Please respond to anything that particularly interested you in Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Here are some questions to get you started thinking:
- Merricat Blackwood is a pretty amazing fictional character. Talk about her. What do you think Jackson gains by using Merricat as a first-person narrator? Any parallels between Merricat and Holden Caulfield?
- Discuss all the food/cooking in the novel. How does Jackson depict domesticity?
- Did the Blackwood family deserve to die?
- How complicit is Constance?
- Is this novel a kind of fairy tale?
- What do you think about the Blackwood family’s relationship with the villagers?
- In the end, Merricat says, “Oh Constance…we’re so happy.” Ironic or not?
- Is this a feminist novel?
I can’t decide if I’m more amused by Holden or by Merricat. In general, every outsider is dear to me, witches included, but while Holden is grumpier and upset with people, Merricat seems to be more revengeful and pragmatic than upset. In fact she doesn’t hesitate one second to poison, burn down and put spells whenever people don’t please her. Both convey a feeling of alienation. But While Holden, through his peculiar and dissacrant vision, turns out to be more a critique of his social surroundings, Merricat seems more like a lawbringer —according to her very personal parameters of law— living in a sort of expressionist movie due to its nightmarish vibes, like a creepy, dark Swedish fairy tale, which is a trait that I found extremely endearing.
I haven’t quite figured out if the Blackwood deserved to die or not. Surely, I hoped very much that Cousin Charles did, and I was a little disappointed when, in the end, she had mercy on him, and just let him go. Also, who deserves to die are definitely the creepy villagers, although at the end they repent and even try to make amend by bringing them food. Her relationship with the villagers reminds me of what Holden commented about the difficulty of sharing a space with somebody whose luggage is cheaper than one’s own. However, what I found very amusing is that, whether the Blackwood family deserved to die or not, the novel is a sort of proclamation of girls’ independence. By exterminating here, and keeping people away there, it is as if Merricat declared that they don’t need anyone, not the gross men of the village, nor the dumb, greedy, bully Cousin Charles. Beyond that, they don’t even particularly need money either, since they could survive on the veggies of their garden —which is why they don’t need men, by translation.
I think this novel is fantastically written, but the concept of female internalization of trauma, infantilization of younger family members due to enabling, and the concept of retroactive cultural regret seeped through heavily and frustrated me.
At it’s core, it is clear that both Holden and Merricat are mentally unwell. I think that both of these characters struggle with maturation, anti-social (almost neurodivergent?) behavioral issues (which paired with imagery about sensory stimulation), and deep seeded family issues. Yet, I pity and care for Holden but Merricat bothered me. In many different parts of the novel, Merricat entraps Connie. The act of routine becomes ritual until both of the women becomes witch like legends in the community stuck in a ruin frozen in time (Merricat’s wish?).
I agree with Michela about the idea that this book speaks wonderfully to the idea of how the Blackwood’s can’t “share space” with the community and how female independence is highlighted throughout the novel. If you follow and believe Merricat this novel definitely has a toxic girlboss energy like the movie Midsommer has which leaves the reader watching the flames of the house with a final comment of “good for her.”
I adored the cognitive dissonance this novel created like how the Merricat started the fire that destroyed their house while also being excited to clean the space and get rid of Cousin Charles. Poison and fire seem like the destruction tools of choice for woman who are having an internalized break down (looking at you Jane Eyre).
Yet, though Charles is a greedy, overbearing character that highlights how masculinity is counter productive to the young woman (or is it that Merricat is the masculine presence?) I do believe the path in which Merricat brings her sister down is toxic and unhealthy and that Charles– though motivated by the money– may have a point in trying to stop the enmeshment between domineering anti-social (and murderous when she doesn’t get what she wants) Merricat and submissive, bossed around, feminine, domestic Connie. If its not Merricat who is bossing her around demanding Cakes after destroying family heirlooms, than it’s disabled Uncle Julian ignoring Merricat (which makes sense) demanding constant care. I was surprised that Connie didn’t light the whole house on fire due to being the constant focus of labor for the entire family. Instead she copes by saying, “Oh Merricat, we’re so happy.” If she doesn’t, would her sister not poison her too? Any time Connie or someone in the family ticked off Merricat, suddenly all the poison knowledge slips out.
