“We have always lives in the castle” by Shirley Jackson is an intriguing story that follows the life of a young girl with antisocial personality disorder, her name is Merricat Blackwood. Merricat lives in a mansion with her uncle Julian and her sister Constance. The rest of her family died from poisoning. Merricat lives in a society where people don’t like their family. Merricat has to go through a lot of tension while getting the groceries for Constance, everyone in her village judges her and makes mean comments about the family. People are still trying to solve the mystery of who poisoned the family. Constance and Merricat were sexually abused by their father. We find out later that Merricat was the one who poisoned the family. She put poison in the sugar because she knew that her sister Constance did not eat sugar, and she wanted her to stay alive because she loved her.
I decided that I would chose three powerful words, words of strong protection, and so as long as these words were never spoken aloud no change would come. I wrote the first word – Melody – in the apricot jam on my toast with the handle of my spoon and then put the toast in my mouth and ate it very quickly. I was one third safe. (p. 49)
This quotation represents how unsafe Merricat feels. She doesn’t like change and she gets scared really easily. That’s why she poisoned her family.