We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Mary Katherine the Unreliable Narrator “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”- Arthur Conan Doyle. Mary Katherine (Merricat), is the main protagonist of We Have Always Lived in the Castle written by Shirley Jackson. She has a dark humor, a quirky personality, and is persecuted by the village people. This strong play on pathos makes you root for her as a character. Merricat’s family all except for her uncle Julian and her sister Constance are dead. One is made to believe they can trust the girl but it is then revealed that she is a murderer. Thus making Mary Katherine the perfect unreliable narrator. Mary Katherine’s mental instability was presented in the beginning of the novel, not to mention she presents the symptoms of many mental illnesses including psychotic tendencies, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Paranoia. At age twelve Merricat commits a premeditated murder on her whole family excluding her sister and her uncle, whom she meant to kill. Merricat feels no remorse for her actions, in fact it is not uncommon for her to laugh at the situation, “I was laughing when I came back into the drawing room, [...]”(Jackson). Uncle Julian had just been discussing the details of the murder with some guests that came to visit Constance and Merricat decided it would be fun to joke about the circumstances and encourage fear in the visitors by asking them if they wanted sugar in their tea. Her psychotic behavior is not only shown in her remorselessness but in the fact that she would kill again if circumstances lead to it. Many times she thinks about murdering the villagers and Charles, ““I said aloud to Constance, ‘I am going to put death in all their food and watch them die.’ Constance stirred, and the leaves rustled. “The way you did before?’ she asked…’Yes,’ I said after a minute, ‘the way I did before’” (110). Mary Katherine is not only psychotic in a murderous sense however, she also suffers from delusions. These delusions include picturing a world with her and her sister completely isolated where they would wear feathers and rubies and live on the moon. This behavior extends past a childlike demeanor by its extremism and is psychotic. Additionally, Mary Katherine suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), she has certain ritualistic activities that she takes part in such as, burying artifacts and nailing books to trees in order to protect herself and keep Constance from leaving to the outside world, “[...] all perhaps turned to jewels by now, held together under the ground in a powerful taut web which never loosened, but held fast to guard us” (Jackson). In some people with OCD it is not uncommon to partake in certain activities because they believe that by doing it something else negative will not happen. This false sense of security she creates for herself may also be a coping mechanism for the guilt of her murders and the worry that she might get caught. Furthermore, Mary Katherine suffers from paranoia. Due to the fact Merricat’s state of mind is so questionable it is hard to differentiate between what she believes to have happened and what actually did. Throughout the novel it is made clear that she wants her sister all to herself. When her cousin Charles comes to the Blackwood family mansion she begins to fear that he will replace her and or make Constance decide to return to society. It is possible that Charles was actually a threat to Mary Katherine and not just there to steal valuables as was made evident, but it could also be likely that the fear of Constance leaving her or loving her less began to plague her mind which she then attributed to Charles, “Where would poor Cousin Mary go if her sister turned her out…what would poor Cousin Mary do if Constance and Charles didn’t love her?” (78). As I have stated Charles could have threatened to remove Merricat but due to Merricat’s childlike jealousy and love for isolation she is unreliable. Evidently, Shirley Jackson gives us all the details we need to understand Mary Katherine in the first paragraph but then covers it up with the simple use of pathos to make us feel bad for the character. Mary Katherine suffers from many mental and psychological disorders that provide to the reader context on her unreliability in her retelling of the events that occured in the Blackwood home. Merricat may seem to be a child that one could trust but on the inside lies something much more sinister, an urge to kill.
*I read this novel online so if i used a quote and could not find the page number by looking it up, I just used the authors last name as the citation rather than the page number.