Isolation + Persecution (Quotes and Analysis)

Isolation, persecution, and hatred are key themes in 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle'. The following notes are designed to make writing essays on this theme as easy as possible.

We've collected the best quotes to help you argue certain points. Below, they are organised by paragraph idea, to streamline your process of gathering evidence and writing the best essay possible.

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Hatred from the outer world, or at least the perception of it; lack of trust

These quotes are ideal for exploring the hatred Merricat and Constance face from the town, at least as Merricat perceives it. They range from the beginning all the way to the end of the text

• When she says Uncle Julian likes lamb in spring: “I should not have said it, I knew, and a little gasp went around the store like a scream” (Ch 1)
• When talking to Mr Elbert: “Somewhere behind me there was a little horrified laugh” (Ch 1)
• Jim Donnell and Joe Dunham make fun of her in the coffee shop (Ch 1)
• Stella tells Merricat to go home: “There won't be any peace around here until you go” (Ch 1)
  • Not out of malice; seems like she’s trying to protect her
• However, Jim Donnell piles on it: “You just say the word, Miss Mary Katherine, and we'll all come out and help you pack. Just you say the word, Merricat.” (Ch 1)
• Cruelty of the Harris boys:  (Ch 1)
  • “Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?
  • Oh no, said Merricat, you'll poison me.
  • Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?
  • Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!”
• Helen Clarke: “I don't recall that the Blackwoods ever mingled socially with the villagers”
• Charles, when Merricat recites what the amanita phalloides does: “I don't think that's very funny” (Ch 5)
• “Where would poor Cousin Mary go if her sister turned her out?...What would poor Cousin Mary do if Constance and Charles didn't love her?” (Ch 6) → threats
  • Note: it is unclear whether Charles is really saying this, or if it's in Merricat's head
• Charles: “come about a month from now, I wonder who will still be here? You, … or me?” (Ch 6) → again, is this real, or in her head?
• During the fire, some people were “laughing”, and others “frightened” (Ch 8)
• One woman, about the house: “let it burn” three times (Ch 8)
  • Men respond: “we’re the firemen…we got to put it out”
• “Should of burned it down years ago.” “and them in it” (Ch 8)
• Jim Donell: “smashed the rock through one of the great tall windows of our mother's drawing room” (Ch 8)
• Broken things: Dresden figures, Constance’s harp
• ‘Then, through the laughter, someone began, "Merricat, said Constance, would you like a cup of tea?" It was rhythmic and insistent.’ (Ch 8)
• Constance: “Uncle Julian is gone, and the others…Most of our house is gone, Merricat; we are all that is left.” (Ch 9)
• “I thought that perhaps they were only pretending to play, because they were children and were supposed to play, but perhaps they were actually sent here to look for us, thinly disguised as children. They were not really convincing” (Ch 10)
• “They are the children of the strangers…They have no faces.” (Ch 10)
  • They decide to pretend the children are birds
• Strangers and their lies and tales: Ch 10
  • “They'd hold you down and make you eat candy full of poison; I heard that dozens of bad little boys have gone too near that house and never been seen again.”
  • “They hate little boys and little girls. The difference is, they eat the little girls”
  • ‘"They never come out except at night," the bad woman said, looking evilly at the children, "and then when it's dark they go hunting little children."’

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Dislike of the outer world

Here are a few quotes which, among many others, help argue how much Mericat hates the outer world

