The most central relationship in Shirley Jackson’s novel “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” is between the sisters Constance and Merricat Blackwood. In her article “The Establishment and Preservation of Female Power in Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” Lynette Carpenter argues that the centralizing of this relationship works to defy patriarchal structures of power for both sisters.
Based on your analysis of the text, do you believe that Constance Blackwood’s character is ultimately freed of the expectations placed on a woman in the mid twentieth century?
