We Have Always Lived In the Castle, Essay Example

Introduction

Throughout the centuries, outsiders, pariahs, and misfits have been victimized for their wrongdoings, which has resulted in them becoming scapegoats for their community or families. These are usually individuals who have refused to conform to societal norms and have chosen unconventional lifestyles and beliefs to the disapproval of all around them. People have viewed these outsiders as an example of ‘misbehavior’ for defying social conventions but ironically have become new models for their communities in the process.

In this essay, I would like to analyze how Toni Morrison and Shirley Jackson use literary aspects such as allusions, symbolism, foreshadowing, tones, and epigraphs in their texts to show how an outsider strengthens the unified bond between community members.

Both the main characters Sula and Merricat, are scapegoats of their communities; all the ‘bad’ is projected onto them. Nevertheless, it is evident that these communities are better off with these outsiders as they served as a model for bad behavior. Thus, these protagonists played a pivotal role in creating a more unified bond within the community, which has banished them, as the more they adhered to their unique lifestyle, the more the community members would deliberately ensure that they do not resemble them in any way. Thus, the further they would detach themselves from what they perceived to be bad behavior through the lens of these two main characters, the more they would resolve their wrongful behavior which thus, created a more unified (yet homogenous) community.

Abstract

Literary devices are the soul of a literal piece and give life to it. What devices to infuse or not are usually at the author’s discretion, and examples of these literary devices include; similes, metaphors, allusions, flashbacks, among many others. In this paper, we are going to place two books; “Sula” and “We Have Always Lived in a Castle,” under the lens, applying much scrutiny, whilst investigating the literary devices employed by the two authors of these great reads, as well as themes present, the books’ tones, genres, brief character analysis, setting of the stories and a lot more, in light of literal analysis.

Literary Aspects: “Sula” vs. “We Have Always Lived in a Castle”

Inked by celebrated American novelist Toni Morrison, the book “Sula” sets a perfect example of how literary elements are blended effortlessly into the book. On the other hand, “We Have Always Lived in a Castle,” authored by Shirley Jackson, provides a pedestal upon which most literal pieces in the 20^th century perceive to be the gold standards of writing. Both books tend to focus on stories of individuals who are labeled as rebels, outsiders, and pariahs in their communities. Their behaviors influence not only the community but also the champion for change. This is evident where the main actors Nel and Sula friendship survive the test of time. They are both misfits as they do not align themselves to the societal conventions as black women in the ’20th century. Another lot of misfits, according to Shirley Jackson’s book, are Merricat Blackwood and Constance, her sister, who gets isolated from the community and live outside the castle in solitude in their home. They get separated from society when they lost their family members after being poisoned by sugar in a breakfast cooked by Constance. Evidently, the protagonists in Morrison’s “Sula” include Hannah, Sula, and Nel, whereas in “We Have Always Lived in a Castle,” Charles gets portrayed as the chief antagonist, alongside the villagers, while Merricat comes across as the Protagonist. Both writers emphasize the roles of outsiders, pariahs, and misfits in community development. Given the negative records for development in communities, an outsider approaches issues before initiating development activities. However, an outsider can leave when faced with dilemmas in the communities where they live.

