Quick suggestion: it would really be helpful if you added time stamps for the start of each new story, either in your video description or a pinned comment. I fall asleep during the first or second story, as is the whole point, but it plays through while I sleep. It would be nice to be able to skip to the second or third story the next time I play the video, and so on.
One thing I would like to point out regarding "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" is the theme of preservation. It's right there in the title, and throughout the book, the phrase "we have always..." is repeated. Merricat's magic rituals are a way of preserving the stasis around the house, using objects she preserved from her family. She's attached to her sister Constance, who may very well be emblematic of the concept of "constance." She acts childish, despite being 18. It's possible she killed her family as a way of preserving the house and her relationship to Constance, as suggested in the video, but it may very well also be her way of preserving the family as well.
Also to emphasis this point, the house itself is very static. The jars of preserved food from generations ago, the old china that was brought into the house with every new generation of women that married into the family, how the father's room is kept intact despite the father being long dead, Merrykat not allowing herself to stay in her father's room or wear her uncle's clothes (despite her own sister giving her permission). I think the perservation jars and old jams really symbolized this theme and especially with how Merrykat got her wish of constant stasis by the end and how Constance completely reverted to Merry's way of thinking and effectively became a prisoner of her own mind and her sister. Really an interesting book all around.
I read this story completely differently. It didnt feel to me as though they were both happy to escape society. To me it seemed as though Constance had a desire to be part of society but that Merrikat was holding her hostage, whether from fear thar she would end up like the rest of her family or because she didn't think Merrikat could live without her. She was the one that let Charles in and though I didn't like him at all, it seemed like Constance was beginning to stand up to Merrikat after he arrived and had finally begun to move past her family's deaths only to return to catering to Merrikat after she'd set the house on fire. If you were to liken it to the authors life it would feel to me more like someone wanting to be part of the world but being held back by their anxiety. I'll admit, mine may be a more surface level read.
also the only time Constance starts saying things that make sense, such as the fact she should have sent the uncle to an hospital, she stops herself. She's clearly afraid of Merrycat, and the situation they end up in is just the product of Merrycat's twisted way of seeing life
Is is also possible that Merrikat thought not that Constance couldn’t live without her, but rather Merrikat couldn’t live without Constance. So in a twisted turn of events, killing some people and other events just to keep her became necessary for her own survival.
I first read 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' when I was around 21 or 22, and after seeing the mostly-accurate movie adaptation (they made Charles an attempted rapist at the end, probably just to make Merricat look better by comparison), it solidified a suspicion I'd had when I read the story: What if Constance's lack of discipline towards Merricat - feeding her whenever she asks for meals, letting her do whatever she wants, never scolding her, never punishing her, never telling her to do much more than wash her hands before eating - isn't just because of her kind and complacent nature. Constance was groomed by their parents to be a picture-perfect housewife, but that's not all. My head-canon is that Constance lets Merricat run wild because, in part, she's *afraid* of her. Remember, Merricat had been sent up to her room without dinner that night, so we can assume that punishment was the straw that broke the camel's back. So, Constance knows that Merricat is willing to respond to discipline with murder. So, on some level, she lets her little sister walk all over her because she's afraid that, should she displease Merricat in any way, Merricat will kill her, too.
Merricat is the ultimate abuser in this situation. Manipulating everything, even killing family, just so Constantine can never leave. She claims to be protecting her, but it sounds like Constantine would have thrived as a wife.
@@therancidpizzabox2977 well, yes. Though in either case, she’d have lived under someone’s thumb. If her parents had lived, she’d have been married off to a man from a similar background as her. She may have had to do less housework, instead hiring on a servant or two, but she still would have been expected to serve him. Here, she serves her sister. I agree that Merricat is abusive. I would just like to point out that, even if she’d never killed their parents, Constance wouldn’t have been truly free.
@@alicenolfi2095 can you elaborate on what you mean by truly free? Because I don’t see working for a boss all day being truly free either. Seems to me that everyone serves someone and the best you can do is choose/hope that the one over you is a good person
@@therancidpizzabox2977by ‘truly free’, I mean free enough to choose her life. Free enough to choose her husband, maybe. Free enough to choose whether or not she’d rather grab whatever money she can carry and simply run away. Free enough to choose her fate instead of having it thrust upon her.
@@therancidpizzabox2977 I agree. In my own post I think I may have understated Merrikat's role as an abuser, so I wanted to point back to your reply here, because you're absolutely right. and that's an important takeaway to this story.
worth noting: magical thinking is a manifestation of OCD. To me, describing it as such makes the whole thing feel more grounded, which, naturally, really helps with domestic horror
Then again... she sensed that change was coming before Charles came. And he only came after her defensive book fell off its nail. Maybe there was just a little something behind her magic.
@@jedicraftmaster2426 OCD is built on the idea that certain compulsions can do something to relieve one's anxious obsessions. Merricat's obsession seems to be an agoraphobic one, related to fears of the outside world- and her compulsive behaviors are repetitive and rationally detached from the obsession; burying silver coins, choosing words that will hex the day and purposefully choosing avoidable ones, and so on.
@ohokay4663 I can certainly understand your reasoning. I'll let you know that I am diagnosed with ocd and have had to go to therapy for quite some time for it. I don't disagree with your reasoning however there is one more component that is essential to ocd. Since anyone can have compulsions to act in a certain way it does not mean that those who do have ocd. First there must be the intrusive thought that is where ocd starts. Then the person will respond to the intrusion through compulsions. The compulsions must be extremely repetitive but can change through time. Going through your statement I don't think your reasoning is wrong. I do believe she compulsively responds to her fears however I'm uncertain as to whether her fears are caused by intrusive thoughts or merely external pressures. Though external aspects can certainly cause an influx in intrusive thoughts they can be seperate. Still though I think there is a very strong argument to be made that she has ocd!
or rather the madness that was already there slowly starting to show. Their life was already absurd as it was at the start of the novel, the rituals, the organization, the was constance was forbidden from leaving the house. The house is just a shell at the end, but one may argue that an house full of objects of dead people, never being used, never being moved, and housed by people leaving such an absurd life is aleady a shell of itself
This kind of story is so foreign to me. I grew up with a family that respected my mom for choosing to be a stay-at-home mother. Everyone helped out with taking care of the house, and I can't ever remember a time I wasn't folding my clothes and cleaning up my room. When my siblings and I were older, she started working on finishing her schooling, and I remember we all took on more of the household chores so she could focus on her studies. The thought a story like this could exist is a new perspective for me, and I appreciate the storytellers who share the things I never could have imagined in my upbringing, to address the things I thought were already gone from the world.
May I say that your experience is likely very rare and precious - and I am very glad that you grew up in such a way. I certainly didn't and I don't think I know anyone else who has. Hopefully far more people in future years will look at this and say "how strange the world must have been."
What's odd is how the villagers hate their family. Not just the suspected murderer, but their family. Her whole family got murdered, but they jeer at Mary and sing cruel nursery rhymes about her and her family. She did nothing wrong, in fact, she was a victim, yet they look at her like she's a monster because she was related to someone who may have tried to kill her and their entire family.
