Character Connection: Merricat Blackwood

Don’t you just love larger-than-life characters? The ones who jump off the page and grab you? Whether you love them or hate them, you can’t be indifferent to them.

I would love to know about the characters who just won’t leave you! Most of you will probably post about how much you love (or loathe) each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Write a love poem in elvish for Aragorn. Draw a picture of Harry obliterating Voldemort. The possibilities are endless.

Be sure to post the book’s title and author, and be very careful not to give away spoilers while talking about how much you love your characters.

Mr. Linky will be posted here on The Introverted Reader every Thursday.

Merricat Blackwood is an oddly disturbing little character. She’s the narrator of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

Merricat is 18 years old in the book’s present, but she feels like she’s mentally about 12. Oh, she’s a smart girl alright, but she’s happier acting younger and letting her long-suffering older sister, Constance, take care of her. She has her own little rituals of protection for what’s left of her family. She’s buried and hung talismans all around the family property to protect them. She makes the rounds weekly to make sure that they’re all still in place. She even practically has a witch’s familiar in the form of Jonas the cat.  She also goes to the nearest town a few times a week to get supplies. She makes no secret of the fact that she hates everyone in the village. They make no secret of the fact that they hate her right back.

There’s been some tragedy in the past that has left Merricat, Constance, and their Uncle Julian as the last surviving members of the family. Merricat hates to talk about that, so she doesn’t. It all unfolds slowly and unsettles you as it does.

This is Merricat’s opening to the book: “My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister, Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.”

I mean it. She’s a freaky little thing, but I couldn’t help but like her.

Describe a freaky girl and I can’t help but picture Christina Ricci as Wednesday Addams. This is how I pictured Merricat all through the book. I honestly don’t remember if this is how she’s described, but this is her in my head.  Maybe that’s why I like her–my sister looked eerily like this when she was this age!

Who did you connect with this week? Link your post on Mr. Linky, then be sure to go check out the other Character Connections!

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