 First edition | |
| Author | Shirley Jackson |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | |
| Published | 1954 |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Young |
Publication date | 1954 |
| Media type | hardcover book |
| Pages | 276 |
| ISBN | 978-0143107033 |
| Preceded by | Hangsaman 1951 |
| Followed by | The Sundial 1958 |
The Bird's Nest is a 1954 novel by Shirley Jackson. [1] The plot concerns a young woman, Elizabeth Richmond, with multiple personality disorder. [2] [3]
While writing The Bird's Nest, Jackson suffered from insomnia, backaches, and paranoia, symptoms similar to those the main character of the novel is afflicted with. [4] She took a break from writing the novel in the summer of 1953, but the symptoms returned when she continued writing the book that fall. [4]
Almost every chapter of the novel follows a specific character. Chapter one follows Elizabeth, a shy young woman who lives with her Aunt Morgen and works as a secretary at a museum. She frequently suffers headaches, backaches, and insomnia. Elizabeth begins receiving threatening, handwritten letters addressing her as "Dirty Dirty Lizzy." One morning, Morgen accuses Elizabeth of sneaking out of the house at night; Elizabeth has no memory of doing so. Aunt Morgen takes her to a doctor when Elizabeth makes vulgar comments at a dinner party. The doctor is unable to help Elizabeth but refers her to Dr. Wright, a psychiatrist.
The next chapter follows Dr. Wright. He interviews Elizabeth and gains her trust, convincing her to submit to hypnosis so he can better understand her problem. During his second attempt, he encounters two of Elizabeth's alter personalities: Beth, a calm and friendly girl, and Betsy, who is childlike. He procures details as to Elizabeth's mother's whereabouts (who died several years before), which he believes to be the root of the problem. Betsy threatens to take over Elizabeth and does so one night. Dr. Wright believes that he's subdued her and agrees to let her be in control for a day. He then tries to summon Beth to tell her to fight Betsy's impulses but instead speaks to Betsy pretending to be Beth. He later gets a call from Morgen informing him that Elizabeth has run away from home.
The third chapter focuses on Betsy, who takes a bus to New York City, where she believes she will find her mother. While on the bus, Betsy recalls an event in which she went to the beach with her mother and Robin, her mother's then-boyfriend. While at the beach, she overhears Robin telling her mother that he hates Elizabeth and wishes she'd stayed at home with Morgen; unable to remember how her mother responded, Betsy tells herself that her mother defended her. Once she has returned to reality and exited the bus, she gets a hotel room and goes to a restaurant, befriending a man whom she eats with. It is revealed that he is a doctor, and Betsy, convinced that he is Dr. Wright in disguise, flees the restaurant. She then boards a city bus and informs another passenger that she is searching for her mother. The woman, going by a description Betsy gives of the home, suggests that she look on the West Side. Betsy obeys but continually runs into people whom she believes to be enemies from her past. Beth and Elizabeth occasionally take control of her, climaxing when Elizabeth overpowers Betsy and renders her unconscious. Elizabeth wakes up in a hospital with her fourth personality, Bess, in charge for the first time in the novel.
The fourth chapter is narrated from the perspective of Dr. Wright again. He calls Elizabeth to his office once she is discharged from the hospital and attempts to get information about why she went to the city. Bess, the alter now at the helm of Elizabeth's personality, is uncooperative and discusses little except her money and her hatred for her aunt, whom she believes wants to steal it. Betsy sometimes takes control of Elizabeth and often plays practical jokes on Bess, but Bess grows more powerful. Eventually, Betsy resorts to controlling what Bess writes. Bess, who is frightened because she insists she's not doing the writing herself, refuses to believe that it is she who is writing. Instead, she blames Dr. Wright and insists that it must be a magic trick. Dr. Wright writes a note to Elizabeth's aunt, asking her to phone him, but receives a reply berating him for a vulgar note. Dr. Wright figures out that Betsy rewrote the note to scare off her aunt. When questioned about her motive, Betsy confesses that she is unsure why she doesn't want Dr. Wright to contact her aunt. Eventually, the doctor schedules an appointment with Aunt Morgen to discuss the condition of her niece. The meeting starts well, but Aunt Morgen becomes intoxicated and begins shouting at the doctor. Bess then returns home and announces that she wants Dr. Wright and Aunt Morgen out of her life. Dr. Wright storms off and vows to never work with Elizabeth again.
