands, on the front of her dress, on her shoes, the blood soaking through the carpet at her feet, the blood under her hand on the desk, leaving a smeared mark on the papers there.

Beautiful and simple but extremely evocative imagery

he folded his hands on the notebook and looked frankly at Natalie, the cigarette burning handsomely in the ashtray, the line of smoke framing his head on one side, and the squareness of the window shaping nicely on the other side.

Again imagery but also relatable ocd. Awareness of shapes overwhelming

Natalie, you must remember that it is natural, that hatred of me does not imply that you as a person hate me as a person, but only that the child, growing normally, passes through a stage when hatred of the parents is inevitable. That is your stage now.”

:(

Mrs. Waite felt that in these hours that they shared the kitchen, she and Natalie were associated in some sort of mother-daughter relationship that might communicate womanly knowledge from one to the other, that might, by means of small female catchwords and feminine innuendoes, separate, at least for a time, the family into women against men.

Family dynamics

Mrs. Waite’s initial momentum came from her Sunday casserole which, incredibly complex and delicate, would be devoured drunkenly in a few hours by inconsiderate and uncomplimentary people.

Again simple and everyday instance that conveys soemething very deep about family dynamics slash role of women. This happens every day. Morethan meets the eye

Mrs. Waite thought, looking around at the kitchen as though the casserole or the lettuce had an opinion she was waiting for.

Funny and endearing and humanising

Natalie had discovered that by a slight pressure on a back tooth she could make a small regular stirring pain that operated as a rhythmic counterpoint to her mother’s voice; she would not for the world have told her mother that she had a cavity in her tooth, but it was a pleasant change in her body since the day before, and she enjoyed it.

Amazing. Again ocd.

the sun behind the mountains was, to a Natalie not quite used yet to the triteness of miracle, a calendar gesture, the overdone and typical scene of a grown-up world; she had seen so many bad pictures of suns behind mountains that she allowed herself to find the sun itself ludicrous and unnecessary.

Lovely

Natalie stood in the doorway between the hall and the living room, thinking, This is a party and I’m here already and I must remember that my name is Natalie.

Relatable

Mrs. Waite gestured helplessly; more people were arriving and she had planned to entertain them indoors; here was Mr. Waite, already too expansive to be reliable, calmly receiving and probably planning to seat these people out on the lawn, which had not been cleaned and which held only four iron chairs and would thus require more brought from the dining room, leaving less for company when they did move indoors, because unless you asked company to carry their own chairs, then the chairs would be left outside, and so it would rain, and the dining room chairs … not to mention company sitting probably on the floor. “Oh, please,” said Mrs. Waite madly.

Accurate and interesting use of mother's pov

“Keep calm,” Mr. Waite said. “You’d be surprised how easy it is for people to have a good time.” “Easy for you, maybe,” said Mrs. Waite, but her husband did not hear her; he had gone, hand outstretched, to receive his new guests.

Accurate living with an awareness of only yourself vs one of others. Man vs woman eating an apple (to be a woman is to perform). We very effectively see into the characters mind and understand how they think without her actually having to write from their pov .

“I didn’t hear you,” she said suddenly, frightening herself almost to tears. “I was thinking about myself instead of listening.”

Conversing is draining tiring it is not an unconcious act at all

For the whole first afternoon that she was alone at college Natalie asked herself constantly, Is this meaningful? Is this important? Is this part of what I am to go home knowing?

speaking her own name in a voice she had rarely heard pronounce it,

“My name is Natalie Waite.” Is it my name? she wondered then, afraid for a minute that she had appropriated the name of the next girl, or of someone she had met slightly once and remembered only in the recesses of her mind which seemed called upon unreasonably to function now, socially, and without experience. The name passed without comment, perhaps because no one was listening, actually, to any name other than her own.

odd, she thought, that someone standing outside could look at the door, straight ahead, seeing the white paint and the wood, and I inside looking at the door and the white paint and the wood should look straight also, and we two looking should not see each other because there is something in the way. Are two people regarding the same thing not looking at each other?

reminds me of kafka's quote about doors, how crazy that we can be doing things at the same time apart but still together becuase we are thinking about what eachother are doing, not together but linked, at what point are you not together anymore?

I’m very careful about my friends, I dislike knowing lots of people, I don’t make friends easily because I keep them for a long time, I make friends slowly and with discrimination, I devote myself to my studies

“Mother never lets me dry the glasses at home because I always drop them.” Why did I say that? she wondered again, it isn’t true. Now I’ll just have to remember it so I won’t tell her in a few minutes that I never break anything.

so real and most significant instnace of humanising natalie

Natalie, who was unused to drinking at best, and certainly unused to two fast cocktails after a confusing afternoon, was beginning to feel delightfully at home, and friendly, and strong, and sympathetic. She could see clearly by now that Elizabeth was a wonderfully beautiful woman; it no longer seemed strange that a student in college should marry, but only strange that any unhappiness should approach this perfect creature.