December Group Read #1-We Have Always Lived in the Castle

[Nancy]

I don’t think she was lying when she said she was 18. Constance was 28 and Thomas would have been 16. Merricat probably is somewhere between 16 and 28. Merricat is living in her ideal world now, where she gets to do what she wants and have no responsibilities and someone to a,ways take care of her.

[Michael]

R. Leigh wrote: "Bark's Book Nonsense wrote: "I've only just begun my re-listen of the audio but Merricat most definitely feels superior when talking about the horrid townsfolk and how the path was gated so the pea..."

I too see her as a child. I feel like all the magic she imagines is how a child sees the world, and her anger and jealousy is how a child might react to perceived threats. What she seems to lack is any kind of adult perspective, like if you're jealous you don't act in such an extreme way, and what Shirley Jackson does so well is to make us wonder how much acting like that is a mark of psychotic behavior. In other words, if an adult acting like a child is psychotic, does that make all children somehow psychotic? Granted, children don't typically go to her extremes, but is that because they don't want to or just because they can't?

I think it's interesting to wonder if she's lying when she says she's 18. For all her oddness, I don't really see her as a character who'd lie about that. I wonder if that's an early clue to how off she is--that she really is 18 but she acts so much younger.

[Vavita]

Michael wrote: "what Shirley Jackson does so well is to make us wonder how much acting like that is a mark of psychotic behavior. In other words, if an adult acting like a child is psychotic, does that make all children somehow psychotic? Granted, children don't typically go to her extremes, but is that because they don't want to or just because they can't?.."

Exactly, Jackson nails the unreliable narrator with perfection. Merricat is a great character. You feel sorry for her, you love her, you want to hate her, you hate her but understand her.

[Imbunche]

Nancy wrote: "Imbunche wrote: "Nancy wrote: "I didn’t think that maybe Merricat had mental health issues or any disabilities. At one point I thought maybe she was rather spoiled. Especially when she imagined [sp..."

Well, yes, but my point was the rules changed at the end of the book. At the end of the book she said she is forbidden to do things she was previously doing freely (view spoiler)[ going to the creek (hide spoiler)] and there was no one to set those rules for her.

[Jane]

I just joined this group and so excited to see that this is December's read! I am starting it this afternoon and looking forward to joining in.

[Michael]

Nancy wrote: "I don’t think she was lying when she said she was 18. Constance was 28 and Thomas would have been 16. Merricat probably is somewhere between 16 and 28. Merricat is living in her ideal world now, wh..."

I agree, Nancy. I don't think she was lying either. I think that's part of what makes her character so odd, so unique: she's 18 but in a way she stopped maturing when she was much younger. So she still thinks like a child, but she acts like an adult--in other words, her magical thinking now has real consequences, which is maybe the souce of all the trouble!

[Laurie (barksbooks)]

After the reread, I do believe she is 18 but emotionally stuck somewhere around 12. At one point Constance tells her she needs to live her life, get a boyfriend (before chuckling), etc. I don't think she would have said that to a 12 year old. But who knows, really, as the narrator is so terribly unreliable :)

I'm just glad the cat survived in the end!

[Nancy]

Imbunche wrote: "Nancy wrote: "Imbunche wrote: "Nancy wrote: "I didn’t think that maybe Merricat had mental health issues or any disabilities. At one point I thought maybe she was rather spoiled. Especially when sh..."

Near the end They werent leaving the house because the villagers were coning around the property.

[Nancy]

No one has said anything about Charles. Merricat is the only one that saw him for what he was. But sunce she was still seen as a child (even by Charles) and she acted childish she couldn’t communicate this to Constance.

He didn’t even look for them after the fire. He left them.

When Merricat went shopping and stopped for her coffee that man came in and kept saying he heard they were leaving. I wondered if Charles had already been asking around and telling people he was coming etc.

