We Have Always Lived in the Castle – An Enduring Classic of Gothic Horror Tableau

"Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of."

 Shirley Jackson published her well-known short story ‘The Lottery’ and debut novel ‘The Road through the Wall’ in 1948. She was one of the well-read writer of her times, until her death in 1965, at the age of 48. During her writing career, Shirley Jackson has penned numerous short stories, six novels, and two non-fiction works. After her death, Jackson’s works dwindled gradually from collective memory. Her novels were either dismissed as high-toned Gothic horror or went out of print. But Jackson is one of the great writers whose deep, dark worlds are worth discovering (or re-discover) and her relentlessly creeping prose offers crypto-feminist take on the elemental terrors of childhood and adulthood. Ruth Franklin’s biography on Shirley Jackson captures the grueling upbringing, domestic life, and marriage of the author, which is perhaps often hinted in the gradual disintegration of her heroines.

Married to literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, Jackson spent much of her adult life in the small village of North Bennington, Vermont. Jackson had confided to friends & family that she and her (four) children were condescended and ostracized by the townspeople. It served as a constant source of anxiety for Jackson, which also led to abuse of alcohol alongside tranquilizers. This personal dissatisfaction, self-loathing, loneliness, uncertainty, and paranoia helped Jackson create the eerie and unforgettable fictional realms. I was initiated into the author’s world through her famous 1959 novel ‘The Haunting of Hill House’. Then I read her overlooked classic ‘The Sundial’ (and of course also read few short stories including ‘The Lottery'). But after reading Ruth Franklin’s ‘Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life’ I think I gained a little more clarity in interpreting her works (of course the biography also makes us very sad). Subsequently, the first-time reading of Shirley Jackson’s last novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle (published 1962) had bestowed me a rich and strangely creepy read.

Unlike most of the horror writers, Jackson never pulls any cheap shots and her element of horror is almost uncategorizable. As one familiar with the author’s literature could expect, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is about outsiders, living close to a small American Midwestern village that promulgates ostracism and narrow-mindedness. It’s full of macabre elements and dark humor, narrated by an amiable yet weird 18-year-old girl named Mary Katherine ‘Merricat’ Blackwood. She lives with her elder sister Constance Blackwood and wheel-chair bound Uncle Julian in a giant mansion built in the sprawling acres of lands belonging to the Blackwood family for generations. The darker note about this family is uncovered in Mary’s introductory passage that includes the sentence, “Everyone else in our family is dead.” The three are the only survivors of arsenic poisoning that killed every other Blackwoods (six years ago). The poison was sprinkled on the sugar bowl. Constance who never took sugar, Mary who was banished to her room before supper, and Uncle Julian who took little amount of sugar were sparred (although Julian’s mind and body are half-dead). 

Author Shirley Jackson

Constance was suspected of poisoning, but got acquitted due to lack of evidence. However, the villagers were too wary of the remaining Blackwoods that Constance hasn’t ventured outside ever since the trial. To not give into the isolation and deprivation, the sisters strictly adhere to a routine, neatly marking their boundaries and tasks. Two times a week, Merricat goes outside to the village in search of food and books. Those are the days, Mary explains, are the worst moments in her life as the ever-vigilant people of the dilapidated village taunt her. The children even chant awful songs: “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!”  There’s clearly a hint of class issues in the villagers’ treatment of the Blackwoods, who are seen as lofty and mistrustful ‘others’. The villagers, unlike us readers, also look at the Blackwood sisters through a narrow window of prejudice and fear. The sisters’ inherent strangeness only exacerbates their situation. Nevertheless, Constance and Merricat are content with their current undisturbed, idyllic life.

Anxiety-ridden, twenty eight year old Constance is pretty much like the real Shirley Jackson, while Merricat, a tomboy who likes running through tall grass-fields with her beloved cat Jonas, is the author’s alter ego. Merricat suggests earlier that something terrible is about to happen which might wholly stop her bi-weekly trips to the village. Consequently, the sisters’ routine life is upset by the arrival of unannounced and unwanted visitor, Cousin Charles Blackwood. Merricat intensely dislikes Charles who slightly resembles her father and whom she (rightly) suspects is visiting only to get his hands on the family’s vast fortune. Alas, to Mary’s dismay, Constance seems to be falling for Charles’ charms. She plots ways to get rid of him, which only billows the sisters’ reclusiveness and strongly embeds the infamous legacy of the Blackwoods in the villagers’ collective memory.

Alexandra Daddario (left) & Taissa Farmiga playing Constance and Merricat respectively in the upcoming movie adaptation

Shirley Jackson’s creepy stories often remain as a commentary on intolerance and ignorance within the  familial and social set-up. Unlike the wild, super-detached objective gaze in ‘The Lottery’, We Have Always Lived in the Castle has a finely-crafted subjective perspective, fraught with themes of conservatism, ascetic existence, and womanhood. Through the unsettling eyes of Merricat, Jackson showcases both Charles and the villagers in a non-sympathetic manner. Earlier in the novel, the narrator makes an assumption that ‘the villagers have always hated us’. It clearly hints at the unerasable antipathy between the poor and rich, which later brings up destruction in complex ways. The Blackwoods are written as a dying class whose silver, money, and sprawling lands can’t save them from the ever-changing tides of history. At the same time the brilliant worth of a Shirley Jackson’s story couldn’t be just reduced to its built-in social commentary.

Much of the bliss in reading her work comes from the haunting disquieting atmosphere she creates. She lures us through her grimly fascinating personas whose cryptic nature resists simple interpretations. One interesting and darkly funny framing technique in the novel is the attempt by Uncle Julian to intimately retell the fateful events that took place six years before. The novel doesn’t have much of a grand mystery but the slow encapsulation of Constance into Merricat’s morbid world is utterly disturbing. They become living ghosts, haunting their own charred mansion. ‘Chilling cheer’ is the word used to denote Merricat’s morbid enunciation. It could very well be the perfect phrase to describe the feeling of reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle.