Whoops, missed one.

15.
Title: [We Have Always Lived in the Castle]
Author: Shirley Jackson
Genre: Gothic Satire
Medium: Paperback
Acquisition: Work Text
Date Completed: February 23, 2016
Rating: ****

I teach Shirley Jackson's last (and, in my opinion, best) novel as a companion to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for a unit on madness which explores the complications of "untrustworthy" narrators, the labeling of mental illness, social commentary, and perspective.  Mary Katherine Blackwood is undoubtedly different; though her actions aren't condoned  in the "real" world, the satire of the text offers her a compelling sense of sympathy which makes for a curious and enjoyable reading experience.  My students are often surprised when I bring up what they already know - MK identifies her age as 18 within the first paragraph, but students often gloss over this in reading her tone, which is much younger - and are quick to vilify her for her aggressive fantasies (i.e. wishing death and pain on the townsfolk she is forced to interact with twice a week).  They toss around the work "psychopath," no doubt because of our fist reading of Kesey, and so this time around I found the "test" for psychopathic disorder, and we systematically checked her behaviors against the list, with two other prominent characters - with wonderfully surprising results.  I won't say more, so as to avoid spoilers, but actually attempting to diagnose the characters provided a unique perspective on the text, and brought the satire into sharp focus.