essay questions we have always lived in the castle

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Table of contents, quote bank for whalitc, essay 1 : “family is the cause of all the problems in we have always lived in the castle.’ do you agree, essay 2 : merricat and constance find safety in their ruined house, but they sacrifice their freedom. discuss..

• Essay 3 : “In We Have Always lived in the castle the women are stronger than the men” discuss.
• Essay 4 : In We Have Always Lived in the Castle the villagers are motivated by fear more than anything else. Do you agree?
• Essay 5 : “The world is full of terrible people,” says Merricat. How accurate is Merricat’s assessment of the people around her?
• Essay 6 : IN WHALTIC, the Blackwoods see change as a threat. Do you agree?
• Essay 7 : Safety is ultimately restored for the Blackwood sisters, but at what cost? Discuss.
• Essay 8 : Merricat and Constance are both the heroes and the villains in WHALITC. Discuss.
• Essay 9 : The choices Merricat makes are always based on self-preservation. Do you agree?
• Essay 10 : How does Jackson create an atmosphere of menace in We Have Always Lived in the Castle?

Shirley Jackson’s gothic novel WHALITC, set in a conservative and claustrophobic village, denotes the severe ramifications that oppressive societal expectations and conformist attitudes can have on the members of a nuclear family. While the plot revolves around the members of the Blackwood family, the cause of all the problems that plague them arise from the intense pressures of patriarchal standards placed upon the Blackwood sisters, contributing to the death of their family and the destruction of their house. However, it is also important to note the compounding effects that isolation can have on the demeanour and mental state of the characters and its contribution to the disasters of the novel. Through an analysis of the consequences of overbearing patriarchal values, expressed through the death of the family and the destruction of the house, in addition to the effects of isolation from the village, one can understand Jackson’s fable as an investigation into the complex web of relationships in a family which are often fraught with conflicts.

The two incidents in the novel that form the basis of plot – the death of almost all of the Blackwood family, and the destruction of the Blackwood estate – arise from the overbearing patriarchal nature that govern the family members. Indeed, the framing of the novel through the first-person narration of Merricat in her leading role in these events demonstrates the rebellion against the patriarchal and patrilineal characteristics of the nuclear family in the 19th Century. Firstly, her role in the poisoning of the family is construed within the symbol of food – an inherently female-oriented aspect of life in which the Blackwood women are seen to preserve “deeply coloured rows of jellies and pickles and bottled vegetables and fruit.” Through the use of polysyndeton, in addition to colourful imagery – “maroon and amber and dark rich green” – Jackson bombards the reader with the massive extent to which the women of the Blackwood family centred on food. In tying the value of food with the role of women, Jackson expresses the fundamental restriction of the women of the Blackwood family’s power and value when the male characters in the novel impose on their restrictions. This is displayed when Merricat is described as “a great child of twelve, sent to bed without her supper.” In portraying the oppressive nature of the male characters, in ironically inhibiting their access to their own creations, Jackson illustrates how patriarchal society inhibits the well-functioning of the members of a nuclear family. Therefore, when Merricat poisons the family through their meal, food becomes a symbol of female power and of liberation from the oppression of the patriarchal power dynamics of families in the 19th Century. While through morally unsound methods, Merricat harnesses food as an instrument to champion her rights and win her autonomy within the remaining household. Thus, it is a result of patriarchal dominance in the family that is the cause of the first disaster in the novel.

The second disaster – the burning and looting of the Blackwood estate – serves as another symbolic act of rebellion against the patriarchal forces and societal pressures that confine and marginalise the Blackwood family. Pivotal to this is the character of Charles, who, as a cousin to Merricat, comes back as a “ghost” to ‘haunt’ her of the patriarchal and patrilineal nature of her previous family dynamic. He is seen to be a shadow of John Blackwood, who “used to record the names of people who owed him money.” As Charles seeking the family wealth and estate by marrying Constance, these two male characters are reflections of each other through the theme of greed. In bringing this family member, the equilibrium of Merricat, Constance and Uncle Julian is thrown into disarray, in which Jackson highlights the ramifications of the social expectation of wealth as a male prerogative. The fundamental concepts of the family unit such as marriage are called into question, as Charles’ attempt to lure Constance into a relationship signifies the abuse of the patrilineal and patriarchal nature of families in the pursuit of money. As a result, the burning of the Blackwood estate serves as a instrumental tragedy in which fire can be interpreted as a ‘cleansing’ element which destroys the impurities and injustices that plague the Merricat and the family. Similar to the death of her family, the destruction of the house signifies a rebellion against all the traditional roles and expectations imposed upon them by not only their family but from society, standing as a cathartic release from the burden of the past. The “six blue marbles” that Merricat had used to protect the house “had no connection with the house we lived now,” indicating the new life that the fire has afforded them. Therefore, Jackson expresses the fact that oppressive patriarchal figures within the extended family can result in – given enough pressure – disastrous acts of rebellion.

While the inhibiting influence of male figures in the Blackwood family contribute significantly to the disasters in the novel, the impact of the isolation of the family is crucial to not only the deterioration of Merricat’s mental state but of the village’s increasing tension and animosity. Jackson commences the novel by portraying the dire consequences of the death of her family, through the narration of Merricat who reflects casually that she “likes [her] sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and … Everyone else in [her] family is dead.” In opening with Merricat’s scattered thoughts in a journal-entry style, Jackson insinuates that the death of her parents are the cause for her eccentric mind, exacerbated by the pressures and tension from society. This stark antagonism is seen in Merricat’s fears of the villagers, who may “touch [her] and the mothers come at [her] like a flock of taloned hawks.” The ostracization of the family from the town results in the Blackwood family becoming a repository for the villager’s animosity and woes, exemplified through the menacing simile. Their position in the village becomes entrenched into one of antagonism as the murder of the family has no clear conclusion, leading to gossip and growing contentions. In expressing the oppression of societal conformity and of the deteriorating mental and physical state of the Blackwood sisters, Jackson highlights not only the gothic mood and themes of rebellion but the antagonism that arises from social segregation. Therefore, the woes of the novel lie not only within the Blackwood family’s gender power dynamic but in their social and physical isolation from society.

In conclusion, WHALITC examines the intricate web of family dynamics and the profound influence that it has on the lives of the Blackwood sisters. The novel presents the dire consequences of strained family relationships as a result of domineering male figures, exacerbated by their extensive isolation from society. Jackson therefore demonstrates the express need for family units to be resilient and respectful of all members’ voices and maintaining amicable relationships internally and externally.

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World's Smallest Book Club

Diversify, enliven, and encourage your reading, book club questions: we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson.

Merricat Blackwood lives on the family estate with her sister Constance and her Uncle Julian. Not long ago there were seven Blackwoods—until a fatal dose of arsenic found its way into the sugar bowl one terrible night. Acquitted of the murders, Constance has returned home, where Merricat protects her from the curiosity and hostility of the villagers. Their days pass in happy isolation until cousin Charles appears. Only Merricat can see the danger, and she must act swiftly to keep Constance from his grasp.

Like most of Shirley Jackson’s work,  We Have Always Lived in the Castle  manages to be a concisely unsettling story. Jackson frequently manages to challenge our first impressions, as well as our initial expectations from when the story began. Although many are only familiar with her famous short story “The Lottery,” Jackson’s other works are well worth reading, and I definitely encourage you to pick them up. This particular novel might be a good fit for you if you are a fan of cagey narrators, a mild spookiness factor, and depictions of society’s vicious enmity toward the “other.”

Discussion questions below the cut!

