Review: The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

What would you do if you were absolutely certain the world was about to end—but only a select group of people were chosen to survive? Panic? Pray? Call your loved ones? In The Sundial (1958), Shirley Jackson proposes a far more unsettling answer: have tea, argue over drawing-room furniture, and passive-aggressively judge everyone else’s moral worth.

Best known for The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Jackson takes a sharp left turn into apocalyptic satire with The Sundial. This is not a book about survival skills or divine revelation. It’s about ego, delusion, power, and the delicious absurdity of human behaviour when faced with extinction. And trust me—this novel bites.

Table of Contents

• Plot Overview (Without Spoilers)
• Themes: Apocalypse as Social Satire
  • The End of the World as a Social Event
  • Power, Control, and Moral Superiority
  • Delusion vs. Faith
• Characters: A Room Full of Unreliable Humans
  • Orianna Halloran
  • Fanny Halloran
  • The Guests
• Writing Style: Polite, Poisonous Perfection
• Why The Sundial Still Matters
• Conclusion
• FAQs

Plot Overview (Without Spoilers)

The story unfolds almost entirely inside Halloran House, a grand, claustrophobic mansion owned by the domineering Orianna Halloran. Her estranged daughter-in-law, Fanny, claims to receive prophetic messages from her deceased husband—messages that announce a coming apocalypse. According to these visions, everyone outside the house will perish. Only those inside Halloran House will remain to rebuild the world.

Naturally, chaos ensues.

What follows is not a mad scramble to escape or save humanity, but a social experiment gone feral. Guests arrive, alliances form, hierarchies harden, and moral superiority becomes the rarest—and most fought-over—currency in the room.

Think Downton Abbey meets end-times cult, written by someone who sees through everyone’s nonsense.

Themes: Apocalypse as Social Satire

The End of the World as a Social Event

One of the most brilliant things Jackson does here is make the apocalypse feel… mundane. There are no earthquakes or firestorms on the page. Instead, the real disaster is human behaviour.

People argue over bedrooms while civilisation collapses (allegedly). They worry about who will be in charge after the end, before the end even happens. It’s like planning a dinner party for guests who may not exist tomorrow.

Jackson’s point is razor-sharp: we don’t rise to the occasion—we double down on our worst habits.

Power, Control, and Moral Superiority

Every character believes they deserve to survive more than everyone else. Why? Because they’re smarter. Or purer. Or more “chosen.”

Sound familiar?

Jackson dismantles the idea of moral exceptionalism with surgical precision. No one is heroic. No one is selfless. Everyone is performing righteousness like it’s a costume they hope God will notice.

And the scariest part? They’re all completely sincere.

Delusion vs. Faith

Is Fanny truly receiving prophetic messages, or is she projecting grief, madness, or a hunger for relevance? Jackson never gives us a clear answer—and that’s exactly the point.

The Sundial lives in the uncomfortable space between belief and delusion. Jackson doesn’t mock faith itself; she skewers how easily belief becomes a weapon, a badge, or a justification for cruelty.

Certainty, she suggests, is far more dangerous than doubt.

Characters: A Room Full of Unreliable Humans

Orianna Halloran

Cold, imperious, and quietly monstrous, Orianna is the gravitational centre of the novel. She doesn’t need visions or prophecy—she already believes she belongs at the center of the universe. Watching her assert dominance over the “chosen” is both hilarious and chilling.

She’s not evil in the traditional sense. She’s something worse: convinced.

Fanny Halloran

Fanny is fragile, intense, and possibly unhinged—or possibly the only one telling the truth. Jackson keeps her opaque, which makes her unsettling. She may be a prophet, a grief-stricken widow, or a master manipulator. Or all three.

In a novel obsessed with authority, Fanny’s power comes from belief—hers and others’.

The Guests

The extended cast represents a cross-section of human absurdity: skeptics who stay “just in case,” believers who constantly test the rules, and opportunists who see the apocalypse as a career move.

Each character feels exaggerated yet painfully recognisable. You’ve met these people—just not usually at the end of the world.

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Why You Should Read Shirley Jackson: Her Best Novels

Writing Style: Polite, Poisonous Perfection

Shirley Jackson’s prose is deceptively calm. There’s no melodrama, no hysterics. The horror here is social, psychological, and impeccably mannered.

Her dialogue crackles with subtext. Every polite phrase hides a knife. Every conversation feels like a chess match played with teacups.

If The Haunting of Hill House whispers, The Sundial smiles—and quietly judges you.

Why The Sundial Still Matters

This book feels uncomfortably modern.

In an age of doomsday predictions, online echo chambers, spiritual influencers, and moral gatekeeping, The Sundial reads less like a period piece and more like a warning label.

Jackson understood something essential: when people believe they are “chosen,” empathy dies first.

And that insight has aged disturbingly well.

Conclusion

The Sundial is not about the end of the world. It’s about what people do when they think consequences no longer apply.

It’s funny, cruel, elegant, and deeply unsettling. Shirley Jackson doesn’t ask whether the apocalypse is coming—she asks whether we’d deserve to survive it.

Spoiler alert: her answer isn’t optimistic.

FAQs

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