[R. Leigh]

Nancy wrote: "I don’t think she was lying when she said she was 18. Constance was 28 and Thomas would have been 16. Merricat probably is somewhere between 16 and 28. Merricat is living in her ideal world now, wh..."

But how do we know that? From whom are we receiving this information?

From Merricat--the unreliable narrator.

Michael wrote: "I agree, Nancy. I don't think she was lying either. I think that's part of what makes her character so odd, so unique: she's 18 but in a way she stopped maturing when she was much younger."

I can accept that.

[Nancy]

R. Leigh wrote: "Nancy wrote: "I don’t think she was lying when she said she was 18. Constance was 28 and Thomas would have been 16. Merricat probably is somewhere between 16 and 28. Merricat is living in her ideal..."

Uncle Julian said Constance was 28 and she concurred.

[R. Leigh]

My point is though that you can't trust anything that's revealed in the book through what Merricat says. I think the best we have is by watching how she acts.

[Nancy]

Then you might as well say the entire story is a lie and she didn’t poison anyone and her sister wasn,t agoraphobic and the villagers didn’t hate them and none of it happened at all. Just because a narrator is unreliable doesn’t make everything they say or do a lie. Otherwise the entire story is a lie.

[R. Leigh]

I think that's probably too far an exaggeration of my point. Very obviously there are things we are meant to take at face-value, and things we are meant to question. I think we are meant to question her age and emotional state or development. How old she is and how old she perceives others around her to be I think are relevant.

[Nancy]

Yet, you don’t say how old you think she is and why.

She can be 18 yet not act like she is 18.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

I think the fact she (view spoiler)[murdered her entire family except Constance, and her uncle survived only because he did not eat enough arsenic to kill him (hide spoiler)] is the relevant thing.

Whether she is 12 or 18, someone who does what she did is not acting normally for any age.

Yes, she is childish. If she is actually 12, it is appropriate to be childish. If she is lying about being 18 (I do not think so, myself, I trust her narrative in its entirety - I have always thought if someone says something which fits the person's personality, believe what they say until you disprove it - I grew up with bad mentally ill people), I REALLY do not care since I weight questionable behavior in terms of my safety. I care FAR more about whether I would eat at the same table with Merricat.

My list of concerns about Merricat would be rated like this:

1. (view spoiler)[She successfully murdered her entire family except her sister and uncle. She premeditated the murder, and did not hesitate to carry it out. (hide spoiler)]

2. (view spoiler)[Merricat was glad she was successful. At first, she wasn't sure if not successfully killing her uncle would be ok, until she saw he was demented and crippled because of the arsenic. Then she was feeling good about having committed a successful mass murder of her family again. (hide spoiler)]

3. Merricat's reasons for (view spoiler)[ killing was because she was sent to her room without dinner - not because she was being abused, raped, or starved. She simply did not want to live with parental boundaries or controls over her behavior at age 12. If she wanted to stand on the dinner table and dance a jig kicking over all of the plates of food, she did not want any parent or adult saying "stop it" to her. She KILLED her parents basically because they wanted her to except boundaries all parents normally impose on children to teach them manners. (hide spoiler)]

4. (view spoiler)[Does anyone here know how awful or traumatic it would be to watch someone die of arsenic poisoning? I have seen it described in two other books. Only psychopaths would be calm and/or excited to see it, to go about one's life as if nothing horrible had occurred. Instead, Merricat was relieved. (hide spoiler)]
.
.
.
.
.
.
100. She is childish.

For me, the issue is (view spoiler)[Merricat is a MASS MURDERER. Of her FAMILY - caused her mother and father and kid brother to writhe in agony for minutes dying. She is a Norman Bates-type killer, whatever her childishness. I have never known a normal childish person to enjoy killing things except insects. (hide spoiler)]

[R. Leigh]

Nancy wrote: "Yet, you don’t say how old you think she is and why.

She can be 18 yet not act like she is 18."

I said earlier that I could accept that she was emotionally 18 but aged 18 (or however it was worded exactly).