At various points in the story, Merricat makes it clear that she is telling the story in retrospect, after some kind of momentous event. How does this retrospective point of view change your experience as a reader?

Uncle Julian seems to live in a world that is inconsistently real. For instance, he tells Charles that Merricat died in the orphanage, even though Merricat is often sitting right in front of him. He also often confirms with Constance that the poisoning actually happened, even though it is his primary topic of conversation. What purpose does Uncle Julian serve in this story? Why is he included and what does he add to the reader’s experience?

Many murder mystery authors (such as Agatha Christie) talk a lot about the psychology of the murderer in their books—that a murderer’s character is revealed by the way in which they kill. Do you think Merricat would have been able to kill her family in a different way, such as stabbing them or setting the house on fire with them trapped inside? What does your answer reveal to you about Merricat’s character?

Jackson herself was agoraphobic, particularly in the last years of her life when she was writing this novel. How does she create a sense of anxiety and agoraphobia in this novel?

Although Charles is eminently dislikeable due to his clear gold-digging nature, his attempts to get Constance to move on and open up to the possibility of a normal life could be seen as not entirely unreasonable. With mental illness, much tension and frustration can be a result of society’s pressure on the mentally ill individual to conform to the “mentally well” ideal and not exhibit signs of their illness.

Would you say Merricat encourages Constance’s anxiety or does she merely understand and accept it? Do you think the two (encouragement and acceptance) are sometimes conflated when discussing mental illness in our society? What would have been your own approach to Constance’s anxiety and agoraphobia?

Constance often takes entire blame for Merricat’s actions, with the poisoning and the fire being two major examples. Does Merricat ever seem to think she herself is at fault? When, if ever, are we to blame for the actions of others?

Merricat calls on her own version of witchcraft throughout the novel. Is this witchcraft of hers really any different from devotion to a mainstream religion like Christianity? Whether you think the two are similar or different, justify your answer. How would you define witchcraft in general? Why do you think Jackson included a blend of homegrown witchcraft in this novel?

Comparisons can easily be drawn between  We Have Always Lived in the Castle  and “The Lottery.” How would you characterize Jackson’s perspective on humanity, specifically when it comes to the group vs. the individual? Keep in mind that Jackson lived through WWII and spent time living in a very anti-intellectual and anti-semitic New England town (North Bennington, VT). Do you agree or disagree with her perspective?

Feel free to use these questions for personal book club discussions, library book club kits, online discussion posts, teaching aids, or anything else you might find useful! However, please link back and give credit. Dropping a note to let me know you’re using them is also much appreciated .

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An Ultimate Guide to We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Instead of focusing on paranormality, Jackson conveys a “vast intimacy with everyday evil, with the pathological undertones of prosaic human configurations: a village, a family, a self”. The novella disinterred the wickedness in normality, cataloguing the ways in which repression tips into psychosis, persecution, and paranoia, into cruelty and its masochistic, injury-cherishing twin.

Set in a secluded town, the novel chronicles the lives of the Blackwood sisters, Merricat and Constance, who are both outcasts in their community. Despite the antagonism they face from the townspeople, the sisters are able to find comfort in each other and in their ancestral home, where they live in relative seclusion.

Through the character of Merricat, Jackson examines the psychological impacts of isolation and persecution. Merricat is an eccentric and paranoid young woman who has been ostracized by the townspeople, who view her as a witch. Due to her isolation, Merricat's mental state begins to deteriorate, leading to an increase in her paranoia and delusions. Despite this, she remains fiercely protective of her sister and their home, and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep them safe from the outside world.

Jackson's incorporation of Gothic elements, such as the eerie and dilapidated Blackwood estate and the supernatural beliefs of the townspeople, adds to the novel's atmosphere of unease and isolation. The novel also explores the consequences of societal persecution, as the townspeople's mistreatment of the Blackwood sisters ultimately leads to tragedy.

Genre and Narrative Conventions

Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a work of gothic fiction, known for its eerie and uncanny atmosphere. The novel explores themes of isolation and madness through the eyes of the protagonist, Merricat Blackwood, who is haunted by the double of her dead father. The Blackwood family's remote, crumbling house serves as a symbol of their own decay and isolation, adding to the novel's gothic mood. Jackson also uses elements of the supernatural, such as the mention of Merricat's ability to "put things right" with her mind, and the use of symbols, such as the black cat, to depict the relationship between the natural and the unnatural.

The risk of nature’s revolting is challenged through the construction of Merricat as the embodiment of sympathetic magic — naturalising the unnatural. Particularly, she confronts nature’s anger through raw and natural elements: soil and leaves being scattered, fire being lit up. Jackson thus marries magic — characteristically an evil and unnatural power, with prehuman elements, so as to avoid readily vilifying Merricat. The fire aforementioned symbolically incinerates the female stronghold and feminine power, preventing it from being invaded.

The distinction between reality and fantasy is also blurred, which only adds to the sense of unease. The house symbolises both the physical and mental isolation of the Blackwood sisters, and the way in which they have cut themselves off from the outside world. By characterising Merricat as the antithesis of her sister, Jackson also highlights the themes of repression and rebellion, which are central to the Gothic genre.

Constance Blackwood is characterised as hypersensitive and afraid, whereas Merricat Blackwood, the fable’s first-person narrator, is attuned to “nature, to the rhythm of the season, and to death”. As the culprit in the unresolved crime that takes centrality in the narrative, she challenges patriarchal institution and the law of proprietorship, acting as the antithesis of a docile, domestic woman. Merricat’s ingenuous and defiant voice helps foreground the disintegration permeating the story. 

Isolation and Persecution

  The novel's isolated setting and its exploration of the psychological effects of isolation and persecution on the main character, Merricat, highlight the ostracisation of those who exhibit ‘otherness’. The protagonist and her sister Constance, who is afflicted by an anxiety disorder, are strongly attached, and their isolation is a defence mechanism against the social norms and rules propagated by their community.

 The tragic consequences of the townspeople's treatment of the Blackwood sisters further underscore the theme of the dangers of societal persecution. The novel suggests that isolation can lead to madness and self-destruction, as the Blackwood sisters are unable to cope with their isolation and gradually become more and more isolated from each other and from reality.

 Female self-sufficiency, Jackson suggests, specifically women's forceful establishment of power over their own lives, threatens a society in which men hold primary power and leads inevitably to confrontation.

Supernatural, Magic and Witchcraft

In "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," magic and witchcraft are presented as a means of coping with and resisting the difficulties and isolation faced by the main characters. For Merricat, her practice of sympathetic magic can be seen as a way of trying to exert some control over her circumstances and to find a sense of agency in a world that often seems unfair and unpredictable. By engaging in magical practices, Merricat is empowered to create some sense of order and meaning in her life, and to connect with a world that is beyond the narrow-mindedness and judgment of the villagers. Magic and witchcraft characters’ resistance and subversion of the expectations and norms of their society.

Jackson also uses the supernatural to represent the otherness of characters. The ghost in Gothic literature often manifests as a phantasmic spectre of a “Madwoman in the Attic” (a term coined by Gilbert and Gubar and the title of their work), an outcasted woman. However, in Castle , this role is filled by  Charles – a masculine presence – who is always referred to by Merricat as a ghost. By replacing the madwoman with a male ghost, Jackson enables the preservation of female power and subverts the relationship between men and women.

