*As always, spoiler’s haunt this post, and I write with the assumption
that you have read the novel.*
I was impressed by how much Shirley Jackson had grown as a writer in my
review of The Haunting of Hill House.
But a mere 3 years later, when she wrote We Have Always Lived in the
Castle, Shirley Jackson is at the top of her game. Every part of this novel
made me catch my breath again and again.
Is our main character really an 18-year-old woman who wishes for the
violent and graphic deaths of everyone in this town? Are we really behind the eyes of a non-neurotypical
woman who casually breaks household items to express and temper her displeasure
and who has planted her baby teeth all over the estate?
I could not love this book more.
I love a well-done first-person narrative and the challenge such a
perspective presents to both the writer and the reader. I guess challenge is the wrong word,
especially in the case of Mary Katherine Blackwood. The usual trick of a first-person narrator is
their unreliability, the uncertainty about what really happened versus what
they present and how they present it.
But for Mary Katherine, there is nothing unreliable about her; there is
no deception or dissembling; there is only her matter-of-fact statements about
her feeling and actions. We see the world exactly as she does, and Jackson is insightful
and thorough in employing that perspective, that it was to me a perpetual
surprise and delight.
In discussing the book with Ann, I kept using the phrases “mentally ill”
and “broken” to describe Mary Katherine and Constance, but I wasn’t comfortable
with them. I’m in favor now of non-neurotypical
because I think it better captures the level of understanding and Jackson’s
non-judgmental presentation of the information.
Throughout her works, Jackson has shown an interest in the way women’s
lives and their mental health collide with an uncaring and sometimes openly
hostile world. That concern is at the
heart of The Haunting of Hill House, and it is the central subject of We
Have Always Lived in the Castle.
Jackson is masterful in her revelations, unpacking her subject one step
at a time & changing the readers’ understanding bit by bit. Beginning with
Mary Katherine shopping in town shows us her hostility toward the villagers and
the equal hostility they feel toward her.
We don’t question the state of her mental health or neurochemistry. When she pretends to be on the moon in this
first chapter, it seems to be merely a protective flight of fancy that any of
us might partake in. Her violent desires
are striking, but not distressing. Then
as she approaches home and is concerned about Constance’s wandering out of the
house, we think of her as protective of her sister, as the caregiver. As we move into the kitchen and discover Mary
Katherine’s obsession with protective magical words and charms, we understand that
she is not “normal.” After Uncle Julian’s
tale and the revelation of the poisoning, we as readers are on uncertain
ground, though I personally suspected Mary Katherine was the poisoner and
Constance was protecting her. With
Constance’s never-ending patience, we are in awe of her care for her “sick”
sister and failing uncle. Every step, we
reevaluate relationships and positions. It’s not until the fire that we
understand the depth of Constance’s own mental situation. Her obsession with not being seen surprised
me, and as Mary Katherine once again became the protector, we realize that the
two sisters are in this together, each doing what they can to get the two of
them through a world that doesn’t want them as they are.
It’s in this context that we need to understand Charles Blackwood’s role
in the book, I think. At first he seems
like a common golddigger, interested only in the girls’ money. But he never gets the safe combination from
them, and he never breaks into the house to take the money, which he certainly
knows he could if that was his ultimate goal.
No, Charles is the force of patriarchy and normalcy from the outside
world seeking to make the Blackwood home how the world says it should be. Money needs to be respected, not buried
carelessly in the yard. Old folks
suffering from dementia should be shipped off to a care facility. Mary Katherine should be committed to an
institution, and Constance should be married and keep a proper home. Charles is a mean-spirited bastard, to use
Uncle Julian’s word, but his violence is more ideological than physical. In the context of the Blackwood household,
Charles’s view of “normal” is off-putting and offensive. His view of the world is no more valid than
Mary Katherine’s, and a lot more disturbing by the time it is introduced in the
novel. And when we see the villagers let loose after the fire is put out, we
know that they are no more healthy in their attitudes than Mary Katherine and
Constance. Likewise, it’s hard not to be
critical of Helen Clarke’s desire to take them away to take care of the
girls. We want to protect the Blackwood
sisters from the world after the fire, and we understand their fear.
Of course, nothing is simple. Mary
Katherine did indeed kill three people in a moment (or sustained state) of
anger when she was 12, and she has no remorse six years later. The Blackwood
sisters are not angels or simple victims, so there are no simple emotional
responses to the events of the novel, which is one of the things that makes the
novel amazing.
After the fire, the novel takes two interesting turns that I loved. In chapter 9, the 1st chapter
after the fire, the girls are in something of their own postapocalyptic
setting. How are they going to survive?
They can’t go safely into the village.
They can’t protect themselves with mere cardboard over the windows. They have two rooms and a limited ability to
provide for themselves. But then they
rise from the ashes, literally, and carve out a space to live. The next turn of course is as the sister’s
isolation becomes the stuff of urban legends, so that by the novel’s end we
seem to be in an origin story about that dilapidated house on the hill everyone
avoids and tells stories about. Our
protagonists are seen as children-eating witches who are to be feared and
appeased as they huddle in the dark with only each other, peering out at the
outside world and laughing. It is simultaneously
creepy and sweet, and I personally felt and uncomplicated pleasure in their
safety and seclusion.
The story I kept thinking about as I read the book is Lizzy Borden, and I
wonder to what extent that story served as inspiration for the novel. Sadly, Jackson did not write or talk a lot
about her works, so we don’t know.
There’s actually another turn that I love, which is when Charles
Blackwood enters the story. In those
chapters, especially following upon Helen Clarke’s visit for tea, this
contemporary novel feels more like a period piece, something from Austen or one
of the Brontë’s, as the story becomes one of extended families and questions of
inheritance. The novel feels like it
moves through genres like Mary Katherine moves through her moods.
There is a long essay to be written comparing The Haunting of Hill
House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Women, isolation, “madness,” understanding,
belonging—all are central themes and concerns in both novels. The Crain sisters and the Blackwood sisters
are similar in their isolation and oddness.
The patriarchal morality of Hugh Crain and Dr. Montague (as suggested in
his reading of Pamela) are contrasted with Charles Blackwood’s demand
for modern normality. I’m not the one to
write that essay, but I’d be among the first in line to read it.
This is one of those books whose story sets up residence in a corner of
my brain. I’m rolling if over in my
brain like a multifaceted jewel, watching it catch and scatter the light. I’ve
only been reading good literature these days, and this is one of the best.