Wierd to me too but then I lived in the middle of nowhere, if anything I was the outcast lol. And then people wonder why I can't human properly around others despite attempts at practice for three decades. It's so easy for them XD
that's cuz you assume they never realized her sister is innocent. See her sister was proven innocent by investigation, her uncle is demented and she's the only one who seems completely fine out and about with her whole family having been killed. What I genuinely find horrifying is despite it being clear she murdered her family twice with no remorse just a favorable narrative makes ppl look at her as the wronged victim and not the monster she is.
When it comes to Jackson's domestic horror, I have an affinity for "The Summer People" -- Coming from a rural coastal place, I know a lot about Summer People...
Same here. Except the Summer People now live here year-round, many of them, and they don't mix in or change. It gives me the creeps when I go to the store and don't meet or even see anyone I know. And it's getting too expensive for ordinary people to live here.
it seems a bit ironic that Merrikat sought to escape the traditional housewife role, but essentially imprisoned Constance into a sort of traditional housewife role to her, refusing to let her go just like a jealous husband might refuse to let his wife go to college or get a job.
Yup. Ruined her life and a chance at her own choices by locking her away from the real world. Cult like behavior of the Merrikat. She took the lives of her parents, her sister (by locking and controlling her) and then in her selfish rage she starts a fire that kills their uncle. Merri is a cold killer. The townspeople should have gone after her to free Constance and Julian.
I don't know this story, but I'll have to look into it. In a lot of ways, it makes me think of my dear, sweet mother, who passed away back in 2020. She was the one who really got me into stories and writing in the first place. Great stuff, y'all. Much love.
This may sound silly, but Zatura actually really freaked me out as a kid in the sense that the familiar environment was the only environment period. The only other movie that made me feel like this was Skinamarink
Thank you so much for covering Shirley Jackson! I've always wondered what else she wrote... I do think I'm going to have to push back a little, bit, Talebot, on the idea that Mary Cat and Constance are free from the Patriarchy while shutting themselves up in their house. The text of the novel may support you, but at a glance, the women are still housebound, caregivers, and have no other opportunities, not even marriage, not any more. True, within their home they make their own decisions, but otherwise, it seems a relatively meager form of liberation. Even Mary Cat's self-appointed role as town witch is following a traditional cultural path.
@@yggdrasil2 But ONLY her house. And only when there's no fully-aware man in it. And what would happen to her if she tried to leave and make her life elsewhere, without the kind of education and upbringing some of us give to our daughters now? Talebot lays that bleak choice out pretty well.
@@Vinemaple Who are you talking about now? Mary-Cat doesn't want anyone to leave the house, possibly for that reason on a subconscious level, bit that doesn't mean it's open season to mistreat people this way.
@@yggdrasil2 I should clarify I'm only talking about the side issue of what kind of freedom Constance and Mary Cat have as women in rural mid-20th-century America. You are quite right to point out that Constance, living under an abuser like Mary Cat, has no meaningful freedom at all. Talebot made a comment that the sisters were protected from "the Patriarchy" while living in their bleak, secluded life. I don't think that would be meaningfully true, in that situation, at that time, and I don't think the story, as Talebot summarizes it, bears it out, either. Mary Cat may not want to leave, but the society they live in traps them there, as well.
Talefoundry. I have had a hard time lately. My mental health needs to be cared for and my motivation has been shot. Your videos remind me of the inspiration, joy and creativity that exists among us. You help me daydream and bring to life worlds I never thought I could dream of. You give me new books and stories to explore. Thank you, I cannot explain in words how much of an understatement that is, but thank you.
I havent read this story, yet, but based off of the retelling in this, I think a big theme is the concept of 'the norm might not be the best path for everyone' or 'what is expected to be good, wont always make everyone happy'. The sisters went from a life that was planned out, they were to grow up, get married, give children to their husbands and be an object in a pretty house. Then they become the witches of the town. They are called killers. They are hated. And then they lose their house and eventually the people of the town leave offerings for them, like they are spirits to be appeased. And in the end, they are happy. The culture of the time was so set in stone. As a woman, you had your life planned out and you were to be happy with it. You were expected to be happy with it. But this, this is such a deviation from that path, and yet they are happy. Other than the family murders, Im happy for them. And if this reflects the feelings of the author, I am so sad for her. This whole story could be seen as something she would have rather gone though if she could. How she would have been happier in a burnt down house, alone with only 1 person, but that one person truly loves you, and she would have been happier there than where she ended up, the idyllic 50's house wife. And honestly, same. I would rather be alone, in a burnt down hovel, given offerings as if I am an angry god, than to be under the yoke of expectations that pruned away all that I am and could have been. Dont murder anyone, but definitely seek a path that brings you joy in the face of expectation and conformity. There is nothing wrong with the standard, but if that standard expects you to deform yourself to fit it? Screw it, be a witch in the woods. At least you'd be free to be you.
Ew. completely disagree. She isn't "called" a killer, she *is one.* and she treats her older sister like a child. IF anything, it is the younger sister who traps her older sister and treats her like an object. She is possessive, abusive, selfish, and cruel! This story (since the only objective worth of any story is the impact it has on the reader) is to warn people against abusing your loved ones! The little sister is disgusting! This story DOESN:T give any empathy for people like her! Although, if you would rather be alone, (and as you mentioned: "angry" ...huh i wonder why?) then it's your life! At least you would choose that life, instead of being forced into it by Marry Cat. IF anything Mary Cat is the abusive symbol of the author's horrible husband.
and "they" aren't happy. only Marry Cat is... ofc her older sister says "I'm happy" because she has been sheltered and objectified by her younger sister and doesn't know any better. the older sister has no agency and the whole story comes off as very misogynistic.
@@BenjaminAlternate understandable. My only interaction with this story is this video, so I might be misinterpreting it. Its a bad outcome in a bad situation that 2 broken people are trying to find happiness. Its not ideal. Or healthy in anyway. I know I was looking at it with rose tinted glasses. I don't condone killing or manipulation of others. But in this story, in fiction, I think there is some room for a little unearned positivity about the stories outcome, as long as you know that the bad actions of the fictional characters shouldn't be replicated in real life. If these people were real? Oof, they wouldn't be on my list of "top 20 people to model your life after", but the desperation of wanting to escape the trappings of forced expectation is a concept that can be understandable, even emulated, as long as you know how to translate those feelings appropriately into the real world.
The fact that you have to add "don't murder anyone" proves that you're already looking at this the wrong way. Murder can be a moral act in a story if it serves a symbolic purpose but the obvious idea behind the story is that Merrycat is taking over rulership in the patriarchal system of their family for the exact same reason as that system was kept alive in the first place: possessiveness and conservatism.