Power and Masculinity

The novel provides a critique of the causes and consequences of female victimisation and alienation (which have been explored briefly in the previous section). Jackson subverts masculine authority from the outset of the novel, which has already suffered a defeat at the hands of the protagonist through her poisoning. This poisoning has resulted in a transfer of power from Blackwood men to Blackwood women. The victim, John Blackwood, is a patriarch who "took pride in his table, his family, his position in the world" (p. 47). His preservation of wealth and material possessions is represented through the narrator’s description of the ways "he used to record the names of people who owed him money, and people who ought, he thought, to do favors for him". Acts of altruisms are replaced by quid pro quo transactions; John views all loans as financial investments and benefits the town’s scarcity of resources. Jackson establishes John as the archetypal patriarch and proprietor that dominates society.

 Julian, John’s brother, is characterised as the antithesis of John, dependent on his brother's charity and subject to his authority. He is emasculated by the lack of authority and the failure to accumulate private wealth. In a society that defines wealth as a male prerogative, Julian is outcasted, rendered both legally and symbolically powerless. His invalid state confirms that financial failure for men leads to powerlessness, dependency, emasculation. However, whilst his emasculation ensures the empowerment of Constance and Merricat, his insistent denial of Merricat’s existence is a reminder of her invisibility to the Blackwood men

Womanhood and Domesticity

Jackson uses Gothic tropes to marry the sanitised domestic space with psychological entrapment and horrors. Merricat and Constance “have always lived” in the castle, suggesting a sort of entrapment within the space. After her opening describing her character, Merricat remarks on the day to day life inside the structure with Constance and her family:

We always put things back where they belonged. We dusted and swept under tables and chairs and beds and pictures and rugs and lamps, but we left them where they were… Blackwoods had always lived in our house, and kept their things in order… and so our house was built up with layers of Blackwood property weighting it, and keeping it steady against the world (Jackson 421)

In this passage, the collective “we” is inescapable. The narrative reads almost like a cleaning manual, dusting and sweeping various locations. Jackson’s use of domestic imagery alludes to the duties of female members in the Blackwood family – constantly working to maintain the order of the household and its façade, but lacking power and involvement.

 This depiction of domesticity is juxtaposed against Merricat’s rebellion, which culminates in her subversion of the Blackwood patriarchy. By establishing Constance as the head of the family through the murder, she replaces masculine power with feminine power. Constance and Merricat are contrasted in Jackson’s initial depiction, where Constance represents the domestic and traditional, and Merricat represents the creative and unrestrained. This depiction, however, is challenged through Jackson’s deconstruction of the domestic. Domestic tasks are portrayed as creative tasks instead of mundane, repetitive routinely chores. Constance, despite being relegated to the domestic sphere, discerns creativity. Similarly, Merricat’s rebellion is paired with self-imposed rules and insistence on routine, which helps Jackson further eradicate binary oppositions and rigid characterisations.

Idea to Explore:

The annihilating fire that transforms the Blackwood mansion into ““a castle, turreted and open to the sky”. Guiding notes:

Despite that the castle image is Gothicised, the structure is still filled with domestic bliss.

The fire exacerbates their isolation from the world and entrapment; they are more so contained in their home’s blackened walls.

However, the two are not bothered. Merricat remarks, “We were going to be very happy”

Their “great many things to do” become commonplace domestic tasks such as cleaning fragments of the former home, and barricading  themselves—literally and figuratively—against the outside world.  

Class and Wealth

In Shirley Jackson's "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," the theme of class and wealth is evident in the hierarchy and distinction between the wealthy, aristocratic Blackwood family and the poorer, working-class townspeople. The Blackwood family's history of wealth and privilege is portrayed through their large, grandiose mansion and their pride in their family's legacy and proprietorship of the town. This distinction is further emphasized by the antagonism between the Blackwoods and the townspeople, represented through representations of the Blackwood’s proprietorship and snobbery towards others, resulting in persecution and isolation. The family is conscious of their snobbery towards the village, and simultaneously conscious of the role persecution plays in confirming their elevated self-image. The forewords of the novella refer to this double confession of culpability, a typical feature in Jackson’s texts. She propounds that, to revel in injury is a form of exultation, and to suffer exile from conformist groups, is not an implicit moral victory, but a form of bohemian one-upmanship.  

Merricat is aware of such animosity:

“The people of the village disliked the fact that we always had plenty of money to pay for whatever we wanted; we had taken our money out of the bank, of course, and I knew they talked about the money hidden in our house, as though it were great heaps of golden coins and Constance and Uncle Julian and I sat in the evenings, our library books forgotten, and played with it, running our hands through it and counting and stacking and tumbling it, jeering and mocking behind locked doors.”

The reference to “money hidden in [their] house” and the archaic equivocation to “great heaps of golden coins” allude to the economic disparity between the people and the Blackwoods, which results in class antagonism. Private property is a falsifier of economic relations, and the mansion symbolises the family’s ability to accrue wealth. The perceived prestige attached with the Blackwood family’s ownership of property and wealth creates divisions within society and fuels conflict.

Authorial Intent: What is it saying?

A Brooding Examination of Persecution and Paranoia  

Jackson's narrative is heavily steeped in the motif of small-town New England persecution. Yet, she cleverly repackages this persecution, transforming it from a broad social critique to a deeply personal fable. Central to this narrative is the character development of the Blackwood sisters. Constance is depicted as hypersensitive and fearful, while her younger sister Merricat, the novella's first-person narrator, maintains a close bond with nature, the changing seasons, and the concept of death.  

Merricat, implicated in a central unresolved crime, dares to defy patriarchal institutions and the law of proprietorship. She symbolizes the antithesis of the docile, domestic woman, her defiant and innocent voice echoing the thematic disintegration that permeates the narrative. This voice serves as a stark contrast to Constance's fear, demonstrating the psychological complexities and contradictions within the two main characters.

Sympathetic Magic: Marrying the Natural and Unnatural  

Jackson's narrative also delves into the relationship between the natural and the unnatural, drawing heavily on Gothic tropes. Merricat, portrayed as the embodiment of sympathetic magic, challenges the risk of nature's rebellion, thereby naturalizing the unnatural. She confronts nature's fury with raw, elemental forces: the scattering of soil and leaves, the ignition of fire. By aligning magic—an inherently unnatural power—with prehuman elements, Jackson effectively prevents the reader from outright vilification of Merricat.

The symbolism of fire is particularly poignant in this context. It serves as a metaphorical barrier, safeguarding the female stronghold and feminine power from potential intrusion. This underscores Merricat's unconventional strength and her defiance of traditional gender roles.

Unveiling Class Antagonism: The Blackwoods and Their Pride  

Class antagonism is another critical theme that Jackson explores in the novella. The Blackwoods' proprietary attitudes and their disdain for others lead to their persecution and isolation. The family is painfully aware of their snobbery towards the village, recognizing that this persecution only serves to cement their elevated self-image. Jackson argues that this reveling in injury is a form of exultation, suggesting that suffering exile from conformist groups is not just a moral victory but also a form of bohemian oneupmanship.

In-Depth Analysis of the First Chapter

The first chapter of the novella sets the stage for the drama that unfolds. Here, Merricat Blackwood is introduced as an 18-year-old living with her sister, Constance. Right from the outset, Jackson establishes the role of sisterhood in replacing heterosexual romance and patriarchal structures. Merricat's narrative provides an intriguing the juxtaposition of innocence and evil, reflecting her ideological escape from reality through magic. She imagines being “born a werewolf”, emphasising her existence as the foreign ‘other’, and the description of her “the two middle fingers on both [her] hands [being] of the same length”, representing physical abnormality, further highlights her otherness.   