Form, Structure, and Style

First and foremost would be to decipher the narrator’s point of view. In the first book, “Sula,” the author has used a third-person narration approach. This effectively achieves omniscience while the reader is allowed to access the inner thoughts of each character. This proves to be extremely helpful since the readers are allowed to reserve judgment as the author judges them not either. For Shirley Jackson’s book, on the other hand, the story is given from a 1^st person perspective, with the person in question being Merricat, “Mary Katherine Blackwood.” Language enables authors to share their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in the novels. The language used in “Sula” by Morrison provides ample evidence through dialectics of identity about the anchorage, voyage, and ascent. The tone used in Morrison’s book is very straightforward, as she does not waste much precious time mincing words or using superfluous English; she prefers to adopt a simple and more direct approach. For “We Have Always Lived in a Castle,” the author uses a very frightening, at times sinister, and darkly humorous tone for the better part. Morrison also employs a lot of allusions, mostly biblical, like, for example, Eva in the book references Eve from the bible. There are also allusions to Shadrack, who is a biblical character known mostly for the incident where he walked through fire unscathed. Apart from this, Ham’s sons mirror the ideology that Africans are descended from Noah’s son, Ham. More to this, there is Jude, who draws similar traits to Judas, the disciple that famously betrayed Christ. There are also secondary sources where allusion applies as well, like the scriptures borrowing heavily from “Chicken Little” and the conspicuous epigraph linked to the play “The Tattoo Rose”; “Nobody knew my rose of the world but me […] I had too much glory. They don’t want glory like that in Nobody’s heart.” This epigraph is heavily linked with Sula’s facial birthmark, which many find that it looks like a rose. Morrison focuses on Hannah to reveal how outsiders, pariahs, and misfits act as scapegoats. The novel “Sula” by Morrison addresses how traditions affect social relationships. Morrison asserts that “Hannah’s companionships with ladies were, seldom and short-lived, eventually discovering what a hazard she was” (26). The language used by Morrison enabled the author to communicate the central ideas of the novel. For example, Hannah had brief affairs with men because she did not fancy the institution of marriage and practices that defined matrimony. Pariahs pursue various practices in an attempt to establish meaning and attain enjoyment. Through language, Morrison communicates events leading to Hannah’s reference as a pariah. A literary language is different from other linguistic approaches. The difference is brought out from the form of language employed in the novels by Morrison and Shirley. Through language, the authors communicate that misfits panic and are banished by adherents to communal practices when mutual objectives are disregarded due to individuals’ self-centered undertakings. For instance, Morrison asserts that failure to moderate irritability hindered Hannah from relating with community members. There is the light application of similes in” Sula,” a simile which can provide evidence here is the softball of fur that was scattered will now create something new, a new change within Nel and maybe in the community as well. At that point, it shows that she felt different about Sula; she realized it was only with her that she was able to be more herself, more vulnerable. She realized Sula was not actually all bad as she had perceived her, so we see this ambivalence of good and bad and a hope for change.

Symbolism is heavily used by both authors in their books. In “Sula,” for instance, birds are used to invoke the notion of flight. This evidently makes sense because Sula flees at a certain point in the book. Flowers are also used by the author intermittently to bring out certain points, such as Sula’s rose-shaped birthmark, which serves as the book’s epigraph. Apart from the above-stipulated examples, there is also the use of water, which was associated with demise in the book. For Nel and Sula, it represents Chicken’s drowning. Also, a townsperson is recorded as dying in the tunnel slides and hitting the ice. In “We Have Always Lived in a Castle,” foreshadowing is evident where the revelation that Merricat is the real killer/ poisoner by comparing her to a werewolf, a deadly creature.

The Role of An Outsider in Community Formation

Often, outsiders have different cultures, class, lifestyle and their geographical locations are diverse. An outsider visits and settles in a community due to the need to engage in development works. Outside figures embrace their actions by not shying away from partaking in practices that are frowned upon by others. The friends Sula and Nel are raised from very different and diverse backgrounds. The story is based majorly on the friendship of these two individuals. Nel has grown in a household that she finds pretty suffocating and orderly. This is because Nel’s mother, although not necessarily controlling and unloving, is described as someone who views everything systematically and believes in social norms and order. Nel’s mother also demands a lot of respect, is often very strict with her children, and follows all social conventions, which Nel finds disturbing.

On the other hand, Sula is from quite an unorthodox background. Her grandmother Eva is said to have cut her leg up to cut her family, and she also burnt her son to relieve herself of his childish habits of dependency. Sula’s mother is also labeled as a misfit in society as she tends to sleep with multiple men in the Bottom. Although the background of both Nel and Sula seem quite distinct and unique, they are quite close to each other. Their relationship seems to be one of equality and honesty. Sula and Nel tend to find peace in each other when at one time, they are stressed and dig a hole, and they buried the trash. This action was symbolic of them together trying to get rid of bad things in their lives.

In Shirley’s book, Mary Catherine goes out and does errands as her sister never gets out of the house; she goes out to the garden but not beyond the family estate. However, the community is not fond of her. The uncle relays the history of the family, but he does not have many visitors to give the story.

Mary Catherine loves the sister but seems very regretful of not being friendlier to the uncle, the uncle is called Julian. Apart from this, she hates the town’s people and loves the isolated life, and she wants to do this through magic. In addition to magic, she wants to kill people and shutter people away in order to keep her privacy. Mary Catherine cares too much about her older sisters, and Constance takes care of their family so much, she is sometimes tempted by other people to relate to the external environment outside the isolation. Constance creates an environment for both the sister and uncle. Isolation is distinct in that they are comfortable with this life and are not bothered by it, and they are happy about it. The town’s people have a mob mentality which initially in the study was suppressed until it had an opportunity to escape.

