We have always lived in the castle

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We have always lived in the castle (English original title We Have Always Lived in the Castle ) is a 1962 mystery novel by the American writer Shirley Jackson . The events are portrayed from the perspective of 18-year-old Mary Katherine "Merricat" Blackwood, who after a family tragedy lives isolated from the rest of the village community with her older sister and her ailing uncle on a spacious property in Vermont . The author's last novel, published three years before her death, is widely considered her best and was filmed by Stacie Passon in 2018 under the title We Have Always Lived in the Castle . The first German translation of the novel by Anna Leube and Anette Grube was published in 1988 by Diogenes Verlag.

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Merricat Blackwood, her older sister Constance, and their ailing uncle Julian live in complete isolation in a large house on a sprawling Vermont estate. They have been viewed with suspicion by the people in the nearby village since a family tragedy that was not completely cleared up. Uncle Julian is in a wheelchair and working on his memoirs. Constanze, who takes care of him and the household, hasn't left the house for years either. Merricat is the only one who defies the abuse of the village youth when she does the weekly shopping in the village and borrows books from the library.

Uncle Julian's confused hints gradually reveal the tragic family history of the Blackwoods: six years before the start of the novel, the Blackwood couple, Julian's wife Dorothy, the youngest child of the Blackwoods Thomas and Julian themselves were poisoned with arsenic at dinner. Only Julian survived. Merricat escaped the assassination attempt because she was sent to her room that night as a punishment for disobedience without dinner. Constance, the only one who had refrained from sweetening her blackberries with the poisoned sugar, was arrested as the main suspect, but was finally acquitted. In the eyes of the villagers, however, their guilt has been proven, which is why the surviving Blackwoods have since been ostracized by the village.

For Merricat, this hostility is based on deeply felt mutuality. She sees herself as the protector of her beloved sister and uses magic analogies to secure the property against intruders. One of those magical protections is a book that Merricat nailed to a tree in the garden. When it falls one day, Merricat sees a sign of imminent danger. In fact, shortly thereafter, the Blackwoods received a visit from their cousin Charles, who was previously little interested in the relatives.

Charles goes to great lengths to look after Constance and quickly wins her trust, much to the chagrin of the jealous Merricat, who does not trust him on the way. Charles seems to be particularly interested in all the money locked in the safe and is increasingly rude to Merricat and Julian, who are obviously in his way in his plans. Merricat's attempts to drive Charles away through insults and various defensive spells are unsuccessful.

The conflict escalates when Merricat is sent upstairs by Constance one evening to wash his hands before dinner and, in a fit of anger at Charles, drops his smoking pipe in the trash. Soon the whole house will be on fire. The villagers appear to put out the fire, but soon go on to finally let their long-pent-up hatred of the Blackwoods run free and destroy what the fire has spared. While Charles concentrates on rescuing the safe, Constance and Merricat are surrounded by a mob chanting sneering nursery rhymes. At the last moment they manage to escape into the forest. Julian dies of a heart attack during the fire and Charles tries to break into the safe after unsuccessful attempts. Merricat and Constance spend the night in a hollow tree that Merricat has long used as a retreat in times of crisis. Constance admits that she always knew Merricat poisoned the family. Merricat freely admits the act - she poisoned the sugar knowing that Constanze generally refrains from sugar.

The next day the sisters returned to the ruins, recovered the few valuables that had been spared by fire and villagers, nailed up the unusable rooms and settled in the reasonably preserved part of the building. Meanwhile repentant villagers begin to leave them food on the doorstep. Charles comes back to try it again with Constance, who now sees through him and no longer reacts to him.

interpretation

A central theme of the novel is the persecution of outsiders by narrow-minded small town dwellers in New England . This theme can also be found in other works by the author, including her novel Spuk in Hill House . What both novels have in common as a setting is a large, detached house that is physically, socially and ideologically isolated from the rest of the village community. Jackson was able to draw on his own experience in describing the problem - in the foreword to the 2006 edition of the novel published by Penguin Classics, Jonathan Lethem speculates that this recurring small town in Jackson's novels is North Bennington, Vermont, where Jackson and her are Stanley Edgar Hyman, who taught at the college there, were repeatedly confronted with reflexive anti-Semitism and anti-intellectualism.

Typical of Jackson's work is the creation of an atmosphere of the alien and the deep familiarity with the everyday occurrence of evil and its effects on the village community, the family and the individual. What We have always lived in the castle, but what sets it apart from her other works, is the simultaneous exploration of love and devotion, despite all the uneasiness pervading the plot. Constance's complete refusal to judge the murderous sister is taken for granted. Nor does the novel ever question the fact that Merricat genuinely loves her sister, despite her other sociopathic tendencies.