The Blackwood family is portrayed as stagnant and dull, “never much of a family for restlessness and stirring”. The stagnated state of the family parallels the inanimacy of objects, “the books and the flowers and the spoons”. Framed using a polysyndeton, with the conjunction “and” being repeated, Jackson’s description of the family’s possessions connotes excess and abundance. The family takes care to preserve their material possessions, which are “dusted and swept under the tables and chairs and beds and pictures and rugs and lamps”, but “left them where they were”. The lack of utility of these furnitures renders them mere signifiers of wealth, or falsifiers of economic relations. Their wealth is preserved and transferred through patriarchal lineage, and marriages help the family accumulate further wealth and economic capital. Marital relations, and by extension, the Blackwood wives, are commodified in Merricat’s narration, with their identity being attached to their “belongings”, which help build up with “layers of Blackwood property”. 

The wealth of the Blackwoods are preserved and transferred through patriarchal lineage, with marriages serving as a means to accumulate further economic capital. The commodification of the Blackwood wives is evident in Merricat's narrative, where their identities are reduced to their "belongings," which contribute to the "layers of Blackwood property."

The gendered description of “the men [staying] young and [doing] the gossiping and the women aged with grey evil weariness” establishes the chasm between the lives of men and women. The passivity of the women standing “silently waiting for the men to get up and come home” demonstrates the drudgery and monotony of domestic lives. Women are disempowered by the laws, which act as patriarchal institutions that deprive them of proprietary rights. Merricat expresses her admiration towards The Rochester house, “the loveliest in the town”, which “by rights it should have belonged to Constance”. Their mother, despite being “born there”, lacks proprietary rights and is unable to transfer ownership to Constance. The binary language in Merricat’s narration — “disliked” and “liked”, establishes a childlike sense of injustice.

The theme of entrapment, a staple of Gothic literature, is evident in the depiction of Constance and Uncle Julian. Constance's inability to venture “past her own garden” is juxtaposed with Uncle Julian's physical immobility. In postmodern literature, the “garden” symbolises liminality — the in-between space between the confines of the domestic space and the public sphere. We may infer that Constance desires access to the outside world but fears the hostility of the townspeople. Merricat, on the other hand, is empowered by “the simple need for books and food”, representations of her needs, both spiritual and physical.

Similar to The Lottery, Castle also uses a cliched description of “the sun … shining” in a “fine April morning” to unveil the co-existence of good and evil. The “false glorious promises of spring … showing oddly through the village grime” create foreboding malevolence; Jackson eradicates binary oppositions by marrying natural imagery with references to beauty’s falsity.

Thematic ideas explained:

Evil in Normality: Jackson unravels the sinister aspects hidden within everyday life, focusing on the progression from repression to psychosis, persecution, paranoia, cruelty, and masochism.   Persecution and Paranoia: The narrative underlines the motif of small-town persecution, illustrating how societal persecution can tip over into personal paranoia. Defiance of Patriarchy: Through the character of Merricat, Jackson challenges patriarchal institutions and the traditional image of the docile, domestic woman.

Sympathetic Magic and the Natural vs. Unnatural: Jackson illustrates he relationship between the natural and the unnatural, with Merricat representing sympathetic magic, which naturalizes the unnatural.

Class Antagonism: The theme of class antagonism is represented through the Blackwood family's snobbery, leading to their isolation and persecution.   Gothic Tropes and Entrapment: Jackson's use of Gothic tropes, such as physical and psychological entrapment, is highlighted through the characters of Constance and Uncle Julian.

Coexistence of Good and Evil: The narrative explores the coexistence of good and evil, often revealed through seemingly ordinary circumstances.  

Key Symbolism

 Shirley Jackson's Gothic novel 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' features an array of symbols that reflect the genre's traditional themes of isolation, decay, and psychological turmoil. A strong understanding of Gothic tropes will enable a deeper understanding of how Jackson represents the invisible forces that shape the experience of her female characters. The conventions of female Gothic writing are deployed to interrogate the position of women within family structures as claustrophobic, oppressive and combative. The novel has been referred to as a Radcliffean Gothic (named after Ann Radcliffe, one of the earliest Gothic writers), particularly in its use of vulnerable heroine and malevolent Gothic spaces.  

The symbols used in the novel include ubiquitous Gothic motifs such as the decaying mansion, reclusive characters, and ominous natural elements. This section will explore a few elements that may be missed by many VCE students in their studies of this new addition to the text list.  

About the Genre: What is Gothic Literature?

Gothic literature is a genre of fiction that originated in England during the latter half of the 18th century but has transformed over the centuries. The genre has evolved from Romantic-era Gothic, characterized by supernatural elements, to the more psychological Gothic of the 20th and 21st centuries. Despite its evolution, Gothic literature typically involves eerie and mysterious scenarios that evoke sensations of fear, dread and suspense in the reader. While Gothic literature can vary in content and style, it is unified by a general preoccupation with death, darkness, hauntings, and entrapment.

Features of different sub-genres of Gothic Literature can be seen in various parts of Jackson's novel: for instance, supernatural elements such as omens, reminding us of the Romantic era, and the Uncanny - referring to the similarities between Charles and John, reminiscent of the psychological Gothic. Also, the text replaces monstrosity, visceral horror, and violence with psychological terror, paranoia, and psychosis, which is a common Postmodern Gothic feature.

Evocation of the Supernatural

One of the prominent features of Gothic literature is its evocation of the supernatural, and Shirley Jackson's "We Have Always Lived in the Castle". References to hidden secrets, curses and spells in the novel allude to the supernatural. However, unlike so many gothic writers, Jackson’s version of the supernatural represents a preferable alternative to life for her characters. Sympathetic magic - imaginative power - empowers Merricat, and allows her to escape the constraints to patriarchal power. The supernatural "life on the moon" represents an alternative economy to the exploitative and oppressive capitalist system of their town. The sisters eschew modernity and choose instead to reside in a dilapidated castle, which smells of "smoke and ruins", 'turrets and open to the sky". The upper level is unsuitable for habitation, thereby limiting their living space to the kitchen and living area. They opt for familiarity with their former dwelling and lifestyle over the formidable challenge of reintegrating into society, forging a novel sense of tranquillity within their private realm.

Even the novel’s setting and atmosphere are subjected to the will of the characters. No rogue spirits or hostile creatures haunt the woods surrounding the Blackwood mansion – only Merricat, who roams them as comfortably as if they are her bedroom. She sleeps on a bed of leaves beneath the tree and walks without fear because she has power and agency in this world. If anything haunts the grounds of her family property, it is her. She is the haunting. 

The environment and ambience portrayed in the novel are intricately tied to the actions of its characters. While no malevolent entities or otherworldly beings lurk amidst the foliage enveloping Blackwood manor, Merricat herself roams freely as if it were her sanctuary. Fearlessly wandering through the woods and taking up residence beneath a verdant canopy, she exerts control over her surroundings with ease. Indeed, if there is any presence that might be considered eerie on this familial estate, it is none other than Merricat - for she embodies an ethereal essence all her own that permeates every inch of space around her.

Murder and Madness

Evil seems to be domesticated and interiorised as madness in the novel, with most of its horror emanating from within Merricat's mind. Jackson's evocation of seemingly disturbed psychological states and association of these states with acts of violence is representative of her critique of societal norms and morality. A history of trauma and abuse is implied through the sisters' frequent references to the poisoning incident and their eventual isolation from society. Merricat's homicidal thoughts and anxieties are presented as an understandable response to the trauma and abuse she has endured, rather than a manifestation of inherent evil.

