We Have Always Lived In The Castle: 2

P70-71

It was important to choose the exact device to drive Charles away. An imperfect magic, or one incorrectly used, might only bring more disaster upon our house. I thought of my mother's jewels, since this was a day of sparkling things, but they might not be strong on a dull day, and Constance would be angry if I took them out of the box where they belonged, when she herself had decided against it. I thought of books, which are always strongly protective, but my father's book had fallen from the tree and let Charles in; books, then, were perhaps powerless against Charles. I lay back against the tree trunk and thought of magic; if Charles had not gone away before three days I would smash the mirror in the hall.

Assignment 1

Before this passage, we already knew something was disturbing about Merricat's thoughts. Here she seems to think some objects have the magic ability to drive some sort of 'mean spirits' away. Two of her objects belonged to her deceased parents, which created the impression that her bond with both her parents was quite strong, in some sense. The fact that she used those objects to keep bad things away, figuratively speaking, means that the items hold sentimental value. She blames Charles for the book that fell from the tree, without him ever having touched it. She tries her best to send Charles away, but her actions seem futile.

I can connect the passage with the theme of imagination because Merricat keeps linking magic to objects. She also says "Charles is a ghost" multiple times. Besides imagination, the fragment can be linked to cruelty as well. The cruelty is coming from both Charles' side and Merricat's. While Merricat undeniably has an animosity against Charles and tries to send him away, he returns the favor by intentionally pushing her away from her sister and agonizing her. They don't like each other.

Assignment 2

There are a lot of things that make this story gothic. One of those things is the elaborate descriptions of the setting. "All of the village was of a piece, a time, and a style; it was as though the people needed the ugliness of the village, and fed on it." this is just one example. Another element is the mentioning of supernatural things like magic. As my passage states, Merricat has an obsession with making magic objects. At least, to her they are magic. This book is not Fantasy-themed, so we know it's all in her head. Merricat wishing people dead all the time is also absolutely a good example of why the story is Gothic. It is a recurring factor in every Gothic story.

Merricat talks about going to the moon a lot. We feel that it is childlike behavior to say things like that, but maybe Merricat says this because it is some sort of escapism for her. She has quite the imagination, though she is eighteen and basically an adult.

Not many elements make the book not Gothic, but there are two that I found most noticeable. The first one is that the main character is an active woman. By that, I mean that she is an individual, rather than the typical 'woman in distress'. Secondly, although we've come across many disturbing things in the book, every time Merricat talks about Constance, it has always been a nice description. The opposite of what we read most of the time.