We Have Always Lived in the Castle opens in an eerie household in rural New England, where eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine “Merricat” Blackwood lives with her agoraphobic sister Constance and their ailing Uncle Julian. After a mysterious arsenic poisoning six years earlier killed the rest of the family, the three survivors have withdrawn from a hostile village that whispers of their guilt .
Constance, once tried and acquitted, never leaves the estate. Merricat ventures out for supplies and practices folkloric charms to protect them. Their fragile seclusion is shattered by the arrival of cousin Charles, whose motives quickly reveal greed and entitlement. Merricat perceives him as a threat to their sanctuary and stages bizarre rituals to root him out. Tensions escalate until a violent village mob besieges the house. In the chaos, Merricat resorts to an extreme act to defend her family.
Jackson’s novel masterfully blends Gothic dread with psychological intensity, rendering her protagonists both sympathetic and disturbing. Through unreliable narrative and claustrophobic setting, the story navigates themes of familial loyalty, persecution, superstition, and the fine line between innocence and malevolence. The haunting conclusion leaves both characters and readers questioning who the true monsters are—and whether isolation is sanctuary or prison.
Considered Jackson’s masterpiece, We Have Always Lived in the Castle endures as a powerful exploration of “otherness” and the corrosive effect of societal rejection.
