'We have always lived in a castle'

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Some notes:
(spoiler alert)
Merricat practices magic. She has a familiar, cat Jonas. Is Jonas the whale reference to Noah's Arc? She practices magical protection. This is similar to the idea of protecting portals. This suggests that her home is a magical place. It is called a castle in her mind. This portal protection is like the spell the magicians used in Brakebill's academy. At one point she teasingly mentions baking a gingerbread cookie in the likeness of her cousin Charles so she can eat him. this suggests the sympathetic magic that is common in Vodoo dolls. Same with the idea that magic is created from psychological pain as displayed in The Magicians, Merricat is experiencing psychological trauma. She was put into foster care after her parents died. She feels protective of her older sister Constance. The invasion of cousin Charles into her home causes disruption. She nails thin notebooks of her fathers to the pine tree to protect the place. She buries things which represent burying the psychological traumas, loss of a parent, and having to be displaced in foster care. Home is very important to her and Constance. Isolation from the outside society. Shirley Jackson wrote a little story called 'The Lottery' that mentions mass mentality and conformance to social 'norms'. Merricat's uniqueness and her odd family is shrouded in mysteries. But they made the news when the parents died of poison. At first, Constance is to blame. Shirley Jackson also didn't like to leave her home. Constance has agoraphobia. This book is a good continuation of my previous readings about spatial places, a sense of home, and architectural elements as magical portals. And isolation as caused by the Covid19 pandemic. Little,Big house is a magical place that is ever unfolding. Piranesi is a mental construct of his world, Hurtfew Abby library of Mr. Norrel, Brakebills, the Wardrobe to Narnia. Architectural elements as portals into other realms. The staircase in Piranesi, where the narrator went through. Harry Potter lives underneath the staircase. There is the element of the portal and there is the perception of expansion. The perception of expansion is a mental construct. The idea that spaces unfold endlessly, and space is infinite was first declared by Bruno Giordano. He also practices the method of the memory palace. The portal is an idea that it connects to other worlds, Little, Big, leads to the world of Faeries. Brakebills, the labyrinth of Piranesi, Borge's labyrinth, and the mythic Minotaur from the Greeks. This labyrinth is also of the mind and it's connecting chambers. We are sometimes not sure if there is an actual physical place or our shift in perception and mental constructs. These ideas blur together between what is real and what is imagined. This spatial expansion is a magical trick, such as the one Norrel conjured at his library in Hurtfew Abby, or is it an actual place such as the one in Piranesi where it is substituted and revised in the mad narrator's mind. This sense of protection and portal is important. When it begins to break down, it signals a turning point in Merricat's peaceful existence in her insular world that she and her sisters try so hard to protect and Uncle Julian tries so hard to relive. This breaking through the portal further temps cousin Charles because of the wealth more than the mysteries. But as in Brakebill, the students who didn't pass the magical exam and were rejected and had their memories erased, except Julia who remembers and is haunted by the power and mysteries of Brakebill. And also the participants that Mr. Norrel allowed in to see his spatially expanding library. And with Little, Big we are hooked into the story because we want to read what it's like to live with magical creatures. What does Merricat have to protect and why is Constance fearful? Merricat has constructed a safe place, it is a codependence place. Constance protects Merricat by taking the blame for the murder. And Merricat is protecting her sister from their father, who abused her. Merricat doesn't want her to have any boyfriends. Constance's attraction to cousin Charles is taking her attention away from Merricat and so she feels threatened. It is even worse when Charles resembles their father and seems to bring back memories. Magic was practice out of necessity to protect the psyche. Much like magic was a mental construct for the narrator in Piranesi. Psychological trauma made the narrator created this safe world. Was he sent there through means of magic? In either case, the thin line of the portal and what is on either side remains very interesting in the fictions of these works. After the fire, as the only means of cleansing the place of cousin Charles, Merricat is able to restore the peace at the cause of physical damage. To Merricat, the notion of a safe psychological place is more important than a physical place. But there is a danger to this psychic palace. The Narrator was able to leave it to save his sanity. But is drawn to it.
It can imprison and it can paralyze as in the statues of the Piranesi palace. 'Castle' sort of explains in very particular circumstance the idea of agoraphobia, just as Piranesi can partially explain madness, and particularly madness as brought on by magical acts. Magical acts cause and can be caused by great psychological pain. Or it is the psychological pain that creates the desire for magical and imagination to survive. In Castle, Merricat goes to great lengths to protect herself and her sister. First poisoning the whole family and second, setting fire to rid of cousin Charles, which in a sense is a second attempt to get rid of their abusive father.

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