   “Their tongues will burn, I thought, as though they had eaten fire. Their throats will burn when the words come out, and in their bellies they will feel a torment hotter than a thousand fires.”  

The novel portrays evil not as an external entity but rather as a domesticated and internalised form of madness that is prominently displayed in Merricat’s antagonistic relationship with the townspeople.

However, to subvert the male-centred narrative that associates these states with innate female 'hysteria', Jackson also focuses on the hallucinations and mental instability of Uncle Julian. The psychologisation of terror is herein revealed through the ambivalent psychological dimension that destabilises Julian's perception of reality.

Adolescence and Trauma

Traumatised adolescence and its location within dysfunctional family units are implicitly explored through Jackson's Castle, enabling an examination of Merricat and Constance's experiences. As an 18-year-old girl, Merricat has endured a significant amount of emotional and psychological trauma, which has ostensibly shaped her hostility towards the villagers.

There are no explicit references to her transition from childhood to maturity, yet the novel's folklore elements invite reading through a lens of initiation, where Merricat's withdrawal into ritualistic behaviours and her obsession with magical practices serve as coping mechanisms to such transition.

   “It’s spring, you’re young, you’re lovely, you have a right to be happy. Come back into the world.”  

   “I could not breathe; I was tied with wire, and my head was huge and going to explode; I ran to the back door and opened it to breathe. I wanted to run; if I could have run to the end of our land and back I would have been all right, but Constance was alone with them in the drawing room and I had to hurry back.”  

Through Merricat's traumatic adolescence, Jackson highlights the impact of family dysfunction on mental health and development. Her fear of Constance leaving (e.g., panicking as Helen Clarke invites Constance out) and controlling personality are symbolised by the regimented routine of her weekly grocery outings, whereby she fulfils her role to ensure their self-sufficiency without a paternal presence.

Unreliable Narration

Gothic fiction, including Shirley Jackson's writing, frequently employs the use of an unreliable narrator as a tool for projecting the protagonist's emotional instability. This instability is often linked to Gothic themes of persecution and punishment and can manifest in forms bordering on madness or paranoia. In "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," Merricat vacillates between her internal reality - where she imagines taking revenge against those who have wronged her family - and presenting a veneer of normalcy during external interactions with others.

   “I never turned; it was enough to feel them all there in back of me without looking into their flat grey faces with the hating eyes. I wish you were all dead, I thought, and longed to say it out loud. Constance said, “Never let them see that you care,” and “If you pay any attention they’ll only get worse,” and probably it was true, but I wished they were dead.”  

The portrayal of Merricat serves as an incisive commentary on gender roles that restrict women's power within society since her isolation stems from these constraints imposed upon her.

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We Have Always Lived in the Castle Topics for Discussion

How is Merricat Blackwood an unreliable narrator? How much of what she says is true?

Discuss the meaning of Constance's name in the story. Does she represent constancy? How so?

What are Charles's intentions when he comes to visit the Blackwoods. The author never tells us exactly, but what can you infer from his actions?

Compare and contrast Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Clarke. What are their motivations for visiting Constance? Who is a more honest character?

Do you think the villagers would behave differently toward the Blackwoods if they really knew them? Why or why not?

What do you think Mary Katherine was like before the murders? Why do you think she murdered her family?

Discuss Uncle Julian's relationship with Charles Blackwood. How does the relationship change over the course of the story?

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We Have Always Lived in the Castle

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Chapters 1-4

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Womanhood and Domesticity

Merricat is 18 years old, and her sister 10 years older, yet they live in a liminal state of arrested childhood, reenacting rites of adulthood in different guises. Constance is locked in a state of eerie, sterile motherhood, constantly doting over her younger sister. Her domain is the kitchen and pantry, where she is constantly baking and cooking, serving tea, and preparing thrice-daily meals. She leaves the house only to garden, and when she’s not preparing food to be consumed immediately, she obsessively preserves it and keeps it in an unfinished basement cellar, joining rows and rows of generational preserves kept by her family in generations past. Constance is the only one who actually meets the material demands of the family. She attempts to create a state of normalcy for the family that rejects the reality that the family no longer has the social standing it once had before the murders.

This domesticity is underscored by several inversions to the expected order specific to the Blackwood family. If Constance is the doting mother, Merricat and Charles vie to become the active father in charge of protecting Constance. Neither of them is very good at it, but Jackson’s purpose here is to demonstrate that while the role of the patriarch is at best an entirely superfluous one, at its worst it is a parasitic relationship, which constantly demands care and attention without ever contributing anything but an abstract sense of self-justifying order. In her way, Merricat notices this gendered relationship is universal to the village, in which the men “stayed young and did the gossiping and the women aged with grey evil weariness and stood silently waiting for the men to get up and come home” (3). In either case, Merricat and Charles both have their wholly abstract and ineffective orderliness, which demands, without ever expressing the demand, that Constance stays at home.

Misunderstood Genius

Wherever Merricat goes in the village, she evokes ridicule and pity. Underlying those emotions, however, is the emotion of fear; Merricat and her sister are the embodiment of a murderous rage that people in the town suppress with false cheer. In a close-knit town, everyone knows the history of everyone else, but what really happened in Blackwood Manor six years ago is a mystery to everyone, including the reader. Only Merricat knows the truth, and this is because she has had the extraordinary will and self-regard to assert herself within a world of small-minded followers who barely know themselves or what motivates their actions.

Merricat is a force of personality, possessing a rich cosmology of beliefs and a forceful set of preferences and dislikes. By contrast, her closest companion, Constance, lives in a world of shadow, following habits and activities set down by previous generations of Blackwood women. This makes her susceptible to Charles’s influence, which is a near vacuum of disinterest in anything but the monetary value of objects that Merricat, with her genius, has made special through the force of her will. Charles represents the traditional, which also translates to safety for Constance, so she falls easily into the role held by generations of Blackwood women before her.

One can surmise that the villagers live equally shallow lives. They gossip and do very little work but are roused to anger by the mere presence of Merricat. From Merricat’s perspective , she and her sister are creative forces, with her sister creating careful meals from generational expertise and Merricat imbuing objects with power to defend her sister’s ability. By contrast, the villagers are purely negative entities, depicted as slothful individually but purely destructive in direct relation to how many of them are standing in one place at one time. Their orgy of destruction against the Blackwood Manor has no idea behind it at all other than a resentment toward the overall concept of the Blackwoods as a family and village legacy represented by the house. In this sense, Jackson has rewritten an often-told American story that extolls and finds virtue in individual genius and sees collective action as the mindless reaction of coddled and uncreative peasants.

Small-Town Class Relationships

Merricat is highly conscious of the low status of the people she lives near, often pointing out the shabbiness of their houses and the coarseness of their mannerisms. Yet she is not the only Blackwood who bristles with class preoccupation. Helen Clarke is among the only townspeople to show kindness to the Blackwood sisters, making regular visits for tea on Tuesdays. Constance greets her cordially, yet when Helen leaves Constance disparages her, calling her “ill bred, pretentious, stupid. Why she keeps coming I’ll never know” (39). And Uncle Julian keeps calling Charles Blackwood a “bastard,” pointing to the obscurity of his nephew’s place in the family line. Jackson implies that the Blackwood name generated resentment long before it was associated with mayhem and weird isolation. The wealth of the Blackwoods set them apart from the town long before the murders.