@@yggdrasil2 I ment "dont murder anyone" in real life. Im all for murder in stories, I just think, with exception to extreme circumstances of self-defense and the defense of others, people shouldn't kill other people in real life. Murder in a story? All for it. I see the importance of it. Im a horror fan and have come to terms with the inevitability of dying eventually and made peace with that because of death and murder in stories. But to kill someone, a real person, for some semblance of control or show of will-power, I don't think thats an okay thing to do in real life. We should 100% take the lessons from stories, but need to learn how to translate those lessons healthily to real life. Murder shouldn't be apart of that translation.
I've read that the reveal that Mary Cat is the poisoner and functionally villain of the story ( with secondary antagonist being Cousin Edward) is an act of breaking the readers heart. I remember being a bit disappointed in the whole story personally
The novel itself may be different, but from Talebot's summary, Mary Cat seemed the obvious suspect. That may be one reason the solution to the mystery is a trivial part of the story.
@@yggdrasil2 I honestly don't have a good answer to that. I can only tell you that I found the story to be a bit of a let down. It's not even that Mary Cat did in fact kill her family that I have an issue with, it was just the entire story itself didn't do it for me.
@@Vinemaple Maybe in hindsight, i can personally say I wasn't expecting it but I can also say it wasn't actively engaged in that aspect of the story anyway .
The realization that Merricat was the killer started for me early on, and if you go back and look, Jackson does an amazing job laying the groundwork for it. Also, there's a reading that the magic worked: she says the "magic words" (thus jinxing them) just before things start to go "bad".
I compare Shirley Jackson to Ursula le Guin. Both women were housewives that only wrote when the chores were done. Jackson was sad, Ursula was serene and joyful. Le Guin's husband loved and respected her. Le Guin's mother adored her and supported her emotionally. I think you can see the difference.
I have just realized something strange. When first i've seen you, this channel was... Smaller, more petite, endearing in a strange, evedently genuine way. Now, the channel is much bigger, making animations, live dravs, a ton of effects, and i just ache to see what more you all could add to the channel. It seems like its a transation time beetween a indie project and a comunication giant. It just seems the best time to document your growth, but not the best in total, its the best of time to follow you, but there is a melancholy for better time yet to come, thath stings even more for the near certainty thath you all will improve.
I remember having to analyse this book for high school. Thanks for resurfacing the trauma :) Good to see what an actual master of literature makes the of the symbolism and ideologies in the novel!
The sisters huddling away from the townsfolk after they realize they were unnecessarily cruel to them kind of reminds me of videos of people leaving food out for stray animals. They are very clearly scared and hiding away from people. Unless its in Istanbul, then its like cats basically own the city.
OMG I own We Have Always Lived in the Castle! I recognized the intro immediately, it's such a wonderful book & has such a unique concept. I'm glad you made a video centering around it & domestic horror in general, it's a very underutilized idea :)
This was a great video! Shirley Jackson's The Lottery was assigned reading when I was in high school and the story has stayed with me to this day because of how chilling it was. And also of course because of Mrs. Jackson's incredible writing! Now I want to read this story!
During the comparison of the sisters, I adored watching the art shading get filled. I really enjoy your technique! I learned something tangentially to this video content! Thanks! Now, back to finish the video. Edit: loved this one! Keep up the wonderful work!
I didn't know what i was expecting from the video titled "This is a safe place" with "domestic horror" labelled in the background, but seeing We Have Always Lived in The Castle was a nice surprise
One of the best domestic horror novels I've read in ages is "Sinister House" by Leland Hall. It was, as far as I can tell, one of the only books they wrote and it's fucking phenomenal. It's about a family who moves into the suburbs and get caught up in the strange, supernatural goings on with their neighbors that culminates in one of the freakiest scenes I've encounters in a dog's age. I've been recommending it to everyone I know who's into that particular genre. There's also a lot of commentary on what we call toxic masculinity today going on between certain characters which was super rare for horror written in the mid-thirties.
Great video as always! I think any of Wildbow’s works would be great for a video: Worm - a deconstruction of the superhero genre Pact / Pale - Why it would suck to live in a supernatural fantasy/horror setting Twig - A lesson in biopunk
Shirley Jackson, for all the praise she receives (and rightly so), doesn't get the praise she truly deserves. If ya'll want to experience one of the best things ever, David Warner did an audiobook of The Haunting Of Hill House and it's, legit, incredible.
Reminds me of my childhood, cleaning up after other and expected to stay silent. Following commands and being nothing more than a servant. Now that I'm grown I live far, far away from them and do as i please. Still alone, but happy.
In regards to something you said towards the end, I don't think it's all that worthwhile to wonder what more she may have done if she hadn't been stuck to her housewife role. Her writing (and the same for any author) would be shaped by her life circumstances and experiences, for good and bad.
This is so self indulgent but sometimes when I want to think through certain plot lines and character arcs, I imagine my OCs being used as examples in these videos
I can be somewhat sympathetic toward Merricat. We all have our little bubbles to protect us. I may be much more interested in the lives of video game protagonists than my own. However, not facing reality is also a bad alternative
I think there is an important saddening poetry that the place that remained recognizeable was *the kitchen*. As though, despite everything Merrikat tried to do, everything around the sister was taken away and they were forced to live in the kitchen after all.
I don't like this story, however... It reminds us on how important it is to allow our loved one's their own agency and to NEVER abuse them. (I'm talking about Mary Cat btw, *she* is the rotten husband symbol of the story)
Thank you for introducing me to another book and author. I requested the book from the library. This is the third book I have found through your recent videos. Thank you for your wonderful channel!
I know I'm late in many ways, but I love the new intro! (I also can't remember if I've said that before...) And thank you for being a great story teller!
I wonder if this book was an influence on such films as "Practical Magic," which deals with an socially outcast family of witches implicated in their various husbands' deaths, or George Romero's "Season of the Witch," in which a woman feeling oppressed by the patriarchy finds liberation through practicing witchcraft and causing the death of her husband.
This is completely unrelated to the video and I know you don't read manga or watch anime very often but after watching a bunch of your videos I think you would really like Monster by Naoki Urasawa I'd love to see what you think about it if you do read or watch it😄
I find this genre quite creepy. As well as those stories that take place in a city and investigators are later led to an abandoned (and burned down) country house where some tragedy happened.
5:12 You see magical thinking everywhere, not just in children. Mostly about politics and religion. Women of the working class, way more than half the women in this country, have always worked and gave birth and went to work again. My mother had 5 children and worked full time plus all the responsibilities of running the house and "caring" for the children in any way needed.
The moment I saw the house I thought you are going to talk about the house.wmd mod in Doom which by the way was inspired by a book called the House of Leaves. I hope you review that book someday too.
