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One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts
Present's Shirley Jackson's classic short story about an altruistic man and his mean-spirited wife.
32 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1955
11 people are currently reading
340 people want to read
About the author
Shirley Jackson
341 books11.3k followersShirley Jackson was an influential American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years. She has influenced such writers as Stephen King, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson.
She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."
Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery', and she felt that they at least understood the story".
In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.
She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."
Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery', and she felt that they at least understood the story".
In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
November 4, 2017
A delightful twist at the end, as with all her short stories. Jackson is superb at really making you contemplate good and evil in humankind.
February 24, 2019
This is so short that a review is superfluous. You can read it here in just a few minutes, or you can find it in one of the author’s collection of stories. No reason not to: it’s quick and enjoyable.
June 6, 2019
This unusual story is reminiscent of Richard Matheson's The Distributor but has additional themes and symbols.
November 3, 2023
Another fantastic short story and the ending really entertained me. Light hearted and fun but I feel like my experience was made better due to the sheer amount of short works I’ve read from Shirley Jackson at this point. There’s always that little cold malicious hand of anxiety that rests on your shoulder each time you read her writing.
June 12, 2022
3.5 stars
John Philip Johnson and his wife help maintain the balance in Shirley Jackson's iconic short story. Perhaps the story should come with an allergy warning these days!
Read it here https://www.northernhighlands.org/cms...
John Philip Johnson and his wife help maintain the balance in Shirley Jackson's iconic short story. Perhaps the story should come with an allergy warning these days!
Read it here https://www.northernhighlands.org/cms...
December 25, 2022
A very anxious read. I was even scared to start every new story.
May 16, 2021
Really nice style of writing, typical to Shirley Jackson. What’s missing is the eerie feeling that usually a accompanies her works, something that would make it more of a Twilight Zone episode than a slightly bizarre story from The New Yorker.
September 3, 2025
#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #Horror Short Stories #Anthologies #Modern Psychological & Existential Horror
“One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts” is Shirley Jackson at her most mischievous and unsettling, a story that wears the costume of whimsy only to leave the reader blinking at the darkness beneath. It begins so lightly: a man named Mr. Johnson spends the day in New York doing small, almost saintly acts of kindness. He helps people cross the street, buys gifts, offers encouragement, and spreads joy. The rhythm of the tale lulls the reader into thinking it’s a gentle slice-of-life piece, an urban fable about the power of everyday goodness. But, being Jackson, she doesn’t let us sit comfortably for long.
The narrative’s brilliance lies in its gradual undercutting of this apparent sweetness. Mr. Johnson seems almost too good to be true, his acts so relentless that they border on parody. Jackson gives him no backstory, no real interiority—just a compulsion to brighten the lives of others.
The title itself, with its reference to peanuts, underscores this ordinariness, as though the whole story could be dismissed as a trivial anecdote. Yet by the end, Jackson delivers her quiet coup de grâce: Mr. Johnson returns home to his wife, who reveals that while he spent the day doing good, she has spent hers doing the opposite—sowing chaos, cruelty, and suffering.
The implication is clear: the couple alternates roles, trading kindness and malice like a game. The ordinariness of the day collapses, replaced by the horrifying suggestion that morality is nothing more than arbitrary performance.
Compared with “The Summer People”, which slowly builds dread through social exclusion, “One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts” works like a bait-and-switch. Both stories explore conformity and hidden darkness, but where “The Summer People” draws horror from neglect and abandonment, this story unsettles with the idea that good and evil are interchangeable, dependent only on whim. It’s existential in the truest sense: what is morality if it can be swapped daily like clothing? Are we merely creatures of habit, playing assigned roles without deeper meaning?
In the broader context of psychological and existential horror, the story resonates with Kafka’s absurdity and even Sartre’s explorations of freedom and responsibility. Kafka might have leaned into bureaucracy, Sartre into philosophical despair, but Jackson does something slyer: she cloaks the horror in charm. The story’s light-hearted tone, the playful listing of small kindnesses, makes the final revelation all the more jarring. Unlike Lovecraft, who horrified us with inhuman monstrosities, Jackson horrifies us with the human capacity for arbitrariness—the possibility that kindness and cruelty are not opposites but siblings.
What makes the story unforgettable is its refusal to moralise. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson don’t justify their actions, nor do they agonise over them. Their swapping of roles is presented with the casualness of discussing groceries. That indifference is chilling. It suggests that morality is not a matter of universal principle but of personal amusement, that the suffering or happiness of others is nothing more than a way to pass the time. In this way, Jackson sketches a vision of the world that is both comic and terrifying, where the line between benevolence and malevolence is erased by sheer whimsy.
For me, “One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts” showcases Jackson’s mastery of tonal dissonance. She understood that horror does not always arrive cloaked in shadows or dripping in blood. Sometimes it comes wrapped in charm, in laughter, in the simple image of a man feeding peanuts to pigeons while quietly destabilising the moral universe.
The story is a sly reminder that ordinary days may not be so ordinary after all—that beneath the banality of daily routines lurks the abyss of human freedom, where good and evil are only masks we exchange at will.
“One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts” is Shirley Jackson at her most mischievous and unsettling, a story that wears the costume of whimsy only to leave the reader blinking at the darkness beneath. It begins so lightly: a man named Mr. Johnson spends the day in New York doing small, almost saintly acts of kindness. He helps people cross the street, buys gifts, offers encouragement, and spreads joy. The rhythm of the tale lulls the reader into thinking it’s a gentle slice-of-life piece, an urban fable about the power of everyday goodness. But, being Jackson, she doesn’t let us sit comfortably for long.
The narrative’s brilliance lies in its gradual undercutting of this apparent sweetness. Mr. Johnson seems almost too good to be true, his acts so relentless that they border on parody. Jackson gives him no backstory, no real interiority—just a compulsion to brighten the lives of others.
The title itself, with its reference to peanuts, underscores this ordinariness, as though the whole story could be dismissed as a trivial anecdote. Yet by the end, Jackson delivers her quiet coup de grâce: Mr. Johnson returns home to his wife, who reveals that while he spent the day doing good, she has spent hers doing the opposite—sowing chaos, cruelty, and suffering.
The implication is clear: the couple alternates roles, trading kindness and malice like a game. The ordinariness of the day collapses, replaced by the horrifying suggestion that morality is nothing more than arbitrary performance.
Compared with “The Summer People”, which slowly builds dread through social exclusion, “One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts” works like a bait-and-switch. Both stories explore conformity and hidden darkness, but where “The Summer People” draws horror from neglect and abandonment, this story unsettles with the idea that good and evil are interchangeable, dependent only on whim. It’s existential in the truest sense: what is morality if it can be swapped daily like clothing? Are we merely creatures of habit, playing assigned roles without deeper meaning?
In the broader context of psychological and existential horror, the story resonates with Kafka’s absurdity and even Sartre’s explorations of freedom and responsibility. Kafka might have leaned into bureaucracy, Sartre into philosophical despair, but Jackson does something slyer: she cloaks the horror in charm. The story’s light-hearted tone, the playful listing of small kindnesses, makes the final revelation all the more jarring. Unlike Lovecraft, who horrified us with inhuman monstrosities, Jackson horrifies us with the human capacity for arbitrariness—the possibility that kindness and cruelty are not opposites but siblings.
What makes the story unforgettable is its refusal to moralise. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson don’t justify their actions, nor do they agonise over them. Their swapping of roles is presented with the casualness of discussing groceries. That indifference is chilling. It suggests that morality is not a matter of universal principle but of personal amusement, that the suffering or happiness of others is nothing more than a way to pass the time. In this way, Jackson sketches a vision of the world that is both comic and terrifying, where the line between benevolence and malevolence is erased by sheer whimsy.
For me, “One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts” showcases Jackson’s mastery of tonal dissonance. She understood that horror does not always arrive cloaked in shadows or dripping in blood. Sometimes it comes wrapped in charm, in laughter, in the simple image of a man feeding peanuts to pigeons while quietly destabilising the moral universe.
The story is a sly reminder that ordinary days may not be so ordinary after all—that beneath the banality of daily routines lurks the abyss of human freedom, where good and evil are only masks we exchange at will.
