| STORIES FOR STUDY |
| PART 1 = Residents of New York attempt to shield themselves from the cruelty of strangers / individuals who feel varying degrees of destabilisation or are drawn into schemes of conspirators |
| STORY | THEMES | PAGE |
| The Daemon Lover | Deception / depersonalisation / identity / indeterminacy / judgement / lost aspirations / power / pride / relationships / suburban horror / vulnerability / societal pressure to marry / conformity to societal patriarchy / appearance vs reality / urban isolation & loneliness / exploitation & malevolence of predatory male archetype | 9 |
| Like Mother Used to Make | Destabilisation / dispossession / gender norms / homemaking & identity / power / pride / suburban horror / vulnerability / displacement & loss of agency / the sinister & mundane / exploitation & malevolence of predatory male archetype | 29 |
| The Villager | Appearances / aspirations / guides / homemaking & domesticity / ideals / judgement / pride / escapism & false pretences / failed aspirations & unfulfilled existence / identity assumption & usurpation / disillusionment & mundane reality | 49 |
| PART 2 = Children are portrayed as heartless and blood-thirsty open to violent suggestions from strangers / mothers’ expectations of suburban life challenged or disturbed / Epigraph = Joseph Glanvil’s‘Sadducismus Triumphatus’ regarding witches perceived as a danger |
| The Witch | Cruelty / childhood innocence & adult wickedness / family / gender norms / suburban horror / strangers’ horror / maternal detachment & craving for attention / ambiguity of the witch / parental fear | 63 |
| The Renegade | Cruelty of ordinary people & small-town norms / disorder / domesticity / family / identity / suburban horror / vulnerability / isolation & alienation in the family / stifling realities of post war domestic life | 69 |
| After You, My Dear Alphonse | Domesticity / family / latent racial prejudice & implicit bias / class & economic stereotypes / prejudice / unconscious bias / hypocrisy of tolerant liberal society / childhood innocence vs learned adult bias | 85 |
| Charles | Childhood / deception & alter ego / family / parental blindness & complacency / identity & self-construction / imagination / suburban horror / realities of growing up | 91 |
| Flower Garden | Acceptance / envy / family / friendship / homemaking / lost aspirations / morality / power / prejudice / social conformity vs peer pressure / latent racism / collusive complicity of insiders / female repression & domestic confinement / the garden as a symbol of order vs prejudice / tradition | 103 |
| PART 3 = New Yorkcity dweller worn down by the brutality of city life attempts to survive the daily grind / individuals’ actions are propelled by a sense of pride / Epigraph = Joseph Glanvil’s ‘Sadducismus Triumphatus’ regarding the Devil |
| Elizabeth | Appearances / aspirations / careers / dreams / envy / homemaking & domesticity / identity / lost aspirations / power / female loneliness & dissatisfaction / passivity & self-obstruction/ escape into fantasy / the illusion of order vs reality | 149 |
| PART 4 = Residents of small villages encounter strangers from other worlds & suburban horror / female protagonists have a sense they are inescapably immersed in undesirable situations / Epigraph = Joseph Glanvil’s ‘Sadducismus Triumphatus’ regarding supernatural forces |
| Of Course | Appearances / assumptions / censorship / childhood / class / suburban horror / domestic tyranny & control / façade of small-town politeness / vulnerability of woman & children / exploitation & malevolence of predatory male archetype (James Harris character) | 229 |
| The Tooth | Appearances / disorientation / fantasy / suburban horror / disintegration of identity / anxiety & bodily betrayal / escapism & fantasy as coping / alienation in modern society | 265 |
| The Lottery | Deindividuation / helplessness / power / suburban horror / tradition / dangers of blinding following tradition / conformity & mob mentality / banality and randomness of evil / juxtaposition of peace & violence / scapegoating & social hierarchy | 291 |
| PART 5 THE EPILOGUE = Concludes the collection with a poem James Harris ‘The Demon Lover’ = A journey, a revelation and the demise Themes = Seduction & self-destruction / complicity in tragedy / dark undercurrent of the ordinary / Jackson said the poem at the end “would give the reader a final jolt, and furnish the key to the stories where such a thing should come, after they have been read” | 303 |