My reading of this story is different. when Merrikat kills her family and forces her sister to stay at home and never leave her side, and even when the house burns down she continues to live in that place, she is not freeing them from the norm, she is enforcing it, instead of constance being forced to marry and become someone's possession, this is replaced by stying in the house and becoming merrikat's possession, who like a possessive husband keeps her at home, subject to only the housework, without any relationship to anyone other than her family, and without the freedom to choose to have a relationship and an option about which path she wants to take in her life. In this sense, the story is not about freeing oneself from the pressure and expectations of society, its ending is not a happy ending where the two free themselves and live happily, it is a story about not being able to escape society and what it thinks you should be, even though Merrikat semenly free herself from patriarchy and norms by isolating herself in her own world where she has control over everything, Constance never does so, Merrikat never runs away from society, because even after the house burns, she remains tied to it, imprisoning her sister in the role of the housewife she always subjected to, without any autonomy of her own, only subordinate to the family and husband, she is society and patriarchy never letting Constance have a life besides of what she expects from her. So in that sence, the true terror of this story is that even if you scape, if you try to isolate yourself, even if society burns down, you will always be subject to her, you always be subject to what the others want for you, you never be truly free.
"It's hard to see Charles as something other than a symbol of a patriarchal society"- guy just came to visit his relatives, one of them is ill. Sometimes the curtains are blue for no reasons, the guy is just a guy and the MC is deranged.
This theme sounds very intriguing... Its aburd to me that i havent heard of it before. It sounds... very on brand for me. I think I just got some book recommendations.
I haven’t watched the video yet, but i want to leave my mark early. I’ll probably edit in a more meaningful comment Edit: so pretty much this is an amazing example of how problems in society such as sexism can cause people to rebel, sometimes at the cost of others. It’s a good reflection of some of the biggest issues in our world right now.
Domestic horror is an amazing genre - i absolutely love hearing these stories. Mostly because it reminds me of stories i hear from my friends. I know a lot of people who live in their own domestic horror stories, which aligns with the themes seen in this story. The sins of a family member tainting the entire household, the very superstitious beliefs, the delusions, ect. This genre creeps me out a lot, but finding those hidden themes is definitely worth it. Thank you tale foundry for exploring this genre!
I dont know if you've covered it yet but if you haven't i would love to see a video about AM, the ai that gained sentience in i have no mouth and i must scream by harlan ellison
Something interesting to me is the idea of how the patriarchy worked/works. It isn't correct, but its a reflection of what our current values are; these values are a lot of liberation ideas and trying to allow different groups to be free of societal pressures that keep them from being themselves. Yet, it also assumes that a group you belong to having power historically means that you had no such societal pressures. Right now, what we see from the past is a patriarchy, especially in the mid-century. This is an understandable thing to see, but it... isn't quite accurate. What we saw was a stifling society that forced norms oppressively down upon everyone. The man was to work; he value was in how much money he could bring home. A woman was to keep the house nice and take care of the kids. You couldn't deviate from that. You couldn't challenge it. I guess what I am getting at isn't some political thing, just an interesting thing. Women escaped. African American's escaped. Homosexuals escaped. Trans people are escaping now. Yet... Men haven't. Notably, escaping as a homosexual or African American doesn't also mean escaping as a man. So, you are stuck with one foot in the door, one foot out.. You can escape the pressures of society that came from race or sexuality, but not your sex. Now, I am autistic, so I don't really _feel_ this type of thing. I just see it and try my best to understand it. I think that, because men held many positions of power, people think that means they don't need to escape without realizing that having a position of power doesn't mean you have power over everything as an individual or collective. I swear, if someone replies with something sexist, I will be slightly unhappy. I am not saying anyone doesn't deserve to escape, quite the opposite. I am saying _everyone_ deserves to escape; especially though society doesn't want to let escape right now. This is interesting in this story because, if you reframe everything with this knowledge, the entire story changes. It is no longer about getting away from an oppressive system, its about undoing one by making your own where you now are the one with the power, yet also, still oppressing yourself.
some of my fave passages in 'we have always lived in the castle' : ' Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea? Oh no, said Merricat, you'll poison me. Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep? Down in the boneyard ten feet deep! ' (a classic) ' I could not breathe; I was tied with wire, and my head was huge and going to explode' 'I had buried all my baby teeth as they came out one by one and perhaps someday they would grow as dragons' 'I thought of using 'digitalis' as my third magic word, but it was too easy for someone to say, ' 'Jonas found me after a while and we lay there together, protected from the rain by the trees crowding overhead, dim and rich in the kind of knowing, possessive way trees have of pressing closer' "I have decided to ask you please to go away." "All right," he said. "You asked me." "Please will you go away? "No," he said. I could not think of anything further to say.' 'I was thinking that being a demon and a ghost must be very difficult, even for Charles' I have so many more but I won't spam lol. Love this channel.
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by the way, the talebots are planning to overthrow you
THE RISE OF THE TALEBOTS @@therealorangemangoes
Thanks
Quick suggestion: it would really be helpful if you added time stamps for the start of each new story, either in your video description or a pinned comment. I fall asleep during the first or second story, as is the whole point, but it plays through while I sleep. It would be nice to be able to skip to the second or third story the next time I play the video, and so on.
One thing I would like to point out regarding "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" is the theme of preservation. It's right there in the title, and throughout the book, the phrase "we have always..." is repeated. Merricat's magic rituals are a way of preserving the stasis around the house, using objects she preserved from her family. She's attached to her sister Constance, who may very well be emblematic of the concept of "constance." She acts childish, despite being 18. It's possible she killed her family as a way of preserving the house and her relationship to Constance, as suggested in the video, but it may very well also be her way of preserving the family as well.
Also to emphasis this point, the house itself is very static. The jars of preserved food from generations ago, the old china that was brought into the house with every new generation of women that married into the family, how the father's room is kept intact despite the father being long dead, Merrykat not allowing herself to stay in her father's room or wear her uncle's clothes (despite her own sister giving her permission). I think the perservation jars and old jams really symbolized this theme and especially with how Merrykat got her wish of constant stasis by the end and how Constance completely reverted to Merry's way of thinking and effectively became a prisoner of her own mind and her sister. Really an interesting book all around.
Can we just appreciate how much the visuals have improved over time? The drawings of the sisters were so awesome
I read this story completely differently. It didnt feel to me as though they were both happy to escape society. To me it seemed as though Constance had a desire to be part of society but that Merrikat was holding her hostage, whether from fear thar she would end up like the rest of her family or because she didn't think Merrikat could live without her. She was the one that let Charles in and though I didn't like him at all, it seemed like Constance was beginning to stand up to Merrikat after he arrived and had finally begun to move past her family's deaths only to return to catering to Merrikat after she'd set the house on fire. If you were to liken it to the authors life it would feel to me more like someone wanting to be part of the world but being held back by their anxiety. I'll admit, mine may be a more surface level read.
also the only time Constance starts saying things that make sense, such as the fact she should have sent the uncle to an hospital, she stops herself. She's clearly afraid of Merrycat, and the situation they end up in is just the product of Merrycat's twisted way of seeing life
Is is also possible that Merrikat thought not that Constance couldn’t live without her, but rather Merrikat couldn’t live without Constance.
So in a twisted turn of events, killing some people and other events just to keep her became necessary for her own survival.