In any case, thank you for the dialog Nancy :)

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Charles was a cad and a scoundrel. But he was an angel compared to Merricat.

[R. Leigh]

I think we all agree she's super deranged.

[Jenny]

I read this last year and loved it. I've been wanting to read more Shirley Jackson every since.

[Will]

My question is: do we end up liking Merricat, even knowing what she has done?

[Lena]

No. We don’t like Merricat.
Not Constance either. How could she keep quiet about the murder of her entire family?!??
I think the townspeople are what happens when justice fails. I hope OJ lives in a “castle.”

[Latasha]

I would say yes, we do like Mericat.

[Nancy]

Latasha wrote: "I would say yes, we do like Mericat."

Yes, I think we like Merricat.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Merricat is like a wild tiger. In real life, it would be a gamble every time you sat down to enjoy a cuppa made by Merricat’s own hands. Fighting with her would be like wrestling a tiger (holding on to her tail would be certain curtains, lights out!)

If I got past my FEAR, I might admire her ferocity. If she was caged.

[Nancy]

Well Merricat never cooked anything but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t spike the sugar again (or some thing else). Maybe that’s why Constance let her do whatever she wanted, she knew what Merricat did and might not be spared the next time.

[Nancy]

I keep forgetting, no one mentions when Uncle Julian says that Merricat died n the orphanage from neglect yet she was in the room when he said it.

I had noticed that they never interacted except for Merricat saying she needed to be nicer to him all the time. I was wondering if he knew Merricat was the one who poisoned the sugar and chose to ignore that she exististed anymore. Combined with his dementia one might assume he ‘forgot’ who she was except he never interacted with her at all. He didn’t even call her by some other name.

[Latasha]

I definitely would not have a cup of tea with her!

[Michael]

Nancy wrote: "I keep forgetting, no one mentions when Uncle Julian says that Merricat died n the orphanage from neglect yet she was in the room when he said it.

I had noticed that they never interacted except f..."

I too thought that was an odd and wonderful moment, and revealing in a way I couldn't quite grasp at first. It's an interesting observation that they never really interact. Maybe he does know it was her. I'll have to think more about this. When he first said it, I wondered: what if it's actually true? What if she's really dead? But then nothing made sense that way.

[Lena]

Maybe it’s like My Sweet Audrina where the “good” Merricat is long dead.

[Vavita]

Nancy wrote: "I keep forgetting, no one mentions when Uncle Julian says that Merricat died n the orphanage from neglect yet she was in the room when he said it.

I had noticed that they never interacted except f..."

Good point! I didn't think about that too much. I thought: "He is senile"
You are right!

[Benjamin]

Nancy wrote: "Latasha wrote: "I would say yes, we do like Mericat."

Yes, I think we like Merricat."

I'll third this - she's honestly one of my favourite characters in literature.

[Vavita]

Will wrote: "My question is: do we end up liking Merricat, even knowing what she has done?"

Yes! We like Merricat

[Will]

Well that collection of replies was interesting! And yes, I liked Merricat too.

But I'd never let here near food again, except as a consumer...

[Latasha]

Jessica wrote: "Just finished it, it was certainly an interesting read. The narrative style made it seem like a much older book than it is, like something from the early 1900s (not the '60s). I felt bad for Consta..."

I could definitely see the urban legend part! I never had thought of that.

[R. Leigh]

Right, that's exactly what it felt like to me, too. From my earlier post on it in this thread:

R. Leigh wrote: "I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that I considered this book unique and interesting in that it seemed to be a story about how a house came to be haunted. I think in fiction (and non, and in our own lives) we come across haunted houses pretty regularly, but I don’t think it’s too often where we’re given such an intimate and emotional backstory, and that’s what this felt like to me. Every time I see an abandoned house in pictures or off the road, I always wonder about the people who lived there, loved there, fought there. That’s what this felt like to me."

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this.