• “Fridays and Tuesdays were terrible days, because I had to go into the village” (Ch 1)
• “The people of the village have always hated us.” (Ch 1)
• “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?” (Ch 1)
• “we had taken our money out of the bank, of course” (Ch 1)
  • Lack of trust
• “When I took my grocery list out of my shopping bag I took out the purse too so that Elbert in the grocery would know that I had brought money and he could not refuse to sell to me” (Ch 1)
  • Note: at this stage in the text, there is no evidence this has happened before, especially given she is “always served at once”
• “the Elberts were probably rolling their eyes at each other in relief” (Ch 1)
• “Without looking I could see the grinning and the gesturing” (Ch 1)
• Merricat, watching Helen Clarke and Constance interact: “she really could not see how Constance withdrew from such words” (Ch 2)
• About Helen Clarke “She wouldn't behave like this anywhere else, I thought, only here.” (Ch 2)
• Note what Helen Clarke says to her when Merricat suggests “They [the villagers hate us”: “Mary Katherine, you know as well as I do that nine tenths of that feeling is nothing but your imagination, and if you'd go halfway to be friendly there'd never be a word said against you. Good heavens. I grant you there might have been a little feeling once, but on your side it's just been exaggerated out of all proportion.” (Ch 2)
• She immediately hates Charles: “I knew already that he was one of the bad ones; I had seen his face briefly and he was one of the bad ones” (Ch 4)
• “I hoped that the house, injured, would reject him by itself” (Ch 6)
• The visitors “were all strangers, with their wide staring eyes and their evil open mouths” (Ch 10)

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Fear

As much as Merricat claims to hate the villagers, she herself says that in fact she fears them

• Merricat feels “vulnerable and exposed” when crossing the road (Ch 1)
• “I always stood perfectly straight and stiff when the children came close, because I was afraid of them” (Ch 1)
• “I was afraid that they might touch me and the mothers would come at me like a flock of taloned hawks; that was always the picture I had in my mind -- birds descending, striking, gashing with razor claws.” (Ch 1)
• “I stopped in the doorway of the grocery, feeling around inside myself for some thought to make me safe” (Ch 1)

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Separating oneself from the outside world

The villagers really do appear to hate Constance and Merricat. However, the sisters also deliberately isolate themselves from the rest of society.

• “Blackwood Road goes in a great circle around the Blackwood land and along every inch of Blackwood Road is a wire fence built by our father” (Ch 1)
• “We did not accept mail, and we did not have a telephone” (Ch 1)
• Padlock as a symbol of separation (see symbols section)
• ‘"The highway's built for common people," our mother said, "and my front door is private."’ (Ch 2)
  • Mother separated the Blackwoods from the rest of the world when she married in
• “almost all of our life was lived toward the back of the house, on the lawn and the garden where no one else ever came” (Ch 2)
• “Always on Wednesday mornings I went around the fence. It was necessary for me to check constantly to be sure that the wires were not broken and the gates were securely locked. I could make the repairs myself, winding the wire back together where it had torn, tightening loose strands, and it was a pleasure to know, every Wednesday morning, that we were safe for another week.” (Ch 3)
• “after dinner it would be night and we would sit warmly together in the kitchen where we were guarded by the house and no one from outside could see so much as a light” (Ch 3)
• Merricat uses her father’s scarf to tie the gate shut, “because Charles had a key” (Ch 6)
• Constance decides Helen Clarke won’t be coming for tea anymore, and “We are going to lock ourselves in more securely than ever.” (Ch 9)
• “there was a fine, after all, for destroying library property” (Ch 9)
  • But, no fine for destroying Blackwood property: they are beyond the protection of the society
• “Constance and I closed the drawing-room door behind us and never opened it afterwards.” (Ch 9)
  • Same with the dining room
• They hide from Helen Clarke: “we were safely on the cellar stairs” (Ch 9) → symbolic that they run to the cellar to hide
• Constance, about Helen Clarke, after she leaves: “She will never take tea here again.” (Ch 9)
• “the kitchen was dark, but safe” (Ch 9)
• Ch 10: Merricat constantly checks that the front door is locked
• “The boards across the kitchen windows were ours, and part of our house, and we loved them. We were very happy” (Ch 10)

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Opening up to the world

In some parts of the text, characters such as Constance begin to open up to the world, either out of their own volition or following the recommendations of others

