We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Merricat is an 18-year-old woman and the youngest member of the Blackwood family. At age 12, she killed her family with arsenic-laced sugar they consumed at a meal she was denied as punishment, and only her beloved older sister and an uncle remain (though Merricat does not acknowledge him in the opening). Merricat is a world in herself and an example of the archetype of the misunderstood rebel no one understands and everyone fears. At the beginning of the story, she is perceived as a victim of the village’s perceptions and an unfortunate orphan. Her point of view is clever and compelling, which draws in the reader. As the story progresses, however, the reader is slowly exposed to Merricat’s narcissism and her desire to be worshipped. She believes in magic spells and bad omens, which strips objects of their “normal” intended value and imbues them with moral personalities, like people. At the same time, people become like ghosts to her—inhuman apparitions sent to impede her progress. After the Blackwood home is burned and vandalized and her Uncle Julian has died, she adjusts to her new reality by blocking the world out further.