In short, every family has it’s issues– and I’m really glad I’m not in this one.
Therapy. All of them need therapy. And maybe if they took Merricat’s PTSD, OCD, Autism? BPD? seriously, life would be…. excuse the pun… sweeter.
I liked Shirley Jackson’s choice of Mary Katherine (Merricat) as narrator. Merricat is initially a sympathetic character because she endures ridicule from the village people on her forays into town. Her wild imagination and superstitious nature are endearing and make her seem much younger than her 18 years.
Merricat’s love for and reliance on Constance is strong, if not manipulative and unhealthy. But as the story unfolds and we learn that Merricat, not Constance, was responsible for the poisonings, our sympathies for Merricat are challenged. I began to see her quirkiness and childishness as destructive traits designed to project her wrongdoings and evil thoughts onto others and to deny responsibility for her actions.
Constance is the hero of the story – accepting blame for her sister’s actions, caring nonstop for Uncle Julian, cleaning and cooking and tending to the garden obsessively. Constance’s tolerance for the precocious and defiant Merricat is admirable and sad. Constance seems unwilling or unable to hold Merricat accountable for her actions. Constance is incapable of controlling Merricat, and the two havce developed a dysfunctional co-existence in which Merricat is the male-like protector and Constance the frightened and reclusive nurturer.
I do see similarities between Merricat and Holden: both live within complex internally constructed worlds – their beliefs rigid and fueled by angst and the general disgust of strangers.
The imagery of bountiful nature and symbolism of food and earth as nurturing and life-giving throughout Jackson’s novel establish a powerful counterforce to the dark backstory and themes of isolation and anti-social behavior. Constance’s garden produces life in the form of sustenance and provides her with a sense of purpose and pleasure, while Merricat is deeply entrenched in a self-constructed fantasy world of winged creatures, life on the moon and paranoia that others are out to get her.
I agree with Michela, Eleanor and Ron’s comments regarding the similarities between Holden and Merricat, both characters railing against the threats and offenses of the world as they perceive it, through fear and distrust of everything and everyone outside their skewed interiority. However, I read Holden as a much more relatable character, battling depression after the trauma of his brother’s death, and grappling with teenage/adolescent angst.
Merricat is a whole other thing! She definitely travels in an otherworldly realm, crossing into the supernatural. She attempts to inflict control or harm by nailing a book, then a watch to a tree, buries items throughout the property, calls Thursday her “most powerful day”, and regularly references life on the moon. She breaks the mirror in her father’s room and piles it full of branches and leaves to eradicate the presence of Cousin Charles; her interactions with and use of nature are witch-like, harnessed to “cast spells” on people – or kill them, as in poisoning her family.
Constance, in sharp contrast, is clearly the nurturer and draws on nature to feed, please, and comfort Merricat and Uncle Julian. Her garden and kitchen are the center of her universe and she grows, harvests, prepares and preserves healthy food. When Uncle Julian dies, she plants a beautiful yellow rose bush to memorialize him. Her kitchen is sunny and she dresses in colors; Merricat huddles in the corner of the kitchen with her cat Jonas and can often see people and things only in black and white. Constance exudes light, and while Merricat seems to admire that, she dwells more in the dark – in the forest, in her hidden sleeping place, behind the cardboard-covered windows and doors at the end.
I look forward to discussing with the class a couple of ambiguous points: why Merricat poisoned her family (did they not “bow down their heads” to her or love her the most?) and why was Constance so taken in by Cousin Charles, why did she not object to him sooner? Simply her innocence?
Merricat is a disturbing and fascinating narrator and their “castle” a haunting and equally fascinating setting!
