Character Analysis: We Have Always Lived In The Castle

In the novel "We have always lived in the castle" Shirley Jackson shows the evilness and the isolation of the main character Merricat. Who poisoned her family at a young age and killed almost all of them, which leads to her creepy behavior in the novel. Merricat's murder of her entire family except for Uncle Julian, Constance, and her, is told by her in a suffering or withering tone. Merricat's behavior can be seen through her constant reason to bury things, her weird and gothic behavior, and the death of her family.
Young Merricat Blackwood does things that people think are different, such as how she's lives in her own little world thinking of the her life as a board game, and the ways she thinks about people. When Merricat first goes into

town she talks about how she dislikes everyone there and wishes they were all dead. "I was pretending I did not speak their language [...] 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 (Jackson 16-17)." Merricat acts like she does not hear them but when she does hear and she gets furious but does not let it out. Merricat is afraid that if she tells them to stop they will get scared and try to hurt her and the rest of her family. Merricat's way of life is by getting through all these challenging obstacles to get to her happy place, the moon. To get to her goal she thinks of life as a board game and every step she takes can either result in something very good happening or very bad happening. "I played a game when I did the shopping. [...] "take and extra turn." (Jackson 4-5) This sort of game she plays Is based on whether she thinks she has done well that day or deserves some type of punishment, which could be going back home or having the villagers make fun of her for the killing of her family.
Merricat love to bury things whether it is family keep sakes that she wants to keep safe or certain things that are not mentioned in the story such as, arsenic, to poison her family. While reading the book you might notice, when Merricat killed her family she was never questioned. A reason she might have been hiding things is so that she could cover up her evidence so she would not be punished for the second time in her life. "'Mary Katherine, we love you.' You must never be punished (Jackson 95)." Merricat was not used to being punished so when she was she decided to get back at her family for punishing her. Merricat did not like being punished the first time so she tries to hide the arsenic so that no one finds out she is the killer.
Merricat's weird behavior around people and burying things make the villagers suspect that she was the killer. Being the creepiest character in the book her character makes the reader wants to know why she killed her family exactly. Merricat seems sorry for what she has done but she can not show it until everyone in the village accepts her apology for the crime she has done.