The fifth chapter follows Aunt Morgen. She wakes up hungover the next morning and talks with Betsy. After a short conversation in which Betsy tries to get Morgen to say she likes her best, Morgen heads upstairs to take a nap. When she goes downstairs later, she finds her refrigerator full of mud. She returns to bed, waking late in the afternoon. That night, she yells at Elizabeth, then, feeling guilty, offers to let her use some of her new bath salts in a warm bath. Elizabeth obliges, but when she gets out, she has changed to Beth, who wants to take her bath, then Bess, then finally Betsy, who uses the last of the bath salts. The next morning, fed up with Bess's insolence, Morgen calls Dr. Wright and convinces him to come to the house and straighten out Elizabeth. When he arrives, Bess attempts to fight Morgen and keep her away from the door, but Morgen defeats her and lets Dr. Wright in. She explains to Betsy and the doctor the complete circumstances regarding Elizabeth's mother's death. Heartbroken, Elizabeth declares, "I am going to close my eyes now and you will never see me again" as each of her fractured personalities vacates her body. [5]
The sixth and final chapter is narrated from a third-person perspective. Having absorbed, or "eaten," all of her previous identities, Elizabeth is given a new name by Dr. Wright and her aunt: "Victoria Morgen." At the end, she stares at the sky and announces, "I'm happy...I know who I am." [5]
The novel initially garnered lukewarm reviews from critics, some of whom felt that Elizabeth's personalities were too simple. [4] Kirkus Book Reviews was more positive, however, commenting that, while the story could be quite unusual, that for "a special audience, an exploratory of precarious and unpredictable variations, this has a certain fascination." [6]
More recently, however, the book has become the subject of more positive reviews. Flavorwire praised the novel, commenting that it "displays Shirley Jackson’s groundbreaking narrative abilities," and calling the novel "a masterwork of psychological fiction, and one that deserves as much attention as Jackson’s more popular writings." [7] The New York Times praised the book as a "dryly unsettling [...] novel". [8] The Book Wheel Blog awarded the novel 3 out of 5 stars and felt that it "has all of the classic Shirley Jackson hallmarks, including family mysteries and twisted rivalries." [9]
In 2014, Penguin Publishing reprinted the novel, along with Jackson's 1958 work The Sundial . [10]
A film adaptation of the book, titled Lizzie, was filmed in 1957 and released the following year. It was directed by Hugo Haas and starred Eleanor Parker as the titular character. [11] The film was a modest success, grossing more than $500,000 at the box office with a $361,000 budget, [12] but Jackson reportedly disliked the movie, particularly its portrayal of Aunt Morgen as a flirtatious floozy rather than the caring and steady woman depicted in the book. She described the film as "Abbott and Costello meet a multiple personality." [4]
Little Women is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters, it is classified as an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novel.
Shirley Hardie Jackson was an American writer known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Over the duration of her writing career, which spanned over two decades, she composed six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 short stories.
The Three Faces of Eve is a 1957 American film noir mystery drama film presented in CinemaScope, based on the book of the same name about the life of Chris Costner Sizemore, which was written by psychiatrists Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley, who also helped write the screenplay. Sizemore, also known as Eve White, was a woman they suggested might have dissociative identity disorder. Sizemore's identity was concealed in interviews about this film and was not revealed to the public until 1977. The film was directed by Nunnally Johnson.
Burmese Days is the first novel by English writer George Orwell, published in 1934. Set in British Burma during the waning days of empire, when Burma was ruled from Delhi as part of British India, the novel serves as "a portrait of the dark side of the British Raj." At the centre of the novel is John Flory, "the lone and lacking individual trapped within a bigger system that is undermining the better side of human nature." The novel describes "both indigenous corruption and imperial bigotry" in a society where, "after all, natives were natives—interesting, no doubt, but finally...an inferior people".
Shirley, A Tale is a social novel by the English novelist Charlotte Brontë, first published in 1849. It was Brontë's second published novel after Jane Eyre. The novel is set in Yorkshire in 1811–12, during the industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. The novel is set against the backdrop of the Luddite uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industry.
