We Have Always Lived In The Castle Character Traits

Rough Draft 3

Shirley Jackson’s last novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, combines many of her most vital concerns-psychology, isolation, and evil-with a curiosity in black magic. Merricat, Jackson's main character, is a young girl with many psychopathic tendencies including obsessive behavior and murder. Merricat comes through with her dignity intact throughout the story; she plots an imaginative yet understandable revenge. The revenge that only psychosis victims, who have beliefs with no basis in reality, would understand. The villainizing and heroic Merricat, has a psychotic behavior that can be seen though her delusional habits, her almost childish mind, and the extermination of her family members.

The villainizing and heroic Merricat

is extremely delusional throughout the novel, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”, which causes her haunting compulsive actions.

She thinks the number three is evil, buries things in her back yard to blockade the world, and trusts no one except her sister Constance. She believes she can feel omens, "All the omens spoke of change. I woke up Saturday morning and thought I heard them calling me.” (Jackson 58). This superstition causes her to behave in mysterious ways. She burns down their house in order to rid herself of Charles whom she believed was evil. Examining Charles pipe rested on the counter top, then shoved into the basket of paper to destroy the history of the family was intentions from a mysterious shadowed creature that overcame Merricat. Throughout the story, Merricat had been shadowed by this negative figure that guided delusional habits into the young girl. In novel, “Gone Girl” written by Gillian Flynn,

“Amazing Amy” is similar to Merricat by the psychological thrill they bring to the novels. Amy Dunne uses her delusional habits to overcome the pressure woman carry in marriages that morph into the male’s ideal. Amy and Merricat both experience psychosis that effects the way they approach situations that mold them as either a villain or hero. Jackson creating the balance of spitefulness and sweetness, of morbidity and whimsy, is very challenging to achieve like she did throughout, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”. The obsessive and delusional habits of Merricat, though take away from her better half. Once taken away from the better half of such a character like Merricat, the childishness becomes an issue.
Hero’s and Villain’s tend to at times, carry childish customs as Merricat achieves throughout the novel, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”. From the beginning of the novel the simplicity in her tone seems childish, "I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise” (Jackson 1). Maturity is the ability to control anger and settle differences without violence or destruction. This is not something Merricat handles well. After she is angered by Charles' unwillingness to leave their home, "I hammered with a shoe at the mirror over the dresser until it cracked across” (Jackson116). Showing that Merricat does not have the ability to live in peace with what cannot be changed, or the courage to change what needs to be changed. Merricat, has her strange acts of sympathetic magic, her even stranger magical thinking, and her almost complete lack of conscience. In the novel, “Gone Girl”, Amy disappears without a trace and sets up her husband in a murder setting. Amy Dunne in the novel said, “We’re so cute I want to punch us in the face” (Flynn). These situations created by “Amazing Amy” are very similar to Merricats obsessive actions, which lean towards childishness in both novels. The approaches of childishness in these story lines, have led to physical fatalities.
In conventional eyes, the heroic and villainizing Merricat is viewed as an assassin to almost all of her family members within the castle.

Merricat’s mind became chaotic and somewhat unpredictable at all times. Often, in the story “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”, her judgement is agreeable childlike. Not knowing the reasons that led up to the poisoning of her family, Merricat seemed to carry on with life like no other. It’s the small things, like the nailing of the book to a tree, the burying of a box of coins, all the tiny protective magic’s she’s undertaken to keep the boundaries of the property safe. Wondering if persecution has made her unstable, or is it simply a function of managing a fear otherwise too great to contend with. In the novel, “Gone Girl”, when Amy was kidnapped by Desi Collings, her wealthy ex-boyfriend, and locked up in a castle like home, in which had a feeling of female imprisonment. Amy quickly began to feel trapped in a setting that didn’t fit, which led to the killing of Desi Collings. Merricat having a very similar setting inside the castle she has always lived in, led to the actions of poisoning the family members. Not knowing exactly why Merricat poisoned her family, its seen how her discomfort inside the castle was enough for her childish and delusional choices to take action. The actions of the novel, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” are clearly heroic and villainized due to Merricats delusional habits, her childish mind, and the

deadly actions she could never overcome.
In normal eyes, it’s believed to be a fairy-tale ending that consist of both a hero and villain, Merricat. In my eyes, it’s a deeply twisted novel that makes “You” the reader, love Merricat in the beginning and second guess her at the end. Many may believe there are a lot of distraction throughout the novel, but the distractions are really mysterious clues. Clues that help mold the delusions, childlike actions, and aggressiveness that is performed by Mary Katherine. The world of a psychosis character is a world that may live happily ever or a world of constant destruction. “Our house was a castle, turreted and open to the sky” (Jackson117). Maybe, Merricat will hide from the real world to become, like ghost, in what’s left of the Castle she have always lived in.