July 29, 2025
20230401好喜欢好喜欢好喜欢，好敏锐的观察，甚至有很多是我一直很想写的。完全没有觉得这本书吓人，我只觉得是雪莉观察敏锐。这本书甚至勾起了我对写小说的兴趣呜呜呜呜呜，谢谢在我三十岁这年能读到这样的作品。//20250511 第二次读，依旧喜欢，多读懂了一些，见长评。
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日常生活的恐怖、意料之外的结局，不过是女性生命的常态
第一次读这本书就觉得惊为天人，以至于我新建的读书群也是用这个起名。不过印象中第一次读的时候有一些没读懂，这次看懂了更多一些。下面挑一些我比较有感觉的作品简单说一下我感受到的寓意，几乎都是【剧透】。
《变节者》——每一个人都成为了变节者，包括曾经善良无知的孩子们。这些让沃波尔太太窒息。一字一句残忍的描述是在针对伯爵夫人，也是在针对每一个未来可能会犯错的人。
《幽灵情人》——玩弄感情的逃婚男人。
《巫婆》——女巫是男性/男性叙事创造的，他们把对女性的伤害正当化、玩笑化，再把知道真相、想要揭露真相的女性定义为女巫。
《来与我共舞在爱尔兰》——主线是伪善的妇女。可同时老登才更恶心，假装可怜、不吃嗟来食、假装认识叶芝。
《盐柱》——被禁锢在家里的女性，无法适应都市生活，而其它人给的只有指责、没有真正的关注和关心。
《这就是生活》——这温馨的结尾怎么不是和《巫婆》的对比呢？
《失踪的姑娘》——像是Hangsaman的雏形，大家对失踪女孩对态度，先是推卸责任，后来变成想办法让事情过去（随便编个理由搞个尸体就结案了）
《胡思乱想》——雪莉过世多年后的2013年才第一次发表。没太看懂，把女性日常生活中的恐惧放在男性身上我就比较难共情，到底是妄想症还是被设计呢？
《史密斯太太的蜜月》——怎么不像是义无反顾进入婚姻的女性的隐喻呢？
《回家吧，路易莎》——从一开始家人就希望路易莎失踪吧，而后顺理成章地扮演爱孩子的家长，不顾路易莎真正的安危。那么，路易莎的离家出走怎么不算是被迫的呢？
《有花生的寻常一天》——夫妻两一个人扮演好人一个人扮演恶人，从这个故事男性做好事的角度，他做了一天好事，不过是想为生活添点乐子、或享受控制别人的感觉罢了
—
这是我读的第一本雪莉杰克逊的书，也是最喜欢的一本。日常生活的恐怖、意料之外的结局，背后是对生活和女性身份的洞察。同时也想夸夸这本书的编辑和翻译，能从雪莉那么多作品中挑选出这21篇真是非常非常厉害。
--
日常生活的恐怖、意料之外的结局，不过是女性生命的常态
第一次读这本书就觉得惊为天人，以至于我新建的读书群也是用这个起名。不过印象中第一次读的时候有一些没读懂，这次看懂了更多一些。下面挑一些我比较有感觉的作品简单说一下我感受到的寓意，几乎都是【剧透】。
《变节者》——每一个人都成为了变节者，包括曾经善良无知的孩子们。这些让沃波尔太太窒息。一字一句残忍的描述是在针对伯爵夫人，也是在针对每一个未来可能会犯错的人。
《幽灵情人》——玩弄感情的逃婚男人。
《巫婆》——女巫是男性/男性叙事创造的，他们把对女性的伤害正当化、玩笑化，再把知道真相、想要揭露真相的女性定义为女巫。
《来与我共舞在爱尔兰》——主线是伪善的妇女。可同时老登才更恶心，假装可怜、不吃嗟来食、假装认识叶芝。
《盐柱》——被禁锢在家里的女性，无法适应都市生活，而其它人给的只有指责、没有真正的关注和关心。
《这就是生活》——这温馨的结尾怎么不是和《巫婆》的对比呢？
《失踪的姑娘》——像是Hangsaman的雏形，大家对失踪女孩对态度，先是推卸责任，后来变成想办法让事情过去（随便编个理由搞个尸体就结案了）
《胡思乱想》——雪莉过世多年后的2013年才第一次发表。没太看懂，把女性日常生活中的恐惧放在男性身上我就比较难共情，到底是妄想症还是被设计呢？
《史密斯太太的蜜月》——怎么不像是义无反顾进入婚姻的女性的隐喻呢？
《回家吧，路易莎》——从一开始家人就希望路易莎失踪吧，而后顺理成章地扮演爱孩子的家长，不顾路易莎真正的安危。那么，路易莎的离家出走怎么不算是被迫的呢？
《有花生的寻常一天》——夫妻两一个人扮演好人一个人扮演恶人，从这个故事男性做好事的角度，他做了一天好事，不过是想为生活添点乐子、或享受控制别人的感觉罢了
—
这是我读的第一本雪莉杰克逊的书，也是最喜欢的一本。日常生活的恐怖、意料之外的结局，背后是对生活和女性身份的洞察。同时也想夸夸这本书的编辑和翻译，能从雪莉那么多作品中挑选出这21篇真是非常非常厉害。
November 2, 2016
One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts, is a book about the struggle between good and evil. In the story, Mr. John Philp Johnson wears a big smile and helps people out. Then when he gets back home to his wife she takes about all the bad things she did and that would like to switch places with him
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 10, 2017
Loved it
December 22, 2017
Slightly humourous without really making a point or shedding light on the human condition or anything meaningful I would like to get out of a Shirley Jackson story. Reminded me of 'Charles'.