From the very beginning of the novel, it is apparent that Merricat clearly has an obsession centered around pain and causing harm to others; this can be seen whenever she is in the grocery store wishing that everyone inside would be “crying out in pain” and dead, and also when she imagines what it would be like to be hit by the car. This theme remains a constant throughout the remainder of the novel, particularly once we are introduced to Cousin Charles. Merricat is obsessed with making him leave her home, and constantly looks for ways to get rid of him. Aside from her obsession with pain, however, it can be argued that Merricat exhibits obsessive compulsive traits- Constance, being kind to Uncle Julian, and the moon are three of the most notable things that are always on her mind and consume her attention. When considering this, are these thoughts and her desire to both admire and protect Constance actually her way of repressing her true feelings? Specifically, we find out later in the novel that Merricat is actually the one who poisoned the rest of her family, so are these things that she fixates so heavily on her way of repressing her actual feelings? In addition to this, is her obsession with pain a way for her to mask the emotional pain she is truly feeling? I agree with Ron that Constance is essentially the “hero” of the story. She is ultimately imprisoned within her own home, forced to take care of Uncle Julian and Merricat, notably as a result of Merricat’s actions that caused the death of the rest of the family. It is clear that the two sisters have a toxic relationship in my opinion rather than an endearing one; Merricat wants to control Constance and hates the idea of “change” particularly the idea of Constance leaving the security of their home, while Constance lacks the ability to possess any sort of individuality.
There are certainly parallels between Merricat and Holden. Both protagonists are dealing with psychological issues, clearly repressing their true feelings. Both also lack any sort of stability or security, which in turn causes them to stray from the harshness of reality (Holden uses the streets of New York as his escape from reality, while Merricat uses the summerhouse and the garden). It can be inferred that both characters are unreliable narrators as well. We only see the situations that occur from their points of view, which makes it challenging to determine the reality that they are actually facing. I would say that Holden is a character that appears more empathetic, while Merricat is more of a character that draws sympathy from readers. Holden’s struggles are more identifiable, while Merricat’s are ones that make readers feel sorry for her.
Concerning the villagers and even Charles Blackwood, I think the parallels between them and the Blackwood family are interesting. While the villagers are consumed with image, money, and represent the “real world,” the Blackwood’s represent the “other world,” or the escape from reality. They essentially live in their own world, choosing to make their own happiness rather than face the harshness of the outside world and the struggle to find happiness. However, it is clearly illustrated that certain amounts of isolation do have consequences.
What a sneakily creepy novel – I particularly enjoyed how Jackson manipulates our sympathies, so we’re entirely on the sisters’ side, even as we recognize their… shall we say “short-comings”? And when Cousin Charles arrives and (at first, at least) makes some perfectly reasonable observations about the unreasonableness of their lives, we share Merricat’s rejection of these observations. The novel seems to walk this gray path between reality and fantasy, sometimes feeling like the prequel to a fairy tale (how did the children-eating witches come to live in the burned-down house?) or to an urban legend (what’s the story with that house, and why do children say that witches live there?). The little song the village children sing to Merricat – there’s an echo of Lizzie Borden, here – the way a true story becomes a kind of myth, a kind of fairy tale. The fuzziness of reality in the story is such that when Uncle Julian tells Cousin Charles that Merricat died in the orphanage, I wondered if that could be true, an alternative interpretation – had Merricat been Constance the whole time, different sides of the same person, Gollum and Smeagol?
I did find myself thinking of parallels – or at least shared points of conversation – between this novel and Catcher. First, both offer critiques of social class in the US, although Jackson’s seems quite a bit more pointed. I wondered what that might mean about the time these are being written. Many of the class signifiers in both novels feel a bit dated – are we at the brink of an upheaval, a change in how social class is conceived in the US, and are these novels reflecting that tension?
Second, there’s our narrators – it’s probably best to consider both Merricat and Holden as unreliable, presenting at best a rather skewed view of the world. Both clearly see themselves as outsiders, above the “masses” that surround them. And both would, today, clearly be diagnosed with mental illness, depression for Holden, obsessive/compulsive behavior (at least) for Merricat. (Early in the novel, when she talks of what she is “allowed” to do, I assumed those rules came from Constance. But later, it is revealed that she makes those rules for herself, or rather perceives those rules as being made for her.) But of course, while Holden wants to catch the children before they fall off the cliff, Merricat would cheerfully see them fall, perhaps with a push. She is such a delightful murderous child, and again, I find myself thinking prequel or origin story. If we revisited their castle in 20 years, what would Merricat have become?