The community hates this family because six years prior, the family that lived in this house were poisoned, and the villagers thought that Constance killed the parents and the rest of the family. The Blackwoods are thought to be poor, yet the rest of the villagers seem quite poor. Mary is 18 but does not behave her age; the way that she behaves makes her sound 13 and feels as if she is a child, and this is likely the consequence after the tragic experience of the death. This death really lets them live in a bubble, and this makes them very stuck in constant stages and past time. They do not want to relate to the world and overcome their very past. They seem to be hunted by their past and their mistakes and also their isolation from other people. Everyone believes that Constance killed their family, as she was taken to court and questioned, but was acquitted innocent of the crime. Mary goes to the town twice a week to get vegetables, and the children taunt her with songs of the sister being a murderer; she constantly gets people staring at her. There are “no trespassing” signs everywhere, which make her feel extremely unwanted, and like an outsider.

Back to “Sula,” the book has several misfits who act as scapegoats in society. Hannah, Sula’s mother, serves as a scapegoat for Sula when she comes back from college and decides to sleep around as her mother did in the past. The community also uses Shadrack as a scapegoat, as they take their dear lives with the influence of Shadrack, who acts as a leader. Shadrack was a bitter man. He is a man from war, and the fight both shook him and also messed him up. Sula also used her family background as a scapegoat for her actions. This is because her family was unsystematic, and they never did follow the social conventions of society. The grandmother burned his son because she was tired of his dependency on her as a parent, and she could not keep up with his childish behavior. Sula’s mother is also one who sleeps around and therefore does not provide a role model to her daughter. Sula is also blamed for the divorce of Nel since she slept with Nel’s husband. Sula is also blamed for the poor condition of living of the family as they had lost the family’s breadwinner. In the context of the book, it is keen to note that Nel was not a woman as empowered as women today and therefore may have faced difficulty looking for work in the Bottom as women and men did not get the same privileges. Sula is also responsible for the staleness in the friendship between her and Nel. This is caused by the infidelity between her and Sula’s husband. The impact of this infidelity was both financial and of friendship as they were not as close as they initially were, although they felt connected as friends. This is evident when Nel mourns for her friend when she dies.

Identity Reconciliation

The style used in Morrison’s novel enabled the author to convey information on how protagonists regain their identity. Morrison uses a third-person perspective throughout the novel. In the novel, Hannah reconciled her identity with that of the community by guiding Sula to observe decency. Although Hannah had revolted on the societal traditions, she regained identity through the family, which is the community’s basic unit. According to Morrison, “Nel, she remembered, always thrived on a crisis. The closed place in the water; Hannah’s funeral” (67). Hannah had endured challenging community aspects, which served as a lesson for Sula after the mother’s death. Hannah’s affirmation about love changed Sula’s perspective of the mother’s practices. Reconciliation with Sula enabled Hannah to reconcile her identity through the family. Thereby, third-person narrative enabled Morrison to tell a narration through characters not mentioned in the novel.

Morrison’s book takes the readers through a journey, from where Sula and Ne become friends, the blossoming of their relationship, to the point where Sula lies with Nel’s husband. After this point, the story takes on a spiral, breaking the relationship between the two girls, but more pertinent is Sula’s failure to comprehend why her affair with Nel’s husband, Jude was wrong. This was mainly because she perceived that the two ladies were free to share anything, even Jude. The climax is when Nel vents her anger on Sula, letting out all she had kept inside her, with there being a lot of tension as Sula attempts to explain the affair, although not satisfactorily. Eventually, Sula passes away, paving for the winding down of the story, “a falling away, a dislocation was taking place.” As much as scapegoating Sula brought people in the Bottom temporary relief, they now have to grapple with their numerous shortcomings. People start being less kind to one another and quit trying to better themselves.

In conclusion, literary elements such as language, structure, and style play an integral part in the text’s implication among readers. Shirley and Morrison apply these literary tools to help uncover the standout characteristics outsiders, pariahs, and misfits possess. These characteristics call for a great deal of attention from readers since these contribute towards society’s realization of its turning point towards advancements. Critical analyses of the two novels by Morrison and Shirley assisted in unearthing the mannerisms via which outsiders facilitate community development. Further, analysis has also helped ascertain that self-definition is detrimental for solitary individuals in order for them to reclaim their identity in society or family setups purposefully. With the help of analyzed texts, it is therefore evident that literary elements applied in both books; “Sula” and “We Have Always Lived in a Castle,” have infinitely aided in the conveyance of the message that an outsider is integral, especially for establishing models for sorting out communal issues. Nevertheless, it is evident that these communities are better off with these outsiders as they served as a model for bad behavior.

Works Cited

Jackson, Shirley. We have always lived in the castle. Penguin UK, 2009.

Morrison, Toni. Sula. Sperling & Kupfer, 2012.