November 1, 2019
Groundbreaking suppositions Jackson makes.
April 24, 2023
quick and fun!
February 4, 2025
Balance, baby. - The Karate Kid or something
February 24, 2025
A fun short story with a great twist at the end.
May 15, 2025
My favorite part is when he gave a small child peanuts without asking if they had an allergy
May 28, 2025
日常驚悚和潛伏的惡意。之前在英文閱讀讀書會裡剛好讀過Lottery，這一次碰巧翻開這本書才發現原來正是同位作者的短篇小說集，而且抽彩還是第一篇，讓人心情愉快的巧合。對於Shirley Jackson，我上次讀Lottery的時候就已經感覺到自己並沒有那麼吃他的這一套，這次印象深刻的大概是〈有花生的尋常一天〉、〈睡衣派對〉和〈邪惡的可能〉。總之就是一本3.5顆星的短篇集吧。
June 1, 2025
favorite story she has written thus far.
December 11, 2025
作者最具代表性的短篇The Lottery我很久以前就读过了，虽然一开始就能猜得到故事走向（毕竟这种剧情套路在现代都有点烂大街了），但我很喜欢她的写作风格，也认为她的确十分擅长于描写日常之下潜伏的惊悚。这本短篇集没让我失望，故事里那些看似普通的“日常”被撕开了一道细小的缝隙，不动声色地露出令人窒息的黑暗。作者写的恐怖没有怪物、暴力和血腥，而是日常生活里那些说不清道不明的阴暗，以及慢慢渗透进来的“不正常”。对弱势群体的压迫、阶层的偏见、群体的恶意、原生家庭的阴影、女性在角色与自我之间的撕裂…等等等等，作者一直在试图向我们表达：人比鬼可怕多了。
书里的很多短篇我都喜欢：失踪的姑娘、胡思乱想（原文标题是paranoia，我觉得翻成胡思乱想不是很准确）、巴士、回家吧路易莎、度夏的人，和幽灵情人。其实中文版的翻译质量不能说很好（当然比起《夜梦故事集》可是要好太多了），我已经发现了数个比较低级的翻译错误。如果有能力还是去欣赏原著吧。
书里的很多短篇我都喜欢：失踪的姑娘、胡思乱想（原文标题是paranoia，我觉得翻成胡思乱想不是很准确）、巴士、回家吧路易莎、度夏的人，和幽灵情人。其实中文版的翻译质量不能说很好（当然比起《夜梦故事集》可是要好太多了），我已经发现了数个比较低级的翻译错误。如果有能力还是去欣赏原著吧。
May 18, 2016
Read in The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology
Mr. Johnson steps outside with a massive smile, making sure to wish everyone good morning. He eventually stops two young people walking down the street and convinces them to take his money and go on a nice date instead of to their jobs. They reluctantly agree. It isn't until the day is over and returns to Mrs. Johnson that his motive is revealed.
An odd but enjoyable read with a pretty confusing pay-off at the end.
Mr. Johnson steps outside with a massive smile, making sure to wish everyone good morning. He eventually stops two young people walking down the street and convinces them to take his money and go on a nice date instead of to their jobs. They reluctantly agree. It isn't until the day is over and returns to Mrs. Johnson that his motive is revealed.
An odd but enjoyable read with a pretty confusing pay-off at the end.
August 17, 2025
I noticed that many people commented on how short it was. I actually thought that it took too long to get to the interesting twist at the end which seems too show a frivolousness towards working towards good or evil as long as you maintain the balance between the two.
May 31, 2011
loved it!! great short story with a neat lesson.
March 10, 2020
Short story. Quick and entertaining.
May 24, 2023
(review的是中文版)
故事已经很惊悚了，请问小编，每篇结束之后都来一个手持人头颈上长伞的淑女人偶是要干什么
故事已经很惊悚了，请问小编，每篇结束之后都来一个手持人头颈上长伞的淑女人偶是要干什么
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews