The short stories Devil of a Tale and Lord of the Castle describes situation when people got into a deal with the devil and ruined themselves. Even though it is clear that both Lady Katharine and the young lord did they by their own will, the repercussions followed. As wise and cunning as they were, their obsessions has led them to ruin because no one can got out a winner from dealings with the evil.
The story Devil of a Tale shows how obsession got the character trapped. At a first glance, it seems that it is the devil who got fooled. However, the story has an interesting angle to it: Lady Katherine was going to trick the devil by leaving a will to throw the devil's eye into the see and thus redeem her soul from hell, but her son, seduced by the earthly wealth and power, would rather leave his own mother's soul to rot in hell than to give up his only guarantee of a gorgeous life. Thus, the reader finds himself in a curious situation: on the one hand, it is the devil who is tricked because in the end he is left with nothing and still has his right eye held hostage; however, on the other hand, he fathered a young man who becomes corrupt to the point of refusing to follow his mother's will and manipulating the devil himself.
The second story is not as ambiguous as the first one: Lord of the Castle describes how a young man's obsession with vengeance led him to ruin by the path of evil. The young master of the castle is driven by the righteous mission of avenging his father's death. He plans to achieve this goal by destroying all evil; however, obsessed with his plan, he does not notice when he himself becomes a puppet in the evil's hands. The lesson which the reader takes out from this story is simple yet powerful: a wise person should not let his or her goal turn into obsession and blind him or her.
What is particularly interesting about the two suggested texts is the gender question. In Devil of a Tale the devil is a male, but in Lord of the Castle the devil is female. In the first story the devil seduces Lady Katharine, who is hungry for power and wealth, to bear his child. This part of the plot can be interpreted as a hint on the traditional gender conventions in the Western society: usually, the only way for a woman to rise to a position of wealth and power was to marry and bear children of a wealthy and powerful man. In the short story, it is specified that Katharine's husband is a weak man. Although the reader can only guess what kind of weakness it was – a weakness of character, of health, or of social position, Lady's Katharine preference is clear: she trades her weak husband for a more superior party. Thus, Lady Katharine is not a victim of the devil's wrongdoings: she is perceptive to his suggestions because she is corrupt in the first place.
Lord of the Castle provides hints at the traditional gender conventions as well. First and foremost, the devil is a woman, which reminds of the long tradition of seeing women as bearers of evil. The devil in this story is a seductress who, as it turns out, does not mind seducing her previous lover's son in order to put her own son into the position of power. Another interesting hint about the conventional gender relation in this story is that the devil is not interested in power herself, she just prepares the place for her son and takes out his only rival.
Works Cited
Jackson, Shirley. “Devil of a Tale”, in Just an Ordinary Day: Stories, Bantam, 1997, pp. 127 – 128. Print.
Jackson, Shirley. “Lord of the Castle”, in Just an Ordinary Day: Stories, Bantam, 1997, pp. 161 - 169. Print.