Jackson's biographer Judy Oppenheimer describes We have always lived in the castle as "the praise of agoraphobia ", based on Jackson's own experience with the disease. As an inspiration for the Blackwood sisters, Jackson named their own daughters; for Oppenheimer, Merricat and Constance embody the " yin and yang " of Jackson's own personality.

Written in deceptively simple language from the perspective of an unreliable narrator , the novel ultimately implies a final turning away from the outside world by the two sisters - their world has shrunk to the three still habitable rooms of the ruin and hermetically sealed against any outside influence. The intruder Charles was successfully repulsed; the hatred of the villagers has been consumed in excess of violence. Nothing will disturb the sisters in their intimate togetherness in the future. Lethem sees this result as a triumph for Merricat, whose wish to create a world for themselves and Constance according to their will is thus fulfilled.

Position in literary history

Merricat is already 18 years old at the time the novel is written, but the way she is told often sounds younger. Something didn't go as usual in their development. Lethem sees this devilish child motif as a link to other crypto-feminist narratives of the mid-20th century such as Evil Seed , Rosemary's Baby, and What Really Happened to Baby Jane? and also draws the comparison to Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett . Jackson's vision of human existence as a squat in a decaying castle reminds him of Beckett's play Happy Days and the praise of the figure Winnie, who is buried up to his core in the ground, of human adaptability in the face of adverse circumstances.

reception

We have always lived in the castle was ranked among the ten best novels of 1962 by Time Magazine .

In March 2002 Book Magazine named Mary Katherine Blackwood 71st on the list of the best fictional characters since 1900.

On Goodreads, the novel reached # 4 in the 1962 Most Popular Books Pick.

Adaptations

Hugh Wheeler adapted the novel for the theater in 1966. The play premiered on October 19, 1966 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater on Broadway. The main roles were played by Heather Menzies , Shirley Knight and Alan Webb.

A musical version of the story was performed in 2010 by Adam Bock and Todd Amond at the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, Connecticut, and ran from September 23 to October 9.

In September 2018, a film version of the novel was shown at the Los Angeles Film Festival, which was shown in theaters from May 2019. The script for We Have Always Lived in the Castle wrote Mark Kruger with the support of Jackson's son Laurence Hyman. Directed by Stacie Passon . The leading roles were played by Sebastian Stan as Charles, Taissa Farmiga as Merricat, Alexandra Daddario as Constance and Crispin Glover as Uncle Julian.

proof

  1. ↑ We Have Always Lived in the Castle . ( apple.com [accessed May 11, 2019]).
  2. ↑ Dave McNary, Dave McNary: 'Captain America's' Sebastian Stan to Star in Thriller 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle'. In: Variety. August 10, 2016, accessed on May 11, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c Jonathan Lethem: Introduction. Life in Shirley Jackson's (Out) Castle . In: Jackson, S / WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN A CASTLE (1962) . Penguin Books, 2006 ( academia.edu [accessed May 12, 2019]).
  4. ↑ Joyce Carol Oates: The Witchcraft of Shirley Jackson . October 8, 2009, ISSN  0028-7504 ( nybooks.com [accessed May 12, 2019]).
  5. ^ Judy Oppenheimer: Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson . Columbine Trade, May 1989, ISBN 978-0449904053 .
  6. ↑ Lincoln Michel: Flavorwire Author Club: Shirley Jackson's Haunting Final Novel, 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle'. In: Flavorwire. March 27, 2014, accessed May 13, 2019 .
  7. ^ David Barnett: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson - a house of ordinary horror . In: The Guardian . December 21, 2015, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed May 13, 2019]).
  8. ↑ Jonathan Lethem: Introduction. Life in Shirley Jackson's (Out) Castle . In: Jackson, S / WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN A CASTLE (1962) . Penguin Books, 2006 ( academia.edu [accessed May 12, 2019]).
  9. ↑ Darryl Hattenhauer: Shirley Jackson's American Gothic . SUNY Pess, January 1, 2003, ISBN 0-7914-5607-2 , p. 195.
  10. ↑ NPR: 100 Best Fictional Characters Since 1900. Retrieved May 13, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Most Popular Books Published In 1962. In: Goodreads. Retrieved May 13, 2019 .
  12. ↑ We Have Always Lived in the Castle Broadway @ Ethel Barrymore Theater - Tickets and Discounts. Retrieved May 13, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Joe Meyers, Staff Writer: 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' bows at Yale Rep. September 21, 2010, accessed May 13, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Steven Zeitchik: Further film visits the 'Castle'. In: The Hollywood Reporter. August 17, 2009, accessed May 13, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Borys Kit: Alexandra Daddario, Taissa Farmiga Join Sebastian Stan in 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle'. In: The Hollywood Reporter. August 10, 2016, accessed on May 13, 2019 .