We Have Always Lived In The Castle Analysis

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2016 We Have Always Lived in the Castle We have always lived in the castle is the most influential novel, which Shirley Jackson ever wrote; it was published in 1962, three years earlier before her dead. She is known as one of the greatest Southern Gothic writer. In most of her gothic writing, she always shows the protagonist’s mind and darkness side of the story. Charles is the gothic “intruder” or hunter in her novel while Merricat cuts off in her lunatic world. In the beginning of the novel, Shirley Jackson introduces a bit details about a protagonist’s attitude towards her surroundings. Jackson seems to expose the sympathetic moral on Merricat who …show more content…
The front house represents the dark side which is not safe, while the back and the ground of the house are the safer side of the house. Before the Blackwood house set on the fire, Merricat talks a lot about how often they stay at the back of the house for the sake of their safety from the villagers. The safe side inside the Blackwood house includes a kitchen, Uncle Julian room, and Merricat room. “The rooms we used together were the back ones, the kitchen and the back bedrooms and the little warm room off the kitchen where Uncle Julian lived (20)”. Jackson’s point of view argues that the Blackwood house occupies with two cultures that contradict one another .The parents of Merriacat who are no longer alive and Uncle Julian are the dark side of the Blackwood house. Merericat and constant are the safe side of the Blackwood house. They are young and have a bright future when all the elders of the Blackwood gone. The old culture is about an end or vanishes because Uncle Julian is weakening and suffering from his arsenic poisoning. He is the only one that survives the poison and still hangs around with his old drama. The sooner the Blackwood house would be come alive again when Uncle Julian has gone. Unfortunately, there is a cousin; Charles is considering as another evil when he comes to Blackwood house. In the Blackwood house, Charles takes the room of Merricat father, which is on the front of the house and it’s a one of the unsafe side of the room. Jackson wants to show that even though Charles is not too old enough, he deserves to sleep on the dark sides of the house because he doesn’t come there to do something good, but he is there to loot. Merricat and Constance

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