Many authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King use literary elements to create horror and suspense. In the novel We Always Lived In The Castle, Shirley Jackson masterfully uses multiple literary elements throughout the course of the book. Jackson uses language, word choice, gothic elements, and ideas of mental illness to create a work of subtle suspense and horror and a message that extends beyond the Blackwood mansion.
An aspect of horror shown in this novel is the unreliability of the narrator, Merricat, due to mental illness, and childlike behaviour. Merricat shows many signs of paranoia throughout the novel. Paranoia is a mental illness that causes a person to falsely believe that other people are trying to harm them. In this novel, Merricat believes that the villagers have a vendetta against her. Evidence of this paranoia is visible from the beginning of the book. " … I could tell a local car by the quick ugly glance from the driver and I wondered, always, what would happen if I stepped down from the curb onto the road; would there be a quick, almost unintended swerve toward me? Just to scare me, perhaps, just to see me jump? And then the laughter, coming from all sides, from behind the blinds in the post office, from the men in front of the general store, from peering out of the grocery …show more content…
“I found a nest of baby snakes near the creek and killed them all; I dislike snakes and Constance had never asked me not to” (Jackson 77). According to the National Coalition on Violence Against Animals, “Analyses by sociologists, psychologists and criminologists during the past 25 years show that perpetrators of animal cruelty frequently do not stop with animal victims. Many will move on to commit acts of violence against humans. A 1997 study by Northeastern University and the Massachusetts SPCA reported that nearly 40% of animal abusers had committed violent crimes against
An aspect of horror shown in this novel is the unreliability of the narrator, Merricat, due to mental illness, and childlike behaviour. Merricat shows many signs of paranoia throughout the novel. Paranoia is a mental illness that causes a person to falsely believe that other people are trying to harm them. In this novel, Merricat believes that the villagers have a vendetta against her. Evidence of this paranoia is visible from the beginning of the book. " … I could tell a local car by the quick ugly glance from the driver and I wondered, always, what would happen if I stepped down from the curb onto the road; would there be a quick, almost unintended swerve toward me? Just to scare me, perhaps, just to see me jump? And then the laughter, coming from all sides, from behind the blinds in the post office, from the men in front of the general store, from peering out of the grocery …show more content…
“I found a nest of baby snakes near the creek and killed them all; I dislike snakes and Constance had never asked me not to” (Jackson 77). According to the National Coalition on Violence Against Animals, “Analyses by sociologists, psychologists and criminologists during the past 25 years show that perpetrators of animal cruelty frequently do not stop with animal victims. Many will move on to commit acts of violence against humans. A 1997 study by Northeastern University and the Massachusetts SPCA reported that nearly 40% of animal abusers had committed violent crimes against