“We have always lived in the castle”
We Have Always Lived in the Castle“We have always lived in the castle” is both the novel’s title and, in the accompanying critical account, a phrase for the Blackwoods’ defiant relation to exclusion. Its force lies in the reversal it carries: a family that suffers rejection can also treat separation as confirmation of its difference and as a condition it would not choose to surrender.
Title and Meaning
The phrase identifies the novel while suggesting a bounded family world. The critical account sharpens that suggestion by recasting the castle as an outcastle: not merely a refuge from the village, but a position outside its ordinary social order. This reading makes seclusion both a condition imposed by conflict and a form of identity the family can claim.
Exclusion and Self-Possession
The phrase is linked to the Blackwoods’ awareness of their snobbery toward the village and to the way their persecution can confirm their elevated self-image. In this interpretation, suffering does not only diminish them. Exile from a conformist group can also become an implicit moral victory and a kind of bohemian distinction, allowing the family to experience its separation as chosen and affirming.
The Narrowing World
The critical account places this self-possession within a world that is shrinking around Constance and Merricat. Their circumstances grow more confined, yet their inward allegiance becomes more defiant. The title phrase therefore holds together enclosure and resistance: the castle marks a restricted world, while the family’s insistence on belonging to it turns that restriction into a source of identity.