• Constance: ‘She turned to smile at me. "Not a bit," she said. "I'm getting better all the time, I think. And today I'm going to make little rum cakes."’ (Ch 2)
• They “still saw some small society” (Ch 2)
  • “Helen Clarke took her tea with us on Fridays, and Mrs. Shepherd or Mrs. Rice or old Mrs. Crowley stopped by occasionally on a Sunday after church to tell us we would have enjoyed the sermon.” (Ch 2)
• Helen Clarke: “This staircase is one of the wonders of the county, Mary Katherine. Shame to keep it hidden from the world.” (Ch 2)
• Helen Clarke, to Constance: “It's spring, you're young, you're lovely, you have a right to be happy. Come back into the world.” (Ch 2)
• Helen Clarke: “Constance must start thinking about the future; this dwelling on the past is not wholesome; the poor darling has suffered enough.” (Ch 2)
• “sometimes she looked long and curiously down the length of the driveway” (Ch 3)
• “On Saturday morning, after Helen Clarke had come to tea, Constance looked at the driveway three times.” (Ch 3)
• Constance: “The food comes from the ground and can't be permitted to stay there and rot; something has to be done with it.” (Ch 3) → life, and having to use what you have
• Ch 4: Constance seems again open to the outside world, and is the one who lets Charles in
• Constance: “I wonder if it would be right for me to wear Mother's pearls. I have never worn pearls.” (Ch 5)
• “always before Constance had listened and smiled and only been angry when Jonas and I had been wicked, but now she frowned at me often, as though I somehow looked different to her” (Ch 6)
• Ch 6: Constance starts thinking about about going out: “I haven’t been doing my duty” and “I’ve been hiding here”; she scolds Merricat, but then changes her mind
• Constance tells Merricat: “You should have boy friends” (Ch 6)

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Merricat's preference for stillness and death

Merricat fundamentally is afraid of life, living things, and the unpredictability of people, especially men. Her fear of things changing is symbolised in how she insists on keeping even beautiful things still, untouched, and unused, e.g. preventing Constance from wearing her mother’s pearls

• Buries all her treatures in the ground, like bodies
• About the pearls: “They're better off in the box where they belong.” (Ch 5)
• “The first thing to do was stop our father's watch which Charles had started. I knew he was not wearing it to mend the broken step because he was not wearing the chain, and I found the watch and the chain and our father's signet ring on our father's dresser with Charles' tobacco pouch and four books of matches. I was not allowed to touch matches but in any case I would not have touched Charles' matches. I took up the watch and listened to it ticking because Charles had started it; I could not turn it all the way back to where it had formerly been because he had kept it going for two or three days, but I twisted the winding knob backward until there was a small complaining crack from the watch and the ticking stopped. When I was sure that he could never start it ticking again I put it back gently where I had found it; one thing, at least, had been released from Charles' spell and I thought that I had at last broken through his tight skin of invulnerability. I need not bother about the chain, which was broken, and I disliked the ring. Eliminating Charles from everything he had touched was almost impossible, but it seemed to me that if I altered our father's room, and perhaps later the kitchen and the drawing room and the study, and even finally the garden, Charles would be lost, shut off from what he recognized, and would have to concede that this was not the house he had come to visit and so would go away.” (Ch 7)
• Constance(?) about the pink and gold cups - some of Merricat’s favourite colours, as they’re Constance’s colours: “I've never seen them used; they come from a time before I was in the kitchen” (Ch 8)
  • Merricat: “They belong in the pantry … Not put around the house.”
  • “now they were scattered, instead of spending their little time decently put away on a shelf”
• “After I had closed the shutters on both tall drawing room windows I went along the porch and in, formally, through the front door and into the drawing room where Constance stood in dimness now, without the sunlight.” (Ch 9) → symbolic of Constance being drawn into Merricat’s dark world

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Hatred, revenge, and psychopathy