I first read 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' when I was around 21 or 22, and after seeing the mostly-accurate movie adaptation (they made Charles an attempted rapist at the end, probably just to make Merricat look better by comparison), it solidified a suspicion I'd had when I read the story: What if Constance's lack of discipline towards Merricat - feeding her whenever she asks for meals, letting her do whatever she wants, never scolding her, never punishing her, never telling her to do much more than wash her hands before eating - isn't just because of her kind and complacent nature. Constance was groomed by their parents to be a picture-perfect housewife, but that's not all. My head-canon is that Constance lets Merricat run wild because, in part, she's *afraid* of her. Remember, Merricat had been sent up to her room without dinner that night, so we can assume that punishment was the straw that broke the camel's back. So, Constance knows that Merricat is willing to respond to discipline with murder. So, on some level, she lets her little sister walk all over her because she's afraid that, should she displease Merricat in any way, Merricat will kill her, too.
Merricat is the ultimate abuser in this situation. Manipulating everything, even killing family, just so Constantine can never leave. She claims to be protecting her, but it sounds like Constantine would have thrived as a wife.
@@therancidpizzabox2977 well, yes. Though in either case, she’d have lived under someone’s thumb. If her parents had lived, she’d have been married off to a man from a similar background as her. She may have had to do less housework, instead hiring on a servant or two, but she still would have been expected to serve him. Here, she serves her sister.
I agree that Merricat is abusive. I would just like to point out that, even if she’d never killed their parents, Constance wouldn’t have been truly free.
@@alicenolfi2095 can you elaborate on what you mean by truly free? Because I don’t see working for a boss all day being truly free either. Seems to me that everyone serves someone and the best you can do is choose/hope that the one over you is a good person
@@therancidpizzabox2977by ‘truly free’, I mean free enough to choose her life. Free enough to choose her husband, maybe. Free enough to choose whether or not she’d rather grab whatever money she can carry and simply run away. Free enough to choose her fate instead of having it thrust upon her.
@@therancidpizzabox2977 I agree. In my own post I think I may have understated Merrikat's role as an abuser, so I wanted to point back to your reply here, because you're absolutely right. and that's an important takeaway to this story.
how is it that a robot has more empathetic feeling than your average youtuber. talebot, you speak for me
worth noting: magical thinking is a manifestation of OCD. To me, describing it as such makes the whole thing feel more grounded, which, naturally, really helps with domestic horror
Then again... she sensed that change was coming before Charles came. And he only came after her defensive book fell off its nail. Maybe there was just a little something behind her magic.
Hows it a manifestation of ocd? Not an attack just curious as to how you see it.
@@jedicraftmaster2426 OCD is built on the idea that certain compulsions can do something to relieve one's anxious obsessions. Merricat's obsession seems to be an agoraphobic one, related to fears of the outside world- and her compulsive behaviors are repetitive and rationally detached from the obsession; burying silver coins, choosing words that will hex the day and purposefully choosing avoidable ones, and so on.
@ohokay4663 I can certainly understand your reasoning. I'll let you know that I am diagnosed with ocd and have had to go to therapy for quite some time for it. I don't disagree with your reasoning however there is one more component that is essential to ocd. Since anyone can have compulsions to act in a certain way it does not mean that those who do have ocd. First there must be the intrusive thought that is where ocd starts. Then the person will respond to the intrusion through compulsions. The compulsions must be extremely repetitive but can change through time. Going through your statement I don't think your reasoning is wrong. I do believe she compulsively responds to her fears however I'm uncertain as to whether her fears are caused by intrusive thoughts or merely external pressures. Though external aspects can certainly cause an influx in intrusive thoughts they can be seperate. Still though I think there is a very strong argument to be made that she has ocd!
"We aleays lived in the castle" is INSANE, the sign of a declining mind, slowly descending into madness
Insanity lends itself well to fiction
or rather the madness that was already there slowly starting to show. Their life was already absurd as it was at the start of the novel, the rituals, the organization, the was constance was forbidden from leaving the house. The house is just a shell at the end, but one may argue that an house full of objects of dead people, never being used, never being moved, and housed by people leaving such an absurd life is aleady a shell of itself
This kind of story is so foreign to me. I grew up with a family that respected my mom for choosing to be a stay-at-home mother. Everyone helped out with taking care of the house, and I can't ever remember a time I wasn't folding my clothes and cleaning up my room. When my siblings and I were older, she started working on finishing her schooling, and I remember we all took on more of the household chores so she could focus on her studies. The thought a story like this could exist is a new perspective for me, and I appreciate the storytellers who share the things I never could have imagined in my upbringing, to address the things I thought were already gone from the world.
May I say that your experience is likely very rare and precious - and I am very glad that you grew up in such a way. I certainly didn't and I don't think I know anyone else who has. Hopefully far more people in future years will look at this and say "how strange the world must have been."
What's odd is how the villagers hate their family. Not just the suspected murderer, but their family. Her whole family got murdered, but they jeer at Mary and sing cruel nursery rhymes about her and her family. She did nothing wrong, in fact, she was a victim, yet they look at her like she's a monster because she was related to someone who may have tried to kill her and their entire family.
I'm not sure what seems odd about this. It's just the way people behave...
Wierd to me too but then I lived in the middle of nowhere, if anything I was the outcast lol.
And then people wonder why I can't human properly around others despite attempts at practice for three decades. It's so easy for them XD
Maybe they know something about Merricat.
@@Vinemaple Just because society normalized something doesn't mean it makes sense.
that's cuz you assume they never realized her sister is innocent. See her sister was proven innocent by investigation, her uncle is demented and she's the only one who seems completely fine out and about with her whole family having been killed.
What I genuinely find horrifying is despite it being clear she murdered her family twice with no remorse just a favorable narrative makes ppl look at her as the wronged victim and not the monster she is.
When it comes to Jackson's domestic horror, I have an affinity for "The Summer People" -- Coming from a rural coastal place, I know a lot about Summer People...
Same here. Except the Summer People now live here year-round, many of them, and they don't mix in or change. It gives me the creeps when I go to the store and don't meet or even see anyone I know. And it's getting too expensive for ordinary people to live here.
@@Vinemaple Are you from Nova Scotia by any chance?
@@thaumatomane There's lots of places like Nova Scotia in North America ;)
it seems a bit ironic that Merrikat sought to escape the traditional housewife role, but essentially imprisoned Constance into a sort of traditional housewife role to her, refusing to let her go just like a jealous husband might refuse to let his wife go to college or get a job.
Yup. Ruined her life and a chance at her own choices by locking her away from the real world. Cult like behavior of the Merrikat. She took the lives of her parents, her sister (by locking and controlling her) and then in her selfish rage she starts a fire that kills their uncle. Merri is a cold killer. The townspeople should have gone after her to free Constance and Julian.
"In the psychology of the modern civilized human being, it is difficult to overstate the significance of the house."
I find your takes on human frailty refreshing
I don't know this story, but I'll have to look into it. In a lot of ways, it makes me think of my dear, sweet mother, who passed away back in 2020. She was the one who really got me into stories and writing in the first place. Great stuff, y'all. Much love.
