We Have Always Lived in the Castle symbol guide
The garden, woods, and creek create Merricat and Constance’s natural refuge, offering privacy, beauty, and safety beyond the village’s hostility. Yet this shelter deepens their isolation: its “unfailing offers of refuge” make the outside world seem threatening while protecting a fragile dream ofper
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If the garden, woods, and creek offer Merricat a place where “no one could see us,” are they truly protecting the sisters, or quietly teaching them to fear every human connection—does this natural refuge represent freedom from the village, a retreat into memory, or a fragile comfort that can survive only while the outside world remains locked away?
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