• “I thought about burning black painful rot that ate away from inside, hurting dreadfully. I wished it on the village” (Ch 1)
• In the grocery: “I wish you were all dead” (Ch 1)
• “I would have liked to come into the grocery some morning and see them all, even the Elberts and the children, lying there crying with the pain and dying. I would then help myself to groceries, I thought, stepping over their bodies, taking whatever I fancied from the shelves, and go home, with perhaps a kick for Mrs. Donell while she lay there” (Ch 1)
• “I wished they were all dead and I was walking on their bodies” (Ch 1)
• About the Harris boys: “I thought of them rotting away and curling in pain and crying out loud; I wanted them doubled up and crying on the ground in front of me” (Ch 1)
• About the Harris boys: “Their tongues will burn, I thought, as though they had eaten fire. Their throats will burn when the words come out, and in their bellies they will feel a torment hotter than a thousand fires” (Ch 1)
• Uncle Julian and Mrs Wright, about Constance: “She told the police those people deserved to die.” (Ch 2)
• Merricat is obsessed with death and pain: “it was good to hear Uncle Julian, who was so lonely most of the time” (he’s making the guests uncomfortable talking about the poisoning - Ch 2)
• “I began dressing Helen Clarke in my mind, putting her in a bathing suit on a snow bank, setting her high in the hard branches of a tree in a dress of flimsy pink ruffles that caught and pulled and tore; she was tangled in the tree and screaming and I almost laughed”
• Merricat, to Constance: “I can't help it when people are frightened; I always want to frighten them more.” (Ch 2)
• Merricat kills a nest of baby snakes because “I dislike snakes and Constance had never asked me not to” (Ch 4) → there are better examples
• “the stubborn ones, the ones I wished would die and lie there dead on the driveway, went around and around the house” (Ch 4)
• “I leaned against the front door and thought about opening it and finding him dead on the driveway.” (Ch 4)
• Merricat deliberately intimidates Charles at the table, about the amanita phalloides: “Death occurs between five and ten days after eating” (Ch 5)
• Jokes to Constance: “I was thinking that you might make a gingerbread man, and I could name him Charles and eat him.” (Ch 6)
• “I could not allow myself to be angry, and particularly not angry with Constance, but I wished Charles dead” (Ch 6)
• About Charles: “I wanted to stamp on him after he was dead, and see him lying dead on the grass” (Ch 6)
• Merricat, to calm herself when talking to Charles: “I thought of seeing him dead” (Ch 6)
• About Charles fixing the step: “I could see that he was doing it very badly and I was pleased; I wished the hammer to pound his thumb” (Ch 7)
• “I wondered if he would drop it; I would like to have seen Charles on the ground, scrabbling after my silver dollars” (Ch 7)
• “I could turn him into a fly and drop him into a spider's web and watch him tangled and helpless and struggling, shut into the body of a dying buzzing fly; I could wish him dead until he died. I could fasten him to a tree and keep him there until he grew into the trunk and bark grew over his mouth. I could bury him in the hole where my box of silver dollars had been so safe until he came; if he was under the ground I could walk over him stamping my feet” (Ch 7)
• ‘The hole would hold his head nicely. I laughed when I found a round stone the right size, and scratched a face on it and buried it in the hole. "Goodbye, Charles," I said. "Next time don't go around taking other people's things."’ (Ch 7)
• About Charles: “I wished he would put food on the fork and put it into his mouth and strangle himself” (Ch 8)
• “I am going to put death in all their food and watch them die.” (Ch 8)
• About Charles, when he comes back: “I remembered his laughter and his big staring white face and from inside the door I wished him dead.” (Ch 10)
• Even Constance becomes violent: ‘The least Charles could have done," Constance said, considering seriously, "was shoot himself through the head in the driveway.’ (Ch 10)
• Merricat, to Constance: “I wonder if I could eat a child if I had the chance.” (Ch 10)
• Attempts to get back at the villagers
  • “there were not many things I could do to get back at them, but I did what I could” (Ch 1)
    • Merricat counts Mr Elbert’s figures, despite there never being a mistake
  • Merricat offers Mrs Wright sugar - it’s polite, but perhaps suggests her desire to kill her (Ch 2)
  • Merricat “took up the plate of rum cakes and brought them to Mrs. Wright; that was not kind either, and she should have had the sandwiches first, but I wanted her to be unhappy, dressed in black in our mother's drawing room” (Ch 2)
  • To Mrs Wright: ‘"You haven't even touched your tea," I said, wanting to see her blush.’ (Ch 2)