Shirley Jackson’s short story ‘‘One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts’’ concerns a man who goes about his day dispensing kindness and generosity toward the people he encounters. For most of the story Mr. Johnson is seen as eccentric, harmless, and a force of good in a city where kindness seems to be in short supply, as…
Tag: Shirley Jackson
One Ordinary Day With Peanuts – Setting
McCarthyism On February 9, 1950, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) made a historic speech in which he declared that 205 Communists were working within the State Department. This speech is generally considered the beginning of the period known as McCarthyism, a term used to describe unsubstantiated accusations of political subversion and disloyalty. Communism, which first…
One Ordinary Day With Peanuts – Literary Devices
Symbolism Symbolism is a literary device an author uses to express complex ideas concisely by substituting simple objects to represent the complex ideas. In ‘‘One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts,’’ the peanuts are an important symbol for generosity and goodness. Mr. Johnson fills his pockets with candy and peanuts before going out on the town, but…
One Ordinary Day With Peanuts – Themes
Good and Evil ‘‘One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts’’ is primarily concerned with the presence of good and evil in everyday life, how they manifest themselves on a daily basis, and how arbitrary they can be. Mr. Johnson is the personification of good, wandering the streets of a big city with no other purpose than to…
One Ordinary Day With Peanuts – Characters
Arthur Adams Arthur Adams is a harried young man who finds himself late for work one ordinary Wednesday, when he is suddenly intercepted by Mr. Johnson and paid a day’s wages to take the day off and do something enjoyable in the company of Mildred Kent, a young woman to whom he has just been…
One Ordinary Day With Peanuts – Summary
‘‘One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts’’ opens with a cheerful Mr. John Philip Johnson, leaving home on a beautiful day wearing comfortable, newly soled shoes. Although he lives in a big city— probably New York, based on the street references in the story—he freely greets the people he passes, handing out candies, peanuts, and even the…
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: Analysis
Although Shirley Jackson wrote many books, children’s stories and humorous pieces, she is most remembered for her story “The Lottery.” In “The Lottery” Jackson portrays the average citizens of an average village taking part in an annual sacrifice of one of their own residents. When the story was published in the New Yorker magazine in…
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: Setting
“The Lottery” was published in 1948, shortly after the end of World War II, but Jackson set the story in an indeterminate time and place. Many critics, however, have maintained that Jackson modeled the village after North Bennington, Vermont, where she and her husband lived after their marriage in 1940. After the story was published,…
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: Literary Devices
Setting Jackson establishes the setting of “The Lottery” at the beginning of the story. It takes place on the morning of June 27th, a sunny and pleasant summer day, in the village square of a town of about three hundred people. The setting is described as tranquil and peaceful, with children playing and adults talking…
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: Themes
“The Lottery” focuses on Tessie Hutchinson, a woman who is stoned to death by members of her village. Violence and Cruelty Violence is a major theme in “The Lottery.” While the stoning is a cruel and brutal act, Jackson enhances its emotional impact by setting the story in a seemingly civilized and peaceful society. This…