Object's details: “All the Millions of Things We Possessed”: The Agency of Objects in the Family Memoirs of Shirley Jackson (Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons)

Description

• PLMET:
  
  http://confluence.man.poznan.pl/community/display/FBCMETGUIDE
• Title:
  
  
  “All the Millions of Things We Possessed”: The Agency of Objects in the Family Memoirs of Shirley Jackson (Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons)
• Group publication title:
  
  
  Academic Journal of Modern Philology
• Creator:
  
  
  Bartnicka, Anna Joanna
  
• Subject and Keywords:
  
  
  family memoirs
   ;
  family as an assemblage
   ;
  material object agency
   ;
  nonhuman turn
   ;
  vibrant materialism
   ;
  flat ontology
   ;
  onto-stories
• Abstract:
  
  
  The article analyses two memoirs by the American writer Shirley Jackson (1916-1965), Life Among the Savages (1953) and Raising Demons (1957), with regard to their depiction of material objects’ participation in family life. Looking at the memoirs through the lens of nonhuman turn theories, such as actor-network theory, vibrant materialism, and thing theory, the article aims to prove Jackson’s affective openness to the agency of the material, and her recognition of the possibility of a flat ontology of all beings. The Hyman family described by Jackson can be read as an assemblage of human and nonhuman actants who collectively influence each other’s daily life. In reaching this conclusion, the article devotes considerable attention to Jackson’s use of extended lists and her frequent personification, anthropomorphization, and objectification of humans, animals, plants, and objects. Not only do the nonhuman actants depicted in the memoirs refuse to be bound by clear ontological categories but they also function as narrative catalysts, confusing and overwhelming their human counterparts physically, sensually, and logically. In thus humorously describing her family life full of amusing mishaps, Shirley Jackson manages to craft a narrative of a more democratic distribution of agency.
• Place of publishing:
  
  Wrocław
• Date issued:
  
  2025
• Resource Type:
  
  
  text
   ;
  
  
  tekst
• Detailed Type:
  
  
  article
   ;
  
  
  artykuł
• Identifier:
  
  oai:repozytorium.uni.wroc.pl:142015  ; https://doi.org/10.34616/ajmp.2025.24.2  ;
  e-ISSN 2353-3218
   ;
  ISSN 2299-7164
• Language:
  
  eng
• Abstract Language :
  
  eng
• Access rights:
  
  
  Attribution, ShareAlike
   ;
  
  
  Uznanie autorstwa, Na tych samych warunkach
• License:
  
  
  Creative Commons - Attribution, ShareAlike (CC BY-SA 3.0)
   ; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/pl/deed.en  ;
  
  
  Creative Commons - Uznanie autorstwa, Na tych samych warunkach (CC BY-SA 3.0)
   ; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/pl/deed.pl
• Location of original object:
  
  
  College for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Wrocław
   ;
  
  
  Kolegium Międzydziedzinowych Studiów Indywidualnych, Uniwersytet Wrocławski
• Autor opisu:
  
  
  MPi

Object is located in the collections:

Additional information

• Creation date: 2025-09-07
• Last modification date: 2025-09-07
• Content object's number of views: 47
• You could also download the object's description in these formats:
  RDF
   ;
  OAI-PMH
• Download IIIF manifest:
  https://repozytorium.uni.wroc.pl/iiif-manifest/manifest/142015/PDF.json