News report

Australian classics

Below you will find my food report on Australian classics.

We have always lived in the castle

Selected passage

I wondered if their parents taught them, Jim Donell and Dunham and dirty Harris leading regular drills of their children, teaching them with loving care, making sure they pitched their voices right; how else could so many children learn so thoroughly?

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!

I was pretending that I did not speak their language; on the moon we spoke a soft, liquid tongue, and sang in the starlight, looking down on the dead dried world; I was almost halfway past the fence.

This passage takes place in the village. It really struck me because I found it very sad that Merricat was bullied by the children who sang the song and I sympathized with her.

It shows that the people of the village hate the Blackwood family to the core, they bully Merricat and her sister by taunting and scolding them. Merricat even thinks that the parents teach their children to hate them. We can also see that Merricat is already used to being picked on by the villagers, as she decides not to respond to their bullying and just let it pass her by. This shows a kind of maturity, but on the other hand, at the end of the passage Merricat refers to her imaginary life on the moon, which shows that she believes in fantasy and is still childlike.

The song reveals that the people in the village think that Constance has poisoned her family and that she is responsible for the deaths of the other members of the Blackwood family. I think the song also refers to one of the main themes of the book, which is social judgement, as this occurs frequently throughout the chapters furthermore it is often pointed out by Merricat that they are judged by everything and everyone.

There is not much tension in my chosen piece, but that is not a bad thing because it is still a gripping piece that reveals a lot.

We have always lived in the castle

Character profile

I believe that Merricat is a very complex, weird and childish character. In the story, you sometimes notice that her personality can be contradictory. She can be sweet and nice to her sister Constance, although she sometimes behaves cruelly towards the villagers. She thinks barbarically about their deaths, which makes her, in my eyes, an aggressive person. Nevertheless, I can understand why she feels so much hate towards the villagers, she and her sister are treated badly by the villagers after all. She is, in my opinion, also very controlling and narcissistic. She doesn't want Constance to go out and talk to people, she wants her all to herself.

Everything she says and everything she does confuses me. When she goes to the village she treats her stroll as a boardgame, and I don't understand why. She also buries objects in the ground and nails books to trees, because it would bring luck for her family home and her family. So this indicates that she believes in magic, which in turn is related to her childlike character.

I find it interesting that Merricat is afraid of change, so structure is very important to her. In the story she says that her cat has told her that change is coming, so I am very curious about what exactly is going to change and how Merricat then responds to this.

I would like to know exactly what mental problems Merricat has, because that is still not clear to me, even though it is obvious that she is mentally disturbed. I personally think that her mental state might come from the trauma of losing her parents at such an early age.

We have always lived in the castle

Selected passage

"I haven't been doing my duty," Constance said.

"I don't know what that means."

"I've been hiding here," Constance said slowly, as though she were not at all sure of the correct order of the words. She stood by the stove in the sunlight with colour in her hair and eyes and not smiling, and she said slowly, "I have let Uncle Julian spend all his time living in the past and particularly re-living that one dreadful day. I have let you run wild; how long has it been since you combed your hair?"

I could not allow myself to be angry, and particularly not angry with Constance, but I wished Charles dead. Constance needed guarding more than ever before and if I became angry and looked aside she might very well be lost. I said very cautiously, "On the moon…"

"On the moon," Constance said, and laughed unpleasantly.

"It's all been my fault," she said. "I didn't realize how wrong I was, letting things go on and on because I wanted to hide. It wasn't fair to you or to Uncle Julian."

I think this is one of the most important passages in the book because this is where Constance finally comes to realise that her home situation is not normal. It is partly because of Charles that it finally dawns on Constance that their way of life is unusual. She is aware of the fact that she has been closed off and isolated from the outside world all these years, she thinks this is her own fault while in my opinion it is all Merricat's fault. Constance also now understands that she cannot offer Merricat and Uncle Julian the right care. Uncle Julian should actually go to a hospital so that he can deal with his trauma of the Blackwood family's death and Merricat has been left a bit to her own devices all these years.

Also, in this passage, we again see Merricat's cruel and controlling side. Merricat feels a lot of hatred towards her cousin Charles; she even wishes him dead. She also tries to control and isolate Constance again by 'protecting' her from Charles.

