Eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine Blackwood is a girl of very particular tastes. She dislikes washing herself, dogs, and noise. She likes her older sister Constance, the death cup mushroom Amanita phalloides, and the 15th-century Duke Richard Plantagenet. Quite tragically for Mary – “Merricat” – everyone in her family is dead and the people of the village hate them. This exceptional family of two young women and their uncle of unsound mind should illicit pity, but that is not the case – rumour has it that Constance had fed arsenic-laced sugar to the family, killing them all. Her acquittal in the court does not inspire confidence in the village folk.
Merricat had gone to her room before the desserts were served. Constance took no sugar. Uncle Julian had very little of it and survived the poisoning. The rest of the family was wiped out almost immediately.
The Blackwoods
Author Shirley Jackson’s final novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, inflates and stretches tautly as myths about the surviving Blackwood family grow into supernatural proportions. Merricat, the more visible of the two sisters, adds fuel to the fire with her unseemly behaviour – she is equal parts obstinate and naïve, has a child-like fascination with the moon, and fiercely guards her family against outsiders using totems and occult trinkets. Her trips to the village for groceries and books put her at risk of hostility from the villagers who openly gossip about the family or ask her rude questions about their life. Though wise enough to not indulge their curiosity, she secretly wishes they were all dead and she was “walking on their bodies.”
The cruelty of the adults is exacerbated by that of the children, who have turned the family tragedy into play. As Merricat goes around town, she’s greeted by the same four lines repeated over and over again:
Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?
Oh no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me.
Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?
Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!
Still, Merricat would rather she be the butt of their jokes than put her sister Constance through it. When Constance expresses her desire to venture into the village, Merricat is understandably troubled by the prospect. It is unclear if it is Merricat’s order or Constance’s wish, but the older sister confines herself to the family home and only rarely ventures into their overgrown garden. Meanwhile, the rest of the village lurks outside the house hoping to catch a glimpse of the infamous murderesses. On good weather days, many would turn up with picnic lunches, take photos, and make a day out of speculating what goes on behind the doors.
Like Merricat, her cat Jonas relies on his instinct to protect the family. She realises danger is looming nearby when Jonas becomes restless. Jackson teases little details – gothic bordering on the supernatural – to prepare the reader for the inevitable conflict that will upend the Blackwood home yet again.
The intruders
The good-looking, smooth-talking, gold-digging Charles turns up hoping to get a share of the Blackwood wealth. There might not be a lot of money around but the house is definitely worth something. He works at flattering Constance and tries to convince her that all is not lost – he could still give her a normal life. Only Merricat and Uncle Julian can see through his ruse. “A dreadful young man”, Uncle Julian says about Charles. A mean streak is in his blood – “He is dishonest. His father was dishonest. He is a bastard.” Only Constance believes that her sister and uncle are being irrational in their judgment of Charles.
When disaster strikes and a fire engulfs their house, it becomes evident that it is no accident. It is an act of intimidation and terror – seemingly orchestrated by the outsider who feels emboldened by the blood-thirsty villagers who simply cannot leave the Blackwoods alone. Instead of regret or guilt, Charles doubles down on his greed to make money off his infamous family going as far as to sneakily take photographs of his cousins and the inside of the house in exchange for money.
For all her show of level-headedness and independence, Merricat is a troubled girl. Even when the house is a ghost of its former self, she imagines it as a virgin island where no one can set eyes on or trouble them. More precisely, she imagines flying off to the moon on a winged horse and building a house where the four of them would exist in an impenetrable bubble of happiness. “On the moon Uncle Julian would be well and the sun would shine every day. [Constance] would wear our mother’s pearls and sing, and the sun would shine all the time.” Even during the most trying times, Merricat does not tire of wanting to be on this fabled moon – a desire so potent that it insulates her from the renewed feelings of terror and hatred that the village has developed for her family.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle is Shirley Jackson at her best. She avoids the more generic tropes of horror and instead chooses to focus on the aftermath. Both the murder and the fire just happen, true horror begins once the dust of these terrible incidents settles down. The tale charges ahead with trepidation, you know something is going to go horribly wrong though you can not imagine what can be worse than losing all your family. Jackson’s unsettling, entrancing novel speaks much about the sacredness of familial bonds as it does of a home – the love it inspires, and the tragedies that will one day surely befall it. “I looked at the house with all the richness of love I contained; it was a good house, and soon it would be cleaned and fair again,” says Merricat. And perhaps, there are few horrors as debilitating as persecution, scrutiny, and hurtful gossip of cold-hearted strangers.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson, Penguin Classics.
