Review and Character Analysis: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Introduction

I read We Have Always Lived in The Castle by Shirley Jackson because I loved her novel The Haunting of Hill House and because I was looking for something creepy and dark. While I don’t think Castle is a horror novel, I enjoyed its eerie atmosphere and narration. I think this may be my favorite Jackson novel that I’ve read because I found it so evil yet so relatable, which maybe says too much about me.

The short novel follows two sisters, Constance and Mary Katherine Blackwood, and their Uncle Julian, who all hide away in their ancestral home after a mass arsenic poisoning left the rest of their family dead. The sisters cling to their habits and routines and venture into the nearby village only for groceries and library books. Constance, the elder sister, spends her days cooking, gardening, and caring for their wheelchair-using uncle. Along with his physical disability, Uncle Julian suffers from some form of brain damage or dementia, a result of arsenic poisoning. He attempts to recount and record a Blackwood family history. The younger sister, and our narrator, Mary Katherine, or Merricat, tidies the house and traverses the grounds of the estate to bury items for protection and to play pretend with her cat Jonas. An eccentric group, Constance and Merricat trouble and scare the villagers, especially because they are suspected of poisoning their own family. Their secluded daily life is disrupted when a cousin visits, and his arrival sets off a chain of events that leads to a catastrophic fire and villager riot at the Blackwood mansion. But what sets this novel apart is the bizarre characters and frightening atmosphere created by the narrator.

Merricat

I was interested most in our narrator, Merricat, who is a mix of routined, orderly actions and chaotic and violent thoughts. Merricat is obsessed with maintaining the order of their house and keeping it protected from outsiders. She keeps a schedule for tidying the different rooms. Recounting her family history, she states, “Blackwoods had always lived in our house, and kept their things in order; as soon as a new Blackwood wife moved in, a place was found for her belongings, and so our house was built up with layers of Blackwood property weighing it, and keeping it steady against the world” (1).  Merricat emphasizes that everything on the property is theirs and has a place. All the objects stayed in their place and created a protective wall for the family in the house. She buries silver dollars and dolls in the ground and nails her father’s book to a tree. She believes that these are safeguards to protect them and “so long as they were where I had put them nothing could get in to harm us” (40). She maintains her objects and believes they shield her sister, her uncle, and herself from outside harm. Merricat’s strange buried treasures reflect her contradictions. She wants to protect what is left of her family, but she is the threat to them since she is revealed as the poisoner. 

Merricat is confirmed as the murderer in the latter half of the novel, but the reader begins putting the clues together with her frequent violent thoughts. She imagines the villagers dead in horrific ways and wishes ill on them. Knowing poisoned sugar killed her family, she makes light of the tragedy and teases their guests by offering them sugar for their tea. She “couldn’t help it, and besides, it was polite” (28). Merricat’s detached and humorous view of her family’s death and the death of others shows her capability for violent and even fatal actions as well as a lack of remorse. She even kills a nest of baby snakes just because she dislikes them (53). While these clues led to my suspicion of her, I wasn’t confident until the official reveal. Merricat is the narrator, and we, as readers, want to root for the protagonist and see ourselves in them, which made me want Merricat to be “good.” While she does not end up being “good,” her characterization intrigued me even more. 

Merricat creates strict rules for herself as a way to maintain order and routine even amongst her violent thoughts. When Uncle Julian dies, Merricat claims she is “not allowed in Uncle Julian’s room” and not allowed to touch his things (126). Constance insists that Merricat wear Julian’s clothes as they are the only ones available. Merricat refuses. She makes these arbitrary rules based on what she thinks is right for her and her family. She knows interacting with Julian upsets him, so she does not touch his things, even when he dies. After a major fire and riot at their home, Merricat decides, “I was not allowed to bury anything more, nor was I allowed to touch stone. Every day I looked over the boards across the kitchen windows and when I found small cracks I nailed on more boards. Every morning I checked at once to make sure the front door was locked” (139). She replaces her previous soothing behaviors of burying things and touching stones with more tangible protective measures, like covering the windows and ensuring the door is locked. Merricat uses these rules as preventative measures, for physical, mental, and emotional safety. The rules she invents are an effort to maintain stability.