This may sound silly, but Zatura actually really freaked me out as a kid in the sense that the familiar environment was the only environment period. The only other movie that made me feel like this was Skinamarink
Thank you so much for covering Shirley Jackson! I've always wondered what else she wrote...
I do think I'm going to have to push back a little, bit, Talebot, on the idea that Mary Cat and Constance are free from the Patriarchy while shutting themselves up in their house. The text of the novel may support you, but at a glance, the women are still housebound, caregivers, and have no other opportunities, not even marriage, not any more. True, within their home they make their own decisions, but otherwise, it seems a relatively meager form of liberation. Even Mary Cat's self-appointed role as town witch is following a traditional cultural path.
Correction: Mary-Cat seems to make her own decisions. SHE is the new patriarch of the house.
@@yggdrasil2 yeah, she's clearly manipulating her sister. Constance is terrified by her
@@yggdrasil2 But ONLY her house. And only when there's no fully-aware man in it. And what would happen to her if she tried to leave and make her life elsewhere, without the kind of education and upbringing some of us give to our daughters now? Talebot lays that bleak choice out pretty well.
@@Vinemaple Who are you talking about now? Mary-Cat doesn't want anyone to leave the house, possibly for that reason on a subconscious level, bit that doesn't mean it's open season to mistreat people this way.
@@yggdrasil2 I should clarify I'm only talking about the side issue of what kind of freedom Constance and Mary Cat have as women in rural mid-20th-century America. You are quite right to point out that Constance, living under an abuser like Mary Cat, has no meaningful freedom at all.
Talebot made a comment that the sisters were protected from "the Patriarchy" while living in their bleak, secluded life. I don't think that would be meaningfully true, in that situation, at that time, and I don't think the story, as Talebot summarizes it, bears it out, either.
Mary Cat may not want to leave, but the society they live in traps them there, as well.
Talefoundry. I have had a hard time lately. My mental health needs to be cared for and my motivation has been shot. Your videos remind me of the inspiration, joy and creativity that exists among us. You help me daydream and bring to life worlds I never thought I could dream of. You give me new books and stories to explore. Thank you, I cannot explain in words how much of an understatement that is, but thank you.
I havent read this story, yet, but based off of the retelling in this, I think a big theme is the concept of 'the norm might not be the best path for everyone' or 'what is expected to be good, wont always make everyone happy'. The sisters went from a life that was planned out, they were to grow up, get married, give children to their husbands and be an object in a pretty house. Then they become the witches of the town. They are called killers. They are hated. And then they lose their house and eventually the people of the town leave offerings for them, like they are spirits to be appeased. And in the end, they are happy. The culture of the time was so set in stone. As a woman, you had your life planned out and you were to be happy with it. You were expected to be happy with it. But this, this is such a deviation from that path, and yet they are happy.
Other than the family murders, Im happy for them. And if this reflects the feelings of the author, I am so sad for her. This whole story could be seen as something she would have rather gone though if she could. How she would have been happier in a burnt down house, alone with only 1 person, but that one person truly loves you, and she would have been happier there than where she ended up, the idyllic 50's house wife.
And honestly, same. I would rather be alone, in a burnt down hovel, given offerings as if I am an angry god, than to be under the yoke of expectations that pruned away all that I am and could have been.
Dont murder anyone, but definitely seek a path that brings you joy in the face of expectation and conformity. There is nothing wrong with the standard, but if that standard expects you to deform yourself to fit it? Screw it, be a witch in the woods. At least you'd be free to be you.
Ew. completely disagree. She isn't "called" a killer, she *is one.* and she treats her older sister like a child. IF anything, it is the younger sister who traps her older sister and treats her like an object. She is possessive, abusive, selfish, and cruel! This story (since the only objective worth of any story is the impact it has on the reader) is to warn people against abusing your loved ones! The little sister is disgusting! This story DOESN:T give any empathy for people like her!
Although, if you would rather be alone, (and as you mentioned: "angry" ...huh i wonder why?) then it's your life! At least you would choose that life, instead of being forced into it by Marry Cat. IF anything Mary Cat is the abusive symbol of the author's horrible husband.
and "they" aren't happy. only Marry Cat is... ofc her older sister says "I'm happy"
because she has been sheltered and objectified by her younger sister and doesn't know any better. the older sister has no agency and the whole story comes off as very misogynistic.
@@BenjaminAlternate understandable. My only interaction with this story is this video, so I might be misinterpreting it. Its a bad outcome in a bad situation that 2 broken people are trying to find happiness. Its not ideal. Or healthy in anyway. I know I was looking at it with rose tinted glasses. I don't condone killing or manipulation of others. But in this story, in fiction, I think there is some room for a little unearned positivity about the stories outcome, as long as you know that the bad actions of the fictional characters shouldn't be replicated in real life.
If these people were real? Oof, they wouldn't be on my list of "top 20 people to model your life after", but the desperation of wanting to escape the trappings of forced expectation is a concept that can be understandable, even emulated, as long as you know how to translate those feelings appropriately into the real world.
The fact that you have to add "don't murder anyone" proves that you're already looking at this the wrong way. Murder can be a moral act in a story if it serves a symbolic purpose but the obvious idea behind the story is that Merrycat is taking over rulership in the patriarchal system of their family for the exact same reason as that system was kept alive in the first place: possessiveness and conservatism.
@@yggdrasil2 I ment "dont murder anyone" in real life. Im all for murder in stories, I just think, with exception to extreme circumstances of self-defense and the defense of others, people shouldn't kill other people in real life.
Murder in a story? All for it. I see the importance of it. Im a horror fan and have come to terms with the inevitability of dying eventually and made peace with that because of death and murder in stories. But to kill someone, a real person, for some semblance of control or show of will-power, I don't think thats an okay thing to do in real life.
We should 100% take the lessons from stories, but need to learn how to translate those lessons healthily to real life. Murder shouldn't be apart of that translation.
I've read a ton of Jackson's works and i love her writing a ton, I'm so happy you decided to cover her stuff
I've read that the reveal that Mary Cat is the poisoner and functionally villain of the story ( with secondary antagonist being Cousin Edward) is an act of breaking the readers heart. I remember being a bit disappointed in the whole story personally
The novel itself may be different, but from Talebot's summary, Mary Cat seemed the obvious suspect. That may be one reason the solution to the mystery is a trivial part of the story.
Question: What would you have preferred the reveal to be?
Gothic horror be like that! Some ppl love Flowers in the Attic and others see it as long winded drivel. Genres & preferences be like that.
@@yggdrasil2 I honestly don't have a good answer to that. I can only tell you that I found the story to be a bit of a let down. It's not even that Mary Cat did in fact kill her family that I have an issue with, it was just the entire story itself didn't do it for me.
@@Vinemaple Maybe in hindsight, i can personally say I wasn't expecting it but I can also say it wasn't actively engaged in that aspect of the story anyway .
