![]() In a more typical feminist retelling, the house would be akin to a prison, where the women are trapped in domesticity because they do not conform to societal expectations. But the women do have tenuous ties to the community: Merricat regularly ventures into town to buy food and books (although she spends a considerable portion of that time wishing all the villagers dead), and visitors occasionally stop by the house. ![]() We Have Always Lived in the Castle follows two sisters, Merricat and Constance Blackwood, who already have a somewhat “witchy” reputation at the beginning of the book: most of their entire family died of poisoning a year before, and the women spend most of their time locked in their house with their uncle, away from the villagers who ostracize and despise them. But where most feminist retellings complicate familiar stories, Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle takes an inverted approach: the novel starts with relatable (if spooky) characters, and then tracks their transformation into the “neighborhood witch” archetype. From Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties to Madeline Miller’s Circe, prominent women writers have recently been reworking problematic feminine archetypes from male-centric myths. ![]()
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