I identified with this aspect of Merricat. Despite her villainous tendencies, I related to her need for rules and routine. I also have arbitrary “checks” for mentally soothing myself and strange rules that I continue to follow just because I said I would. One of my favorite aspects of Merricat was her love of routine and her abhorrence to change. I think those parts of her are very human. Her reactions to change were dramatic and violent, but I understood the underlying emotion. When her routine is altered, she feels that “the day fell apart around me… I could not breathe, I was tied around tight, everything was cold” (60). The feeling of panic that seizes Merricat shows how a small change ruins her day entirely. I think most people have experienced a change in plans that sends them into an anxious and maybe even angry state. I really loved, after their home was destroyed, how Merricat made a note that “nothing was orderly, nothing was planned; it was not like any other day” (114). They could not follow their usual routines and instead had to build new ones and establish different habits that suited their new life. I found a connection to Merricat, which is part of what makes her such an interesting narrator. I know she is evil, but I still relate to and feel for her. 

Furthermore, Merricat’s violent behavior often seems to be a reaction to someone ruining her routine or punishing her. Right before the arrival of Cousin Charles, she feels change coming and decides she “would choose three powerful words, words of strong protection, and so long as these great words were never spoken aloud no change would come” (43). She rejects change and seeks a way to fight it and protect against it. Merricat’s method of fighting is all mental. She thinks she can will her desires into existence, but it does not stop Charles from coming. When their cousin arrives, he wreaks havoc on her daily life. His presence in the house confuses all of them, and when he steps, they “were all silent for a minute, puzzled by the sound of a foot stepping upstairs where there had always been silence before. It was unpleasant” (62). The strangeness of an outsider destroys the energy of the house and eventually leads to the physical destruction of the house when a fire breaks out in Charles' room. Merricat falls into a panicked spiral and seeks any way to banish him, including destroying her own home.

Cousin Charles also represents the family that Merricat killed, and she hates his intrusion for reminding her of her family’s mistreatment of her. She fills Charles’ room with twigs and dirt to make him leave, but he does not and orders Merricat be punished. This threat sends Merricat running away to what she calls the “summerhouse.” In the dilapidated cottage, she “sat on the floor and placed all of them correctly in my mind, in the circle around the dining-room table… Slowly I began to listen to them talking… ‘Mary Katherine, we love you.’ ‘Mary Katherine must never be punished. Must never be sent to bed without her dinner. Mary Katherine will never allow herself to do anything inviting punishment.’ ‘Rise when our beloved daughter rises.’ ‘Bow all your heads to our adored Mary Katherine’” (95-96). Merricat imagines a dinner scene with her whole family. Rather than punishing her and sending her to bed without dinner, they welcome her with love and insist she should never be punished. This imagination soothes her after Charles threatens to punish her. She pretends her family never treated her poorly and aches to feel their love, but she never will. This scene elicits sympathy and reveals her reasons for poisoning her family, though it, of course, does not excuse her of murder. Her rules and routine assuage her negative thoughts, and she hates when those habits are threatened and she loses her protection.

I have seen some people online claim reasons for the murder that I don’t feel are present in the text. Plenty of theories involve the family molesting Merricat and Constance, which leads to them killing their family. While Merricat rejects the male presence of Charles in the house, I don’t think there is enough textual evidence to claim that the author intended this reading. In fact, “Shirley Jackson objected very strictly to this sort of interpretation” (xi; introduction by Jonathan Lethem). Jackson’s work is complex with different layers, and while I think there’s evidence to suggest the Blackwood family was unkind and apathetic, the theories don’t work for me. I prefer the idea that sometimes people are evil and uncaring. Jackson and her husband suffered from quite a bit of judgment and antisemitism from townspeople in Vermont (ix; introduction by Jonathan Lethem). I think the family’s coldness and Merricat’s evilness mirror humans’ negative qualities. 