We have always lived in the castle

Gothic novel

We have always lived in the castle is, to my mind, largely a gothic novel. The story is set in the great mansion of the Blackwood family that is situated on a private estate. Moreover, this private estate is still some distance from the inhabited village. This creates a grim and macabre atmosphere, as a lone house on a private property gives the reader an anxious feeling. Merricat also often escapes into nature, through this you can see that nature is also very present in the book which is also very typical of gothic fiction.

The theme of death and cruelty plays a big part in this book. You can recognise this in the following elements: almost the entire Blackwood family is dead, Merricat often fantasises about the death of people from the village in a cruel way, and Merricat has a strange obsession with deadly mushrooms about which she constantly talks to her cousin Charles.

I also think Merricat somehow represents two characters in the book. I think Merricat sees herself as the anti-hero, she herself is vulnerable and inadequate, and she fights a battle against evil. For Merricat, outside her and Constance, people are evil and she has to fight against them and keep them away to protect Constance and herself.

From my perspective as a reader, I see Merricat more as the crazy monster. She totally isolates Constance from the outside world and harms her mentally, she tries to get rid of Charles because he wants to take Constance away and I think she has also poisoned her family, but that has not been revealed yet.

Constance is more the powerless virgin who needs to be saved from the monster. She needs to be saved from the hold Merricat has over her.

The only aspect there that is not really gothic is that the main characters in the book are women, normally the main characters are male.

We have always lived in the castle

Selected passage

"I want to say I'm sorry. I was wicked last night."

I was still and cold, looking at her and remembering.

"I was very wicked," she said. "I never should have reminded you of why they all died."

"Then don't remind me now." I could not move my hand to reach over and takes hers.

"I wanted you to forget about it. I never wanted to speak about it, ever, and I'm sorry I did."

"I put it in the sugar."

"I know. I knew then."

"You never used sugar."

"No."

"So I put it in the sugar."

Constance sighed. "Merricat," she said, "we'll never talk about it again. Never."

I was chilled, but she smiled at me kindly and it was all right.

"I love you, Contance," I said.

"And I love you, my Merricat."

I think this is an important passage in the book because this is where Merricat really explains for the first time what she did that caused her family to die and why she hid the poison in the sugar. Throughout the passage, Constance also constantly says she regrets picking up the incident, that they won't talk about it again and that she didn't want to make Merricat remember it. In one way, I find this beautiful and touching and I can understand Constance wanting to protect Merricat. She is, after all, still her sister. But then again, on the other hand, I don't understand it at all that you want to protect your parents' and your brother's murderer. Every time Constance says she is sorry or starts talking about the murder, Merricat gets a certain reaction, she literally says 'I was still and cold' and 'I was chilled'. At this point I briefly think she is sorry for the murders, but then at the end she says 'but she smiled at me kindly and it was all right.' I found this so crazy, because Constance smiles at her once and suddenly everything is right again and she seems to have forgotten the whole murder again.

We have always lived in the castle

Similarities between The Lottery and We have always lived in the castle.

There are many similarities between the book 'We have always lived in the castle' and the short story 'The Lottery'. The first similarity is the motif of the stones that recurs in both stories. 

In 'The Lottery' the stones are used by the villagers to stone the person elected by the lottery and in 'We have always lived in the castle' they are used, also by the villagers, to smash the windows of the Blackwood family's house after the fire. In addition, this points to people's cruelty when they are in a group. In the book, the children also sing a song every time they see Merricat to sort of bully her, this again shows gruesomeness. 

The song can also be seen as a kind of tradition passed down from generation to generation, as Merricat herself says in the book that she thinks parents teach the song to their children. In 'The Lottery', it is the lottery that is a tradition and passed down from generation to generation. 

Although there are many similarities, there are also differences. One big difference is that in the short story, at first the residents get along very well and act friendly to each other, but then they turn into monsters and hurt each other. Partly because they are in a group and therefore have peer pressure and because it is an age-old tradition to stone people chosen by lottery. In the book it is just the opposite, the residents are very cruel and hateful towards the Blackwood family at first, but after the fire they regret it. They start apologising and bringing food to Merricat and Constance.

Why is English a world language?

Below you will find my powerpoint on the research question: why is English a world language?