Firstly, this was my first time reading this and I loved, loved, loved, loved loved this novel!
I could relate both Mary Katherine and Holden, quite a bit – just based on their views of the world around them: downtrodden, dark, angsty. Merricat definitely viewed everyone as a threat to her and her remaining family. However, I don’t think Merricat thought the Blackwood’s above others, like I believe Holden did. I do believe both Mary Katherine and Holden held themselves above general rule and law, but that seems almost natural for children and teenagers to think themselves immune.
Using Mary Katherine as the narrator was terrific. It allowed for the reveal of the sugar bowl at the end and a bit of a spin on the perspective. She’s a completely unreliable narrator, which adds, at least for me, to the suspense of the story. I am also left questioning a lot of what happened through her eyes because of it.
I have more feelings and thoughts about Constance and Merricat that I have time and room to put here: Yes, Constance is complacent in what happened and an enabler of future traumas. Merricat has severe personality disorder of some kind and her flips between action and reaction left me frustrated (as they were probably meant to). Merricat’s belief and use of magic was so much fun and no matter her frustrating behavior, I enjoyed her as a character!
During my research, I became most interested in “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” through a feminist reading, leaning heavily on the occult. Many of the articles I read stated that the image of a witch is used to represent the fear the common villagers, in their repressive male-centered society, have of a powerful, self determining woman.
Sylvia Pamboukian in “The Revenger’s Comeuppance in Christie and Jackson,” was very interesting. This author put forth that Merricat is a “good outlaw” character, like the Robin Hood that steals from the rich to give to the poor or one of John Wayne’s many characters. Pamboukian says that these heroes are “self-appointed avengers,” whose mission can become so clouded that they are hurting the very communities they are trying to protect.
I see Merricat as the self-appointed avenger with Constance as the community she thinks she is helping. Perhaps it all started out simple: an abuse father or family are stopped from hurting the two girls through the logic of a child – arsenic in the sugarbowl. But like Pamboukian’s outlaw, the comeuppance slips into narcissism and cruelty. What started with an act of violence against the abuser is now spread to the villagers and where without intervention, would Merricat have ended up?
I adore this book—this is my third read. I do have to go against the grain on this one– I find Merricat infinitely more likable than Holden. Where I found Holden’s whining pessimism and hypocrisy grating, Merricat’s way of understanding the world, while perhaps disturbed and violent, is very honest (and charming and funny to boot). She sees the people around her as they are—often as selfish and hateful—and wishes for a world on the moon with Constance away from everyone. While Constance does appear very weak-willed both to Merricat and Cousin Charles, I am always struck by the line when Mrs. Wright is visiting and notes that Constance “told the police those people deserved to die” (51). The hints we are given of family life before the arsenic incident seem to show a cold and proud family—I wonder what else may have gone on to make Constance think such a thing or push Merricat to murder. I find Merricat’s mentality and attitude fitting with the tone of the story—Jackson’s simple, poetic prose really does make it feel like a fairytale, and as a consequence I do not expect any the characters to act as normal people—as in any fairytale, they are an exaggeration. Merricat is somehow both the knight with no tolerance for evil and the witch blighting the town. I like that she refuses to play by any normal rules.
In this story, I found the protagonist to be the most interesting character. It really seems to me that Merricat is similar to Holden in that she values anything innocent. Though for a very different reason. Holden values innocence because he found the adult world to be dark and depressing and the life of a child pure and sweet and fun. Merricat is an eighteen year old grown woman that behaves like an eleven or twelve year old. Maybe even younger. Part of me wonders if this is because the joyous and sublime world of a child is safer for her and therefore shuts out the world in it. The amount of hate that Holden had for the outside world was bitter and full of contempt. Merricat’s view is definitely dark also, but she is always talking about wishing people death. The saddest part in both of their cases though is that they are children, and are products of events that were out of their control. Only in Merricat’s case, she obviously took a darker turn. Though inexcusable, it is more than understandable. A child that doesn’t feel safe to the point that they don’t trust anyone outside a select few people is one that will go to extreme measures to feel safe.