Shirley Jackson, Influences and Confluences by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

“Frighten[ing] them more”: Merricat’s aggressive humor

“Silly Merricat” demonstrates how women can adopt an aggressive stance as a (sometimes preemptive) defense mechanism against a society that threatens to control and silence them (Jackson 73). Specifically, she morbidly teases people, reminding them of her potential for violence through her smiles. Merricat’s dark humor aligns her with a larger tradition of female writers who value subversion and violence, such as Hélène Cixous, who celebrates the deadly figure of Medusa because “she’s beautiful and she’s laughing” (885).7 Cixous claims that the main task of women writers is to embrace this chaotic figure, “to blow up the law, to break up the ‘truth’ with laughter” (888). Nancy Walker and Zita Dresner similarly point to humor as a means of expressing violence “in more covert and indirect ways than men do” (41). Because social expectations of feminine passivity discourage overt aggression, laughter allows a way for women to toy with violence. This kind of behavior is particularly fitting for Merricat, as her burial of aggression in humor reflects her poisoning of the Blackwood family dinner, in that she hides violence in apparently pleasant and domestic contexts. Through Merricat, we can see the “hint of Medusa’s glare” that Joan Wylie Hall recognizes as a feature of Jackson’s comedic writing (74).

Merricat frequently draws on aggressive humor in order to compete with the overwhelming laughter of the villagers. When she hears the awkward chuckling of the people in the grocery store, Merricat orders “a small leg of lamb” noting that it is a favorite dish of her Uncle Julian (Jackson 8). In response to her request, “a little gasp went around the store like a scream,” as everyone knows that lamb was on the menu for the final Blackwood family dinner (except for the reader, who is initially left out of this joke) (Jackson 8). Merricat makes clear that her order is not accidental, as she immediately follows her mention of the lamb with a request for sugar (Jackson 8). Her relentless dark humor recalls that smiles and laughter function in similar ways to baring one’s teeth and growling, presenting “visible weaponry to a possible opponent” (Barreca 75). Merricat notably buries her morbid allusions within domestic language: on the surface, she is simply gathering groceries, but underneath, she fantasizes about the villagers fleeing and dying in front of her. She calms herself by thinking about how she “could make them run like rabbits” if she “said to them what” she “really wanted to” (Jackson 8). Thus, Merricat’s particular talent lies in masking her rage with a smile.

Just as she responds to the public laughter of the villagers with aggressive humor, Merricat teases visitors to the Blackwood estate in order to distance herself and Constance from the community. When Helen Clarke and Lucille Wright visit for tea, Merricat purposefully makes the women uncomfortable by alluding to the family murders. Even though everyone knows that the sugar bowl once contained arsenic, she repeatedly offers it to her guests. She also assures

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