Pollyanna is a 1913 novel by American author Eleanor H. Porter, considered a classic of children's literature. The book's success led to Porter soon writing a sequel, Pollyanna Grows Up (1915). Eleven more Pollyanna sequels, known as "Glad Books", were later published, most of them written by Elizabeth Borton or Harriet Lummis Smith. Further sequels followed, including Pollyanna Plays the Game by Colleen L. Reece, published in 1997. Due to the book's fame, "Pollyanna" has become a byword for someone who, like the title character, has an unfailingly optimistic outlook; a subconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle. Despite the current common use of the term to mean "excessively cheerful", Pollyanna and her father played the glad game as a method of coping with the real difficulties and sorrows that, along with luck and joy, shape every life.
The Secret at Shadow Ranch is the fifth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1931 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, and was ghostwritten by Mildred Wirt Benson. This book, as of 2001, ranks 50 on the list of All-Time Bestselling Children's Books, according to Publishers Weekly, with 2,347,750 sales since 1931.
Anne of Windy Poplars—published as Anne of Windy Willows in the UK, Australia, and Japan—is an epistolary novel by Canadian author L. M. Montgomery. First published in 1936 by McClelland and Stewart, it details Anne Shirley's experiences while serving as principal of a high school in Summerside, Prince Edward Island over three years. A large portion of the novel is presented through letters Anne writes to her fiancé, Gilbert Blythe. Chronologically, the book is fourth in the series, but it was the seventh book written.
Elizabeth, Lady Raleigh, was an English courtier, a Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber to Queen Elizabeth I of England. Her secret marriage to Sir Walter Raleigh precipitated a long period of royal disfavour for both her and her husband.
The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 gothic horror novel by American author Shirley Jackson. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and has been made into two feature films and a play, and is the basis of a Netflix series.
Washington Square is a novel written in 1880 by Henry James about a father's attempts to thwart a romance between his naive daughter and the man he believes wishes to marry her for her money. The novel was adapted into a play, The Heiress, which in turn became an Academy Award-winning film starring Olivia de Havilland in the title role.
Tuck Everlasting is an American children's novel about immortality written by Natalie Babbitt and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1975. It has sold over 5 million copies and has been called a classic of modern children's literature.
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is a 1938 American musical comedy film directed by Allan Dwan, and written by Don Ettlinger, Karl Tunberg, Ben Markson and William M. Conselman, the third adaptation of Kate Douglas Wiggin's 1903 novel of the same name.
Aunt Jane's Nieces is the title of a juvenile novel published by Reilly & Britton in 1906, and written by L. Frank Baum under the pen name "Edith Van Dyne." Since the book was the first in a series of novels designed for adolescent girls, its title was applied to the entire series of ten books, published between 1906 and 1918.
Lizzie is a 1957 American film noir drama film directed by Hugo Haas. The film is based on the 1954 novel The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson and stars Eleanor Parker, Richard Boone and Joan Blondell. The popular songs "It's Not for Me to Say" and "Warm and Tender" were written for this film, and performed by Johnny Mathis, who played a piano player/singer in the film. The film was produced by MGM Studios.
Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad is a young adult novel written by L. Frank Baum, famous as the creator of the Land of Oz. It was the second volume in the ten-novel series Aunt Jane's Nieces, which was, after the Oz books, the second greatest success of Baum's literary career. Like the other books in the series, the novel appeared under the pen name "Edith Van Dyne," one of Baum's multiple pseudonyms.
Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross is a 1915 young adult novel written by L. Frank Baum, famous as the creator of the Land of Oz. It is the tenth and final volume in Baum's Aunt Jane's Nieces series of books for adolescent girls — the second greatest success of his publishing career, after the Oz books themselves. As with all the previous books in the series, Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross was released under the pen name "Edith Van Dyne," one of Baum's various pseudonyms.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a 1962 mystery novel by American author Shirley Jackson. It was Jackson's final work, and was published with a dedication to Pascal Covici, the publisher, three years before the author's death in 1965. The novel is written in the voice of eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine "Merricat" Blackwood, who lives with her agoraphobic sister and ailing uncle on an estate. Six years before the events of the novel, the Blackwood family experienced a tragedy that left the three survivors isolated from their small village.
Anne of Windy Poplars is a 1940 film based on the novel of the same name by Lucy Maud Montgomery. A sequel to the 1934 film Anne of Green Gables, it features Anne Shirley returning from the first film in the title role.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help).