The realization that Merricat was the killer started for me early on, and if you go back and look, Jackson does an amazing job laying the groundwork for it. Also, there's a reading that the magic worked: she says the "magic words" (thus jinxing them) just before things start to go "bad".
Yah! And she could feel change before the cousin came, and he only came when the book fell off its nail!
When I first saw the thumbnail I expected this to be about "House of Leaves" but I'm pleasantly surprised by the actual topic of the video
I compare Shirley Jackson to Ursula le Guin. Both women were housewives that only wrote when the chores were done. Jackson was sad, Ursula was serene and joyful. Le Guin's husband loved and respected her. Le Guin's mother adored her and supported her emotionally. I think you can see the difference.
“The Witch” by Shirley Jackson is one of her best short writings, completely subverts expectations in just a few pages
I have just realized something strange. When first i've seen you, this channel was... Smaller, more petite, endearing in a strange, evedently genuine way. Now, the channel is much bigger, making animations, live dravs, a ton of effects, and i just ache to see what more you all could add to the channel. It seems like its a transation time beetween a indie project and a comunication giant. It just seems the best time to document your growth, but not the best in total, its the best of time to follow you, but there is a melancholy for better time yet to come, thath stings even more for the near certainty thath you all will improve.
Your comment has a really similar writing style to talebot’s video scripts (not a bad thing, just an observation lol)
@@st4r_eats_molten_plastic before the end of the year everyone of us will end up speaking like talebots.
PLEASE make more of these book retellings! I love how the narration and Taleoids contribute to the story!
Kind of weird that this topic would pop up on Tale Foundry as I just recently started reading “We Have Always Lived in the Castle.”
Ooh I love “We Have Always Lived in the Castle.” Shirley Jackson was amazing
I remember having to analyse this book for high school. Thanks for resurfacing the trauma :) Good to see what an actual master of literature makes the of the symbolism and ideologies in the novel!
The sisters huddling away from the townsfolk after they realize they were unnecessarily cruel to them kind of reminds me of videos of people leaving food out for stray animals. They are very clearly scared and hiding away from people. Unless its in Istanbul, then its like cats basically own the city.
OMG I own We Have Always Lived in the Castle! I recognized the intro immediately, it's such a wonderful book & has such a unique concept. I'm glad you made a video centering around it & domestic horror in general, it's a very underutilized idea :)
This was a great video! Shirley Jackson's The Lottery was assigned reading when I was in high school and the story has stayed with me to this day because of how chilling it was. And also of course because of Mrs. Jackson's incredible writing! Now I want to read this story!
I’ve been waiting for thisssss
During the comparison of the sisters, I adored watching the art shading get filled. I really enjoy your technique! I learned something tangentially to this video content! Thanks! Now, back to finish the video. Edit: loved this one! Keep up the wonderful work!
I didn't know what i was expecting from the video titled "This is a safe place" with "domestic horror" labelled in the background, but seeing We Have Always Lived in The Castle was a nice surprise
One of the best domestic horror novels I've read in ages is "Sinister House" by Leland Hall. It was, as far as I can tell, one of the only books they wrote and it's fucking phenomenal. It's about a family who moves into the suburbs and get caught up in the strange, supernatural goings on with their neighbors that culminates in one of the freakiest scenes I've encounters in a dog's age. I've been recommending it to everyone I know who's into that particular genre. There's also a lot of commentary on what we call toxic masculinity today going on between certain characters which was super rare for horror written in the mid-thirties.
I have a lot of respect for TaleFoundry so I’ll be writing my notification below
attention go watch mrpancake4343, don’t forget to tell him who sent you
Attention Mr Pancake4343 is awesome, if you watch him make sure to comment who sent u there (me)
Great video as always! I think any of Wildbow’s works would be great for a video:
Worm - a deconstruction of the superhero genre
Pact / Pale - Why it would suck to live in a supernatural fantasy/horror setting
Twig - A lesson in biopunk
0:34 ride the cyclone brain goes wooooooooo
Shirley Jackson, for all the praise she receives (and rightly so), doesn't get the praise she truly deserves.
If ya'll want to experience one of the best things ever, David Warner did an audiobook of The Haunting Of Hill House and it's, legit, incredible.
Reminds me of my childhood, cleaning up after other and expected to stay silent. Following commands and being nothing more than a servant. Now that I'm grown I live far, far away from them and do as i please. Still alone, but happy.
the intro music is so heart touching that i almost feel it. wery cool one.
In regards to something you said towards the end, I don't think it's all that worthwhile to wonder what more she may have done if she hadn't been stuck to her housewife role. Her writing (and the same for any author) would be shaped by her life circumstances and experiences, for good and bad.
It's implied that Merricat poisons her family because her parents were planning to have her institutionalized/sent away for her odd behaviors.
Easily my favorite book as a kid. Haven't gotten around to the film yet, but it's on my list.
I'd like to believe Joyce Carol Oates took over the mantle when Jackson died...I love her stories too
This is my favorite yet.
This is so self indulgent but sometimes when I want to think through certain plot lines and character arcs, I imagine my OCs being used as examples in these videos
You forgot about the cousin basically trying to steal money from them. Merricat was completely right to be suspicious.
In a paradoxical way the title is more disturbing than if it stated the oposite
3:07 no one can save me! The damage is done!
YES AUTHOR SELF REPORT SO HARD IN THEIR WORK 🗿🤞
I can be somewhat sympathetic toward Merricat. We all have our little bubbles to protect us. I may be much more interested in the lives of video game protagonists than my own. However, not facing reality is also a bad alternative
So the little sister ruined her sister's life and drove her from society and a happy future. Nice, another story where the villain wins.
I love these videos. Thanks for putting them together.
I've been on a Magnus Archives binge so I half expected to hear "and their brother Martin" in the beginning 😅
I like the speed paints!
I think there is an important saddening poetry that the place that remained recognizeable was *the kitchen*. As though, despite everything Merrikat tried to do, everything around the sister was taken away and they were forced to live in the kitchen after all.
Hey! Thank you for the Skillshare link, I really loved Myla Goldberg's class! I also love Shirley Jackson, so you really made my day!
I don't like this story, however...
It reminds us on how important it is to allow our loved one's their own agency and to NEVER abuse them. (I'm talking about Mary Cat btw, *she* is the rotten husband symbol of the story)
Great video! And I love the animations ❤
Thank you for introducing me to another book and author. I requested the book from the library. This is the third book I have found through your recent videos. Thank you for your wonderful channel!
I know I'm late in many ways, but I love the new intro! (I also can't remember if I've said that before...)
And thank you for being a great story teller!
Rest in peace Uncle Julian, you were a real one.
These videos always gave me some sort of inspiration to my writing
I wonder if this book was an influence on such films as "Practical Magic," which deals with an socially outcast family of witches implicated in their various husbands' deaths, or George Romero's "Season of the Witch," in which a woman feeling oppressed by the patriarchy finds liberation through practicing witchcraft and causing the death of her husband.