I think it’s worth mentioning Merricat and Uncle Julian’s lack of relationship before I move onto discussing Constance. We never see Merricat or Julian speak directly to each other. As the only member to survive the poisoning, he uses a wheelchair and has several memory problems. Merricat doesn’t regret causing these problems but wants to be kinder to him. Her kindness involves buying him peanut brittle and not interfering with him. She sits outside with him, and when she notices his nervous fidgeting, she considers, “I could not fold his hand for him, and there was nothing I could bring him, so I lay still and listened to him talk” (48). Keeping her distance is how she acts kind to Julian. She focuses on stillness and quietness and conceals herself from him. Julian even claims, “my niece Mary Katherine has been a long time dead, young man. She did not survive the loss of her family… Mary Katherine died in an orphanage, of neglect, during her sister’s trial for murder” (93). Julian believes or pretends that Merricat died. At the time of reading, I wondered if Merricat was actually a ghost. However, Merricat interacts with the village people and with Charles, so I assume that Julian chooses to believe that Merricat is dead. He may be aware of her involvement in the poisoning and finds it too difficult to interact with her. Merricat allows him to believe she is dead. She never speaks directly to him, does not touch his things or assist in his care, and remains quiet and still when he speaks. I don’t think that she feels the need to atone, but I think she wants to ease the lives of her uncle and especially sister, who cares for Julian and Merricat.

Constance

While we spend more time with Merricat, Constance’s characterization is just as strange and captivating. Constance, the devoted and dutiful sister and niece, cooks and cares for her sister and uncle. She cooks them anything they request and exhibits an enormous amount of patience for her uncle who struggles to remember the past and forgets where he is in the present. Constance’s commitment to her family, especially her sister, is mysterious when we learn that she was charged and acquitted with poisoning her family. I wondered if she were the poisoner, why does she care so much for the two family members left? Uncle Julian also wonders this, and he states, “you [Constance] have been a good niece to me, although there are some grounds for supposing you an undutiful daughter” (47). Julian wonders if Constance killed her parents. Yet, Constance ensures her uncle is comfortable and content despite his questions about her hand in the family’s death. She remains committed to his care as well as Merricat’s. Constance is particularly worried about Merricat’s eating schedule. When Merricat says she had no dinner after the fire, Constance responds, “Oh, Merricat, poor baby… We’ll hurry” (112). Constance seems as concerned about Merricat’s lack of dinner as she is about a fire that forced them to flee the house. In addition, as children, Constance would bring Merricat food after Merricat was sent to bed without dinner. Like Merricat, she has rules and routines, but her focus is around food and care rather than Merricat’s focus on protection.

Constance’s care and love for her sister culminates in the revelation that Merricat was the poisoner. When Merricat confirms she put arsenic in the sugar, Constance says, “I know. I knew then” (130). Constance spends six years knowing her sister killed the rest of her family and never tells anyone or punishes her sister. She even endures a trial and judgment from the town to protect her sister. Constance continues to care for Merricat and prioritizes her sister’s happiness, even calling herself “very wicked” when she “reminded [Merricat] of why they all died” (129). Constance is more concerned with not making her sister feel bad about murdering her family than she is concerned with them being murdered. I wondered if she feared Merricat, but her actions felt like they came from a place of love. Despite her devotion to her sister, Constance has some regrets and thinks, “sometimes I feel I would give anything to have them all back again” (22). Like Merricat, Constance has many contradictions. She cares deeply for her remaining family and does not blame her sister, but she misses those she lost.

Constance is a recluse, but early in the novel, she is receptive to the idea of leaving the house. Constance warms to the concept and “had looked as though suddenly, after all this time of refusing and denying, she had come to see that it might be possible, after all, to go outside” (27). She teases Merricat and claims she will follow her into the village. She grows stronger each day and may have rejoined society. Her “friend” (really her mother’s friend), Helen Clarke, urges her to leave the house as "it's spring, you're young, you're lovely, you have a right to be happy. Come back into the world." (27). Constance has not left the home for at least six years. She is 28 years old when the novel takes place, but she does not partake in regular society because of her fears about the public. When she is almost ready to take a small step, the fire at the house and the public’s subsequent riot that destroys the house pushes Constance further within herself. 

