Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin Page A

law, journalism, or “literary work.”
    The university had recently opened its River Campus: eleven handsome redbrick buildings along the Genessee, arranged around the traditional quadrangle and dominated by Rush Rhees Library, which could accommodate up to two million books. But the River Campus was restricted to men; the women’s college, which had admitted its firststudents in 1900, was located downtown, on the corner of University Avenue and Prince Street. As was the case at most women’s colleges then—newly founded Bennington College, which Jackson would later come to know intimately, was a notable and soon-to-be notorious exception—social life was rigid and traditional, dominated by sororities. Women were dissuaded from taking classes on the River Campus or using its facilities. Fellow Brighton High alumnus Richard Morton, who was in Jackson’s class at Rochester, would later tell his family that the university had discouraged them both from pursuing their desired careers—for him, mechanical engineering; for her, writing. After a year at Rochester, he transferred to the University of Michigan and later became a successful engineer.
    If Jackson was steered away from writing fiction into a more practical profession, the university may have been responding to the times. The college newspaper commented that the Depression, not surprisingly, had made Rochester students “more serious,” with less interest in social activities. The essay questions for Jackson’s English composition placement exam give a vivid picture of the era: “Contemporary American Attitudes Toward Socialism, Communism, and Fascism”; “Effects of Unemployment on Family Life” (with 25 percent of Americans still unemployed, this was the critical issue of the day); “Managing a Student’s Wardrobe on a Small Budget”; “The Farmer’s Desperate Situation”; “The Ethics of Motoring.” Jackson opted for the only nonpolitical subject, “The Educational Value of High School Dramatics,” which she broached with less than complete confidence: the paper shows her struggling to spell “playwright.”
    Jackson likely chose Rochester for the sake of convenience. Her grades at Brighton were mostly Bs and Cs, with a single A, in English—sufficient to gain admission, especially at a time when the vast majority of students were local, but probably not good enough for a more competitive school. The academic program, with a heavy emphasis on the sciences, was not ideal for her, and she found the social culture stifling. Her parents may have insisted that she remain in town, where they could keep watch over her. Her entrance form lists her religious preference as Christian Science, a sign either that she still felt some attachmentto her family’s faith or that Geraldine—who accompanied Shirley to her admissions interview—was watching as she filled out the form.
    Jackson’s first-year course of study included English, government, psychology, philosophy, and music appreciation. (In Hangsaman , Natalie’s classes are virtually identical.) If Geraldine and Leslie had insisted that she stay in town, they allowed her at least to live in Stephen Foster Hall, the women’s dormitory—a decision they may well have come to regret, as it allowed Jackson to take full advantage of her newfound freedom. But her initial adjustment to dorm life was difficult. Watching a sorority initiation left her deeply shaken, “sick at the things girls will do to one another.” In Hangsaman , the freshman girls are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night and made to confess whether they are virgins. Natalie, who assesses the experience in coolly ironic terms—“the persecution of new students, once passionate, is now only perfunctory”—declines to answer, and as a result finds herself ostracized.
    Natalie casts a cool eye on her fellow students, but the novel makes palpable her sense of inferiority and internal confusion in the face of the other