Jane Milton

“Constance and Merricat are indeed “two halves of the same person,” together forming one identity, just as a man and a woman are traditionally supposed to do in marriage. Not finding that wholeness in marriage, Jackson sought it elsewhere … Indeed, the novel, in its final version, is not about “two women murdering a man.” It is about two women who metaphorically murder male society and its expectations for them by insisting on living separate from it, governed only by themselves.”
― Ruth Franklin, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life