One of the contingencies that form Merricat’s view of the world is the vast land her family holds. She is free to roam the lands, surveying the Blackwood property and burying objects as she pleases, thus producing a large protective network against the rest of the world. She is free of money worries as well, receiving a constant flow of money from Constance’s budgetary allowances. She is free to associate a gold watch not with wealth or resale value but as a magical and sentimental object free of money. By contrast, her middle-class cousin has no such freedom. In his reduction of everything Merricat finds valuable down to mere money, we are encouraged to see him as if through the bars of a self-created cage.

This is a story in which murders evoke amusement, pride, and curiosity but almost no sense of grief. Rather, the one note of genuine sadness comes when Constance realizes that all the fine Blackwood things have gone in the fire and that Merricat is now reduced to wearing drapes. Nevertheless, class transcends money in Jackson’s world. The girls are still special and able to live within the royalty of Merricat’s imagination. Even the hateful villagers seem to recognize the power of the Blackwoods, as they continue to bring the women small offerings of food after destroying their house as if to apologize for their brief and pointless democratic flare-up.

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Family in “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” by Shirley Jackson Essay

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Introduction

Family theme, role of the ‘castle’, the uncanny story, works cited.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle , written by Shirley Jackson and published in 1961, was the final novel of the author, representing several characteristics of her personality. As mentioned by Bartnett for the Guardian, the female characters of the novel are “yin and yang of Shirley’s own inner self – one, an explorer, a challenger, the other a contented, domestic homebody.”

The novel tells the story of two sisters – Merricat Blackwood, who is characterized as headstrong and naïve, and her older sister Constance Blackwood, who avoids venturing any further than her garden. The main mystery behind the two sisters was that they were the remaining members of a large old family that died suddenly from poisoning. Thus, the topic of family is persistent throughout the novel, especially given the consequences that led to the death of almost all Blackwoods.

It is revealed that Merricat was the one to murdered her family, including parents, her aunt, and her brother, leaving only Constance and her uncle, who survived the poisoning of arsenic due to mere luck.

Constance was the only family member whom Merricat truly loved, and despite her sinister actions, the author gave explanations for it by pointing out the oppressive nature of family relationships with regard to women. To get a deeper understanding of why Merricat had a chaotic and illogical attitude toward family life, the history and structure of the family as an institution should be considered.

Social rules and gender roles that exist within the family context are predominantly male-centered, which means that the power is usually patrilineal. For instance, the family name is generally passed down from fathers to sons who also have traditionally inherited the majority of the property. Daughters, however, we’re expected to follow family rules until they get married, when they had to come under their husbands’ rule.

Therefore, there is a history of blatant oppression of females within the family context (Chae 262). Given the nature of family structure and power, it is not surprising that Merricat wanted to rid herself of the oppressive traditions that her family held.

The most negative aspects of masculinity in the novel are illustrated through the character of Charles Blackwood. He is obsessed with getting rich and thus tricks his cousins out of money under the disguise of pretending to help them. Charles even plans to make Constance his wife, which threatens the relationship between Merricat and her sister (Begonia).

The marriage between Constance and Charles can not only ruin the sisters’ relationship but also severely damage the female-oriented family that Merricat wanted to preserve. Therefore, the institution of family and marriage is depicted in the novel as something that keeps women away from helping each other and maintaining solidarity. To a large degree, Jackson intentionally portrays marriage as a treat to familial relationships rather than a vehicle for strengthening them.

Familial relationships depicted in We Have Always Lived in the Castle are complex. Charles is already Constance and Merricat’s relative, which gives him the right to entire their house regardless of any efforts of preventing him from doing so (Lape 153). Merricat is always aware of the boundaries she must set for protection; she checks the fence that surrounds her property every week, uses talismans to safeguard herself from danger, has “hiding places” for escaping abuse (Jackson 76).

Charles is very dismissive of her cousin’s practices and intends to take the power that she gained through murdering her oppressive family. He starts treating Merricat the same way in which her late family treated her in the past.

In contrast to Charles’ strive for money and power, Merricat is not interested in none of her financial inheritance. Rather, she places special importance on the cultural and historical value of the objects left behind by generations of Blackwood women who inhabited the castle.

Canned food and chinaware have a special place in Merricat’s heart because they represent the contributions of Blackwood wives and daughters who were continuously oppressed by their husbands, fathers, and brothers. These objects show that women have always followed the stereotype of fulfilling their role of cooks for their families. Food is also a tangible symbol of women being crucial contributors to family dynamics when Merricat murders her family, food changes from the oppressive instrument to the beacon of liberation.

As mentioned earlier, Blackwoods’ family residence has always been of great value for Merricat and her sister, not from a financial but from a historical perspective. To Merricat, the house represented the nature and essence of its female inhabitants: “as soon as a new Blackwood wife moved in, a place was found for her belongings, as so our house was built up with layers of Blackwood property weighing in, and keeping it steady against the world” (Jackson 1).

The house was indeed a castle that protected Merricat from the outside world, and she cherished its history in the same way as she cherished her freedom and control over her life after murdering almost the entire family. Despite Merricat’s disdain with the traditional roles that women had to play in their houses, she still enjoyed neatening and cleaning it as an homage to the hard work that she previously had to do: “on Mondays, we neatened […] carefully setting the little things back after we had dusted, never altering the perfect line of our mother’s tortoise-shell comb” (Jackson 42).

As the novel climaxes with Blackwood’s estate getting caught on fire that destroyed most of the building, both Merricat and Constance are devastated from the destruction of the place that they held so dearly to their heart despite the oppression that experienced.

Seeing the treasured objects of Blackwood women’s history destroyed is a shock to the sisters because both of them valued the contributions of their ancestors. The author writes, “silverware that had been in the house for generations of Blackwood wives […] tablecloths and napkins hemmed by Blackwood women, and washed and ironed, again and again, mended and cherished” (Jackson 114). These lines illustrate the attachment sisters had to the house and the respect they had for it.

Overall, by the numerous ways in which Merricat tried to protect her house and maintain its history, it can be concluded that the ‘castle’ played a significant role in the main characters’ lives. Importantly, it reflected the long tradition of hard work that Blackwood women had to do to make the house feel like home. Unfortunately, no one except for Merricat and Constance understood the value of that work.

In Gothic literature, the uncanny mode is used for providing a look at the darkest sides of humanity. To a large extent, the uncanny brings out the internal conflict that a character may experience because of (the) underlying external conflict (Kristinsson). In We Have Always Lived in the Castle , the uncanny is manifested in Merricat’s struggle to get away from the oppressive nature of her family by making a decision to poison her relatives with arsenic. Again, the literary mode relates directly to the key theme of the novel – male-dominated family structures.

The atmosphere that persists in the entire novel can be characterized as uncanny because readers get to know that the protagonist murdered her family and still manage to sympathize with her. Also, the fact that Merricat’s sister also knows about the intentional killing does not seem too over-the-top for readers because they understand that the novel speaks about the most negative characteristics of people, which is inherent to Gothic literature. The uncanny qualities of the protagonist contribute to the overall eerie atmosphere of the novel because her actions are a secret to nobody.

To conclude, family relationships in We Have Always Lived in the Castle as extremely complex. For getting herself and Constance away from the oppressive family dynamics, Merricat makes a decision to murder her relatives. However, in the course of the novel, her family ‘haunts’ Merricat through the figure of Charles, who wants to take power over the Blackwood money and property, thus illustrating the most negative aspects of male-dominated families.

The ‘castle’ plays a unique role in the novel; it provides shelter and sanctuary for both sisters while still reminding them of the long history of women being oppressed in its walls. Jackson’s novel is uncanny in its attitude toward family life and the use of Gothic symbolism.

Bartnett, David. “ We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson – A House of Ordinary Horror .” The Guardian . 2015. Web.

Begonja, Lucija. Female Characters and Setting in Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Thesis, University of J.J. Strossmayer in Osijek, 2017.

Chae, Haesook. “Marx on the Family and Class Consciousness.” A Journal of Economics, Culture & Society , vol. 26, no. 2, 2014, pp. 262-277.

Jackson, Shirley. We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Penguin Modern Classics, 2009.

Kristinsson, Sebastian. “ The Split Psyche and the Uncanny in Scottish Literature .” Skemman , 2016. Web.

Lape, Sue Veregge. The Lottery’s Hostage: The Life and Feminist Fiction of Shirley Jackson. Dissertation, Ohio State University, 1992.

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IvyPanda. (2020, December 13). Family in "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson. https://ivypanda.com/essays/family-in-we-have-always-lived-in-the-castle-by-shirley-jackson/

"Family in "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson." IvyPanda , 13 Dec. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/family-in-we-have-always-lived-in-the-castle-by-shirley-jackson/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Family in "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson'. 13 December.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Family in "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson." December 13, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/family-in-we-have-always-lived-in-the-castle-by-shirley-jackson/.

1. IvyPanda . "Family in "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson." December 13, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/family-in-we-have-always-lived-in-the-castle-by-shirley-jackson/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Family in "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson." December 13, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/family-in-we-have-always-lived-in-the-castle-by-shirley-jackson/.

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We Have Always Lived in the Castle

By shirley jackson, we have always lived in the castle themes.

Isolation is perhaps the most obvious theme of We Have Always Lived in the Castle . By the end of the novel, Merricat and Constance have successfully cut themselves off from the rest of the world, living in their “haunted” house. At the start of the novel, Constance fears the outside world and isolates herself, but as the narrative gets underway, she is starting to reconsider this lifestyle and is open to being persuaded to return to the world. One of the central questions of the novel is whether or not she will do so. Meanwhile, Merricat happily isolates herself from the other villagers, who she fears and hates in equal measure. Because Constance is more ambivalent about human nature, she isn’t convinced that the villagers are all bad, which scares Merricat. Merricat is thus determined to convince Constance to surrender to living in isolation with her. The conflict revolves around Charles, the sisters’ cousin, who intrudes on their life and encourages Constance to come back to the world. Charles also represents broader social norms of masculine authority and capitalism, which the sisters rebel against. Ultimately, by driving away Charles and the villagers, Merricat is victorious and happily lives in isolation with Constance.

Family is a particularly complex theme in the novel. Merricat loves her sister Constance deeply, so much that this love is one of the first things she mentions about herself in the novel’s opening paragraph. Yet Merricat also murdered the majority of her family, with Uncle Julian only surviving due to luck. Jackson portrays Merricat’s family as gendered according to American social traditions—her father’s safe hides the family’s money, which he presumably earned, while the basement full of preserves represents the endurance of the power of the Blackwood female line, which is often linked to food. (For example, Merricat killed her family by poisoning the sugar, while Constance’s role as the head of the household is often shown through her gardening and cooking.) Charles Blackwood represents the continuation of male authority in the Blackwood family, and his physical resemblance to the sisters’ father is often mentioned. He seeks the sisters’ money, which they care little about, and attempts to control Merricat’s magic, a form of feminine witchcraft. He also attempts to lure Constance away from Merricat and the female-centric world she has created in the Blackwood home. Family is thus closely linked to gender in the novel, and Merricat’s destruction of her nuclear family gives her the opportunity for female liberation.

Female power

Through the dynamics of the Blackwood family and the town as a whole, Merricat’s world is split starkly into male authority and female power. The magic that Merricat practices and believes in can be seen as a form of witchcraft, a strongly female-coded practice, and by the end of the novel, the Blackwood sisters are perceived as almost like witches by the villagers, who whisper that they eat children. Male authority, seen in the sisters’ father, John, and their cousin Charles, is strongly linked to money, which is embodied in the family safe that Charles tries to steal. This connection makes sense, given that men have traditionally been the breadwinners of American society while women have been relegated to the home. Yet it is in the home—and in food, another strongly feminine symbol—that the Blackwood sisters derive their power. By locking themselves in the home, Merricat and Constance free themselves from patriarchal male authority. Food is a locus of power for both sisters. The household revolves around the meals Constance prepares, drawing on the garden she tends and the preserves that generations of Blackwood women have created. Similarly, Merricat’s defining display of power—killing her family—occurs through her poisoning of the family’s sugar.

The level of guilt that Merricat feels regarding her murder of her family is consistently ambiguous. Outwardly, she displays no sense of responsibility, much less guilt, for the crime, unbothered by Uncle Julian’s constant retelling of the night of the murders. For most of the novel, she does not even acknowledge her role as the killer. Yet some small moments indicate that Merricat feels more guilt and remorse than she lets on. For example, she wakes up one morning briefly forgetting that her family has died, suggesting that the memory of them haunts her more than she acknowledges. Constance’s guilt in the murders is also ambiguous. Though she did not kill her family, she blames herself for their deaths (and, later, for the fire that destroys much of the Blackwood home, which is also most directly Merricat’s fault.) Constance did buy the arsenic initially, and she has kept her knowledge of the true killer hidden. Constance also resents the villagers for their behavior towards the Blackwoods far less than Merricat does for the bulk of the novel, perhaps feeling that she deserves their treatment.

Closely linked to the theme of guilt is that of punishment. The villagers feel that Constance, who they believe is guilty of the murders, was never adequately punished for them, since she was acquitted, and seem to take it upon themselves to deliver this punishment. (They also punish Merricat, despite not knowing that she is the true killer.) In this manner, Jackson illustrates the ways in which a lack of legal or official justice can lead to the chaos and cruelty of mob justice. Merricat also dwells on the punishment she was given on the night of the murders (being sent to bed without dinner), which is what drove her to kill her family in the first place. In one scene, for example, she fantasizes about her family telling her that she should always get what she wants and must never be punished—a vision of the apology she believes she deserves from them. (Merricat blaming her entire family for punishing her is another example of the messiness of extralegal justice and revenge, since it was presumably her parents that punished her and certainly not her little brother Thomas, who she also killed.)

The unknowability of truth

From the start of the novel, the events of the night six years ago that killed most of Merricat’s family are shrouded in mystery. The only two characters that know the true events, Merricat and Constance, seem uninterested in them, caring little that Merricat murdered her family and virtually never discussing this truth. Uncle Julian, in contrast, is obsessed with the events of the night, but he too avoids the truth in exchange for sensationalism—in one instance, he mentions outright lying about his wife’s beauty, while his memory problems often cause him to second-guess the events he writes about. He also believes Merricat is dead and unimportant to the night of the poisoning, even though he sees her every day. Merricat’s narration is also unreliable. Along with never outright mentioning her guilt in the poisonings in her narration, Merricat also glosses over setting the house on fire at the end of the novel, creating ambiguity over how intentional this action was. Meanwhile, the villagers refuse to believe the official version of the truth, which is that Constance is legally not guilty of the murders. Ironically, however, they punish the wrong person, since Constance truly did not kill her family. Ultimately, the lack of clarity over the night of the murders suggests that the actual truth isn’t as important as individual characters’ perception of it.

Human nature

Despite their closeness and shared delusions, Merricat and Constance differ significantly in their perception of human nature. Dark, unstable, and negative, Merricat has a pessimistic view of other people, believing that the villagers are fundamentally bad people and relishing in their mutual hatred of each other to some extent. She also seems to view her own family bleakly, defining them by what she sees as an unjust punishment (the reader can’t judge whether this perception is true or not, since Merricat never actually explains why she was punished) even though, at least according to Uncle Julian, her family was generally normal and probably showed her affection as well. Merricat views Constance as a near-saint in contrast to her general misanthropy, showing how black-and-white her worldview is. Constance, on the other hand, has an optimistic view of human nature and other people. Though the villagers torment her in particular and believe she killed her family, she considers returning to the world and questions whether people are really all bad. She welcomes Helen Clarke and, later, Charles into her home, despite the latter’s ulterior motives. Ultimately, however, Merricat converts Constance to her misanthropic views by the end of the novel, convincing her to remain in isolation in their home.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Where is the fire foreshadowed in the book?

In Chapter Six, Merricat goes to the summer house, somewhere she hasn't visited in six years. While there she explains that no one in her family liked the summerhouse, and her mother even asked to burn it down.... forshadowing a possible fire.

What is the dynamic between men and women through the symbol of nature?

I'm not sure about the nature part of your question. Through the dynamics of the Blackwood family and the town as a whole, Merricat’s world is split starkly into male authority and female power. The magic that Merricat practices and believes in...

I cant seem to find the page number for the quotes

I don't know what quotes you mean. Page numbers also differ from copy to copy.

Study Guide for We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Have Always Lived in the Castle study guide contains a biography of Shirley Jackson, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About We Have Always Lived in the Castle
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Essays for We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Have Always Lived in the Castle essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

• Pearls in the Castle: Comparing Materialism and Gender in Fiction by Steinbeck and Jackson

Lesson Plan for We Have Always Lived in the Castle

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10 Frightening Facts About Shirley Jackson’s ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’

Jackson’s final novel required virtually no edits—but copy editing did introduce an error.

Shirley Jackson is probably best remembered for “ The Lottery ” and The Haunting of Hill House , but her 1962 gothic mystery We Have Always Lived in the Castle is widely regarded as her greatest literary achievement. Published three years after Hill House —and just three years before Jackson’s untimely death— We Have Always Lived in the Castle is an eerie, elegant masterpiece that forever cemented its author’s reputation as the grande dame of macabre fiction.

The story centers on Merricat and Constance Blackwood, two sisters who live with their ailing uncle on their family’s sprawling Vermont estate. The three Blackwoods used to be seven, but tragedy befell the clan six years earlier, when the sisters’ parents, their younger brother, and an aunt died after someone slipped arsenic into the family’s sugar bowl. Constance was tried and acquitted for the murders, but the surviving Blackwoods are reviled by their neighbors and live in isolation. That is, until a cousin, Charles, shows up and installs himself in the household. Constance is taken with Charles, but Merricat suspects him of sinister intent. His presence slowly destabilizes what remains of the family until disaster strikes once again.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a master class in mystery and ambiguity, and answers to some of the book ’s central questions are teased rather than spelled out. Here are nine spoiler-free facts that might enhance your next (or first) reading of Jackson’s disquieting classic.

1. We Have Always Lived in the Castle was inspired by the unsolved poisoning death of an English lawyer.

Charles Bravo died of antimony poisoning in April 1876, just four months after his wedding. The still-unsolved case was a media sensation in Victorian England, and everyone had a theory. Depending on whom you asked, Bravo either died by suicide or was murdered by his wife, or maybe his wife’s former lover, or perhaps his housekeeper—that is, unless he accidentally poisoned himself while trying to poison his wife. In her exhaustively researched 2016 biography Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life , Ruth Franklin asserts that Jackson was inspired by the case when she began writing We Have Always Lived in the Castle .

2. Shirley Jackson worried that We Have Always Lived in the Castle was “as unoriginal as an old sponge.”

According to correspondence reviewed by Franklin, Jackson struggled with early drafts of We Have Always Lived in the Castle . In letters to a friend, Jackson called it “a perfectly splendid book” that had one glaring problem: “everything in it has been done before.” Fortunately, Jackson recognized her early trials with the book as the same sort of rocky beginning that usually characterized her writing process, and she pushed on.

3. The main characters are loosely based on Jackson’s daughters, Sarah and Joanne.

According to Franklin’s book, Jackson told her older daughter, Joanne, that Constance and Merricat were loosely modeled on Joanne and her sister, Sarah. Sarah, who was 12 years old when Jackson began revising We Have Always Lived in the Castle , read the manuscript while her mom worked on it, sometimes offering suggestions that Jackson incorporated.

It’s also not hard to see reflections of the author in the two characters. In her 1988 biography Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson , Judy Oppenheimer identified Constance and Merricat as “the yin and yang of Shirley’s own inner self.” In 2018, Jackson’s son, Laurence Hyman, said , “I think that my mother really put herself into [ We Have Always Lived in the Castle ] in a way that she may not have in some of the others.”

4. The sisters were originally named Constance and Jenny, and they were plotting to murder Jenny’s husband.

Jackson changed the story out of concerns that readers would mistakenly assume one or both of the sisters were lesbians. Such an interpretation, Jackson feared, would cause readers to misunderstand the story and overlook its themes.

5. We Have Always Lived in the Castle needed virtually no major edits.

Unfortunately, one of the few changes made to Jackson’s manuscript resulted in an error: On page one, “death-cap” mushroom was changed in copy editing to “death-cup” mushroom, which is not a thing.

6. Jackson didn’t think We Have Always Lived in the Castle would be a success.

The author thought We Have Always Lived in the Castle , with a first edition that clocked in at a slim 214 pages, was too short, and that the pre-publication praise she received was “the kiss of death on any book.” According to a letter Jackson wrote to her parents, she also thought the heroine, Merricat, was a bit on the “batty” side.

7. Upon its release, critics praised the novel as Jackson’s masterpiece.

According to Franklin, critics “were virtually unanimous” in their praise for We Have Always Lived in the Castle . Orville Prescott, writing for The New York Times , called Jackson “a literary sorceress of uncanny prowess,” while others compared her to Dostoyevsky and Faulkner. In her short but enthusiastic review for Esquire , Dorothy Parker called the novel a “miracle,” writing that it “brings back all my faith in terror and death. I can say no higher of it and her.”

8. We Have Always Lived in the Castle marked the first and only time Jackson would see her name on The New York Times bestseller list.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle was published in September 1962; by late November, Franklin writes, “close to 30,000 copies had been sold.” It hit The New York Times bestseller list in December and remained there until early 1963. For comparison, Jackson’s previous novel, The Haunting of Hill House , had sold about 12,000 copies in its first six months of publication.

9. We Have Always Lived in the Castle was Jackson’s last finished novel.

Jackson’s follow-up to We Have Always Lived in the Castle was to be Come Along With Me , a decidedly more cheerful novel about a middle-aged woman who reinvents herself as a spirit medium after the death of her husband. Jackson had written 75 pages of it by August 8, 1965, when she died in her sleep at the age of 48.

10. It took 56 years for We Have Always Lived in the Castle to make it to the big screen.

Jackson’s agent sold the dramatic rights to We Have Always Lived in the Castle for a respectable $10,000 before the author’s death, and a stage adaptation made it to Broadway in 1966. But it wasn’t until 2018 that the book was finally adapted for the screen. According to an interview at the film’s premiere, Jackson’s son, Laurence Hyman, worked closely with director Stacie Passon, and he was pleased with the final product. Regardless of whether you share Hyman’s assessment of the film, we can all agree that the casting of Crispin Glover as the unhinged Uncle Julian was nothing short of inspired.