Chapter 1 Flashcards
I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf… but I have had to be content with what I had
ANALYSIS
* Merricat’s longing to be a werewolf, a creature that embodies power and defies societal norms, reflects her deep-seated desire to break free from her prescribed role in society.
MESSAGE
* Through Merricat’s voice, Jackson seems to be advocating for individual freedom, the right to defy societal expectations, and the power of personal transformation.
Blackwoods had always lived in our house
ANALYSIS
* Their continued residence in the ancestral house, sets them apart from the village community, contributing to their ostracisation.
* The Blackwood sisters’ confinement to the house, hints at the limitations and constraints imposed by unyielding traditions.
MESSAGE
* Jackson could be seen as critiquing the rigid adherence to tradition.
* Jackson might be advocating for the need to break free from such oppressive pasts to forge one’s own identity and path.
In this village the men stayed young and did the gossiping and the women aged with grey evil weariness and stood silently waiting for the men to get up and come home
ANALYSIS
* Offers a stark critique of the gender roles and societal expectations and expose the oppressive nature of patriarchal societies.
* By portraying the men as frivolous and the women as burdened and silent, she challenges traditional notions of masculinity and femininity, voicing the dangers of conformity and the importance of individuality, particularly in the face of societal pressures and expectations.
MESSAGE
* It highlights the need to question and challenge oppressive structures to achieve true freedom and belonging.
The people of the village have always hated us
ANALYSIS
* This sentiment reflects the mutual resentment between the Blackwood sisters and the villagers.
* This hostility leads to a dangerous mob mentality, resulting in the assault on the Blackwood house
MESSAGE
* Jackson commentary on the damaging effects of prejudice, leading to a cycle of fear, isolation, and violence.
I thought about burning black painful rot that ate away from inside, hurting dreadfully. I wished it on the village
ANALYSIS
* This manifests Merricat’s deep-seated animosity towards the villagers.
* Her vivid imagery of internal decay and suffering reflects Merricat’s wish for the villagers to endure the same ‘burning black painful rot’ she experiences signifies her response to the villagers’ hostility and fear.
MESSAGE
* Jackson seems to critique the damaging effects of societal exclusion, highlighting how it breeds resentment and perpetuates a cycle of hatred and misunderstanding.
“It’s wrong to hate them,” Constance said, “it only weakens you,” but I hated them anyway
ANALYSIS
* It reveals Constance’s pragmatic approach and understanding of the corrosive nature of hatred, contrasting it with Merricat’s unabashed resentment.
* Constance, despite the ostracism they face, understands that harboring hatred only serves to weaken and consume them from within.
* Merricat, however, clings on to her animosity, reflecting her defiant nature and her struggle against the societal norms and prejudices they are subjected to.
MESSAGE
* Jackson suggest that hatred, while a natural response to injustice and prejudice, is ultimately self-defeating and damaging to the individual.
I am living on the moon, I told myself, I have a little house all by myself on the moon.
ANALYSIS
The moon serves as an escapist fantasy for Merricat to disengage from the reality, viewing isolation as the best form refuge to cope against the oppressive environment
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!
ANALYSIS
* The rhyme lends a dark image to the traditionally benign and nuturing protrayal of women.
* Perhaps the village like to envisage the sisters betrayal on one another as that would disintegrate their secluded feminine utopia
I wished they were dead. I would have liked to come into
the grocery store some morning… stepping over their bodies, taking whatever I fancied
ANALYSIS
* Exposed in this passage is Merricat’s propensity for cruelty and violence. While the villagers are unquestionably unpleasant to the Blackwoods, the vividness to which she envisages their demise highlights her disturbing pleasure in violent acts, ready to inflict harm on those who have wronged her.
* Merricat’s animosity seems to be directed towards those who impede her access to food, her emblematic source of power, resonating strongly with her poisoning of her family who denied her dinner.