With more distance from the novel, I began to feel worse and worse for Constance. As I was reading, there was something comforting about her and Merricat’s relationship, and Constance’s kindness drew me to her. While I found ways to relate to Merricat, she ruined her sister’s life and forced her into an agoraphobic caretaker. Constance is terrified of leaving the house and plagued by the villagers’ judgment and nursery rhymes that paint her as the bogeyman. When the villagers come to the house after the fire, Constance hides, and asks Merricat, “can they see me?... Is anyone looking?” (103). Constance fears the attention of the villagers and wishes to avoid their scorn. She feels safer staying in the house and never dealing with her fears about people. 

 Part of what keeps Constance at home is Merricat’s dread about losing Constance. Merricat asks, “‘When I’m as old as Uncle Julian will you take care of me?’ ‘If I’m still around,’ [Constance] said, and I was chilled” (22). Each time Constance brings up leaving the house, Merricat uses the phrase “I was chilled” to express her concern about Constance leaving. Merricat worries that Constance will abandon her, and her routine and life will disintegrate. She wants everything to stay as it is. I think losing siblings is a hidden and quiet fear. Siblings usually don’t consider that one of them will have to say goodbye to the other. It sends a chill through me, too, thinking that I’ll be separated from my sister. While I’d never follow in Merricat’s destructive footsteps, I can once again understand her underlying emotion. The sisters protect each other: Merricat by poisoning the sugar since Constance does not like sugar and Constance by taking the blame for Merricat. Merricat knew Constance would be the only one saved, and Constance “saw them dying around her like flies… and never called a doctor until it was too late. She washed the sugar bowl” (37). Constance gets rid of the evidence and neglects to save her family. She prioritizes protecting Merricat. The sisters have an oddly symbiotic relationship, and they put each other first. Their relationship was a mix of love, trauma, and abuse.

The fear and anxiety Merricat feels about losing her sister is overwhelming, and I suspect that the fire was set in part to expel Charles and get Constance back. She saw “the pipe on it was burning… I brushed the saucer and the pipe off the table into the wastebasket and they fell softly onto the newspapers he had brought into the house” (99). Merricat knows the pipe is burning and puts it on flammable newspapers. She likes that the fire is cleansing the room though, and “there would be nothing of Charles in there now; even his pipe must have been consumed” (101). Merricat wants all traces of her cousin gone so that they can return to their lives. She sets the fire to get rid of him both because he ruined the routine and also because he is coaxing Constance out of the house. However, her plan goes awry when the villagers arrive and destroy the house, and “all the wealth and hidden treasure of our house had been found out and torn and soiled” (114). All of the objects in their house are part of their history, and Merricat struggles to see their history destroyed. She hates the mess, but she gets what she wants. Charles leaves and Constance is terrified to leave and says, “we are going to lock ourselves in more securely than ever” (116). The threat of Constance going back into the world and abandoning Merricat disappears with the fire. Constance is even more frightened than before, and she will never leave, which keeps her with Merricat. The sisters stay together in the end, which is both heartwarming and appalling. 

Conclusion

This very short novel has so much complexity and intrigue. Beyond the interesting characters, there are themes about questioning gender and patriarchy, persecution of outsiders, and isolation and mental illness. Every part of the novel is ripe with layers of analysis. But what I was most surprised about was how much I related to the two sisters and how comforting I found their lives despite the chilling story. There is beauty and simplicity in staying at home with my family and eating wonderful meals with them and exploring the outdoors in privacy. I understand why Merricat holds that dearly and wishes it could stay the same forever. They fulfill their peaceful tasks of tending the garden, cleaning the house, and cooking meals, and they fill the rest of their time as they please. It doesn’t sound so bad when I think of it like that, but of course, Constance is afraid to leave the house, and Merricat hates everyone who is not Constance, and the two of them become shut-ins who live in a house filled with death and destruction at Merricat’s hands.