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We Have Always Lived in the Castle study guide
Key characters from We Have Always Lived in the Castle, with concise study-guide summaries.
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Mary Katherine Blackwood, known as Merricat, is an imaginative, watchful eighteen-year-old whose fierce devotion to Constance shapes her world. She uses “magic” and guarded routines to resist the hostile village, making her both a protective sister and an unsettlingly private guide.
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The Blackwood family is held together by its house, inherited possessions, and strict domestic order, creating a powerful identity that also separates it from the village. Its “stable possessions” offer security, yet their weight suggests a legacy shaped by secrecy, loss, and resistance to change.
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Jonas is Merricat’s “special pet” and steady companion, sharing her hidden corners and magical view of the world. Loyal and comforting, he strengthens the sisters’ private world while linking their house to the watchful natural world around it. Iat’s “special pet,” or does her bond with him help create a private world beyond the reach of other people? As he follows her into hiding places, listens to her imagined stories, and returns for warmth, what does his quiet companionship reveal about trust, safety, and the kinds of relationships Merricat can accept?
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Constance Blackwood is the house-bound guardian of her family’s routines, remembered by Merricat as “the most precious person” in her world. Her kindness, careful cooking, and devotion to Merricat make the house a refuge, yet fear leaves her torn between protecting the past and facing change.
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The villagers form a hostile, shifting crowd rather than a single individual, watching, gossiping about, and mocking the Blackwoods while treating them as outsiders. Their shared cruelty, captured in “always hated us,” makes ordinary community life a source of fear, pressure, and public humiliation.
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Julian Blackwood is a frail survivor who “could not” visit the village, relying on Constance while working through papers that preserve the family’s past. His questions and firm defence of his manuscript make him a witness to history and a vulnerable presence.
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The Village Children are memorable as a faceless chorus, repeating “Merricat, said Connie” to turn the Blackwoods’ painful history into a playground rhyme. Their teasing shows how prejudice is learned, shared, and made to seem harmless through group laughter.
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Charles arrives claiming to “help us”, but his resemblance to the sisters’ father and his interest in Blackwood possessions make him seem like a claimant to their inheritance. His confident, controlling manner unsettles Constance and turns Merricat against him.