The Reaction to Hate Mail

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

"It's about, it's about like conformity and how kind of stupid it can be," he says. "I feel like this is maybe a Twilight Zone template too ... take something about society and exaggerate it so much that it highlights the absurdity of the of whatever it is." The short story was published in 1948 during the height of the Cold War. Jackson never really wanted to discuss her work because she thought it should be self-evident.

We double-dip a bit in this week's show, reading two short stories and proving that you don't have to have a ton of time to read something thought-provoking. The theme is "female authors writing about controversial-at-the-time ideas," and the stories are The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.

One is about a misdiagnosed "hysterical" woman slowly going insane through lack of mental stimulation, one is about a seemingly innocuous small town that is slavishly devoted to its own traditions. Both remain subversive and retain their impact even today.

Oh yeah and we also talk about which grocery store animal mascot would win in a fight.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.