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We Have Always Lived In The Castle Masculinity Quotes

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How is masculinity presented in “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”? Shirley Jackson explores different aspects of Masculinity in “We Have Always Lived in the Castle '', this is done through her portrayal of the male characters in the book and her depiction of their approaches to being masculine. There is a clear contrast between the two remaining male members of the Blackwood family, Charles and Uncle Julian, and the aspects of masculinity that they adopted. Charles possesses negative or toxic masculine character traits, while the masculine character traits Uncle Julian has are more positive. Charles is depicted as possessing a lot of stereotypically masculine character traits. For instance, even though he is initially a stranger in the …show more content…

From Merricat’s perspective, there is a distinct parallel between Charles’s personality and her father’s. Besides the physical similarities between the characters, like Charles having an unmistakable resemblance to and dressing like his uncle, it could be argued that their cold and money-oriented personalities are where Merricat draws these conclusions from. It is inferred that Charles reminds Merricat of her father when, in chapter seven, she states "Punish me?" … "Punish me? You mean send me to bed without my dinner?" The repetition of the statement "Punish me?" highlights Merricat’s astonishment at the situation. It had already been established that sending Merricat to bed without her dinner had been her parents' favourite punishment for her when she misbehaved, evident when Constance explains in chapter two that "Merricat was always in disgrace. I used to go up the backstairs with a tray of dinner for her after my father had left the dining room. She was a wicked, disobedient child” So the fact that sending her to bed without food had been her first guess of what her punishment from Charles would consist of further emphasises the similarities between these characters. His unforgiving personality reminds Merricat too well of her father and it evidently is not a character trait of her father that she admires or misses, as his insistence to punish her frightens her enough for her to run

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