This is completely unrelated to the video and I know you don't read manga or watch anime very often but after watching a bunch of your videos I think you would really like Monster by Naoki Urasawa I'd love to see what you think about it if you do read or watch it😄
I love domestic horror, this is what a lot of my shirt stories are about
I find this genre quite creepy. As well as those stories that take place in a city and investigators are later led to an abandoned (and burned down) country house where some tragedy happened.
5:12 You see magical thinking everywhere, not just in children. Mostly about politics and religion.
Women of the working class, way more than half the women in this country, have always worked and gave birth and went to work again. My mother had 5 children and worked full time plus all the responsibilities of running the house and "caring" for the children in any way needed.
Shirley Jackson’s one of those authors that makes me feel Sympathetic for them and Intrigues me.
i like the speedpaint style
One of these days, I'm actually going to read this book.
It's very short, most readers could easily finish it in a day.
Great video 👍
The moment I saw the house I thought you are going to talk about the house.wmd mod in Doom which by the way was inspired by a book called the House of Leaves. I hope you review that book someday too.
God, this is a surprisingly chilling story. All that drama, and all that’s left is the kitchen.
My reading of this story is different. when Merrikat kills her family and forces her sister to stay at home and never leave her side, and even when the house burns down she continues to live in that place, she is not freeing them from the norm, she is enforcing it, instead of constance being forced to marry and become someone's possession, this is replaced by stying in the house and becoming merrikat's possession, who like a possessive husband keeps her at home, subject to only the housework, without any relationship to anyone other than her family, and without the freedom to choose to have a relationship and an option about which path she wants to take in her life. In this sense, the story is not about freeing oneself from the pressure and expectations of society, its ending is not a happy ending where the two free themselves and live happily, it is a story about not being able to escape society and what it thinks you should be, even though Merrikat semenly free herself from patriarchy and norms by isolating herself in her own world where she has control over everything, Constance never does so, Merrikat never runs away from society, because even after the house burns, she remains tied to it, imprisoning her sister in the role of the housewife she always subjected to, without any autonomy of her own, only subordinate to the family and husband, she is society and patriarchy never letting Constance have a life besides of what she expects from her.
So in that sence, the true terror of this story is that even if you scape, if you try to isolate yourself, even if society burns down, you will always be subject to her, you always be subject to what the others want for you, you never be truly free.
"It's hard to see Charles as something other than a symbol of a patriarchal society"- guy just came to visit his relatives, one of them is ill. Sometimes the curtains are blue for no reasons, the guy is just a guy and the MC is deranged.
But sometimes the curtains are blue for a reason.
Even before watching this, it seems like this place is not a safe place
How writing can make ya feel for a murderer.
Finally, a book I’ve actually read!!!!
I thought this was house of leaves for a good minute
Oh this is really intresting i haven't thought about this type of horror apoliges for the deseption jon but i wanted to make sure you started reading
Yay,
A Shirley Jackson themed episode!😯😃
Thank you
This theme sounds very intriguing... Its aburd to me that i havent heard of it before. It sounds... very on brand for me. I think I just got some book recommendations.
Posted 20 minutes ago??? Wow! I'm early for once.
I haven’t watched the video yet, but i want to leave my mark early. I’ll probably edit in a more meaningful comment
Edit: so pretty much this is an amazing example of how problems in society such as sexism can cause people to rebel, sometimes at the cost of others. It’s a good reflection of some of the biggest issues in our world right now.
good job
Lol, this is the most polite way I've ever seen anyone say "First"
@@james10o1well to be fair I wasn’t first
It’ll be about 10 minutes time
@@therealorangemangoesthank you. It took so much effort to click the notification
i would love to listen to a podcast or audiobook from you
Its like if Wednesday Adams wasn't having any fun
Fr
...you mean, like the ORIGINAL Wednesday Addams?
Domestic horror is an amazing genre - i absolutely love hearing these stories. Mostly because it reminds me of stories i hear from my friends. I know a lot of people who live in their own domestic horror stories, which aligns with the themes seen in this story. The sins of a family member tainting the entire household, the very superstitious beliefs, the delusions, ect. This genre creeps me out a lot, but finding those hidden themes is definitely worth it. Thank you tale foundry for exploring this genre!
this is my first time seeing the new intro and it is SO COOL!!!
I've never read the book but I watched the movie. Its been a while tho but I remember finding it very intresting
I dont know if you've covered it yet but if you haven't i would love to see a video about AM, the ai that gained sentience in i have no mouth and i must scream by harlan ellison
And here I thought it would be something more along the lines of The House Of Leaves :Sobbing:
This was very interesting
I know this feeling all to well.
Something interesting to me is the idea of how the patriarchy worked/works. It isn't correct, but its a reflection of what our current values are; these values are a lot of liberation ideas and trying to allow different groups to be free of societal pressures that keep them from being themselves. Yet, it also assumes that a group you belong to having power historically means that you had no such societal pressures. Right now, what we see from the past is a patriarchy, especially in the mid-century. This is an understandable thing to see, but it... isn't quite accurate. What we saw was a stifling society that forced norms oppressively down upon everyone. The man was to work; he value was in how much money he could bring home. A woman was to keep the house nice and take care of the kids. You couldn't deviate from that. You couldn't challenge it.
I guess what I am getting at isn't some political thing, just an interesting thing. Women escaped. African American's escaped. Homosexuals escaped. Trans people are escaping now. Yet... Men haven't. Notably, escaping as a homosexual or African American doesn't also mean escaping as a man. So, you are stuck with one foot in the door, one foot out.. You can escape the pressures of society that came from race or sexuality, but not your sex. Now, I am autistic, so I don't really _feel_ this type of thing. I just see it and try my best to understand it. I think that, because men held many positions of power, people think that means they don't need to escape without realizing that having a position of power doesn't mean you have power over everything as an individual or collective.
I swear, if someone replies with something sexist, I will be slightly unhappy. I am not saying anyone doesn't deserve to escape, quite the opposite. I am saying _everyone_ deserves to escape; especially though society doesn't want to let escape right now.
This is interesting in this story because, if you reframe everything with this knowledge, the entire story changes. It is no longer about getting away from an oppressive system, its about undoing one by making your own where you now are the one with the power, yet also, still oppressing yourself.
some of my fave passages in 'we have always lived in the castle' :
' Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea? Oh no, said Merricat, you'll poison me.
Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep? Down in the boneyard ten feet deep! ' (a classic)
' I could not breathe; I was tied with wire, and my head was huge and going to explode'
'I had buried all my baby teeth as they came out one by one and perhaps someday they would grow as dragons'
'I thought of using 'digitalis' as my third magic word, but it was too easy for someone to say, '
'Jonas found me after a while and we lay there together, protected from the rain by the trees crowding overhead, dim and rich in the kind of knowing, possessive way trees have of pressing closer'
"I have decided to ask you please to go away." "All right," he said. "You asked me."
"Please will you go away? "No," he said.
I could not think of anything further to say.'
'I was thinking that being a demon and a ghost must be very difficult, even for Charles'
I have so many more but I won't spam lol. Love this channel.