BLACKWOOD PRIDE

• Going to Stella's - "She might think I was afraid, and that thought I could not endure." (Ch 1)
• Desperation to keep up appearances in the village - being upset over the idea of being laughed at or mocked; the crossing the road scene (Ch 1)
• Blackwood pride was inherited from their mother - "The highway is built for common people, and my front door is private." (Ch 2)
• Constance: "We do not ask from anyone. Remember that." (Ch 2)
• "We neatened [the house] just the other day, it has no right to burn." (Ch 8)
• Villagers houses vs Blackwood & Rochester house comparisons: ugly villagers who are the cause of the rotting of lovely places
• The standing belief that the Rochester house should rightfully belong to the Blackwoods

BLACKWOOD ISOLATION

• "Everyone else in my family is dead." (Ch 1)
• Village days are "terrible days" (Ch 1)
• "The people of the village have always hated us." (Ch 1)
• "I am living on the moon. I have a little house, all by myself, on the moon." (Ch 1)
• "They [villagers, outsiders] can't ever get in anymore. The path is closed forever." (Ch 2)
• "Almost all our life was lived toward the back of the house, the lawn and the garden, where no one else ever came." (Ch 2)
• Constance: "We do not ask from anyone. Remember that." (Ch 2)
• "What place could be better for us than this? Who wants us outside?" (Ch 4)
• "I dreamed that he came. I fell asleep on the ground and I dreamed that he came, but then I dreamed him away." (Ch 5)
• "Every touch he made on the house must be erased." (Ch 9)
• "Pretend they are birds. They can't see us. They don't know it yet, they don't want to believe it, but they will never see us again." (Ch 10)

BLACKWOOD STATICITY

• The library books, "which would stand forever on our kitchen shelf" (Ch 1)
• "The Blackwoods were never much of a family for restlessness and stirring.... We had always a solid foundation of stable possessions. We always put things back where they belonged." (Ch 1)
• Nothing out of place "by even a fraction of an inch." (Ch 1)
• Even in the village all is the same, constant - "In this village, the men stayed young and did the gossiping" & Stella always says "keep well" (Ch 1)
• "The people of the village have always hated us." (Ch 1)
• "There was no change coming, only spring. .I was wrong to be so frightened.... It would always be the same.... It would always be the same." (Ch 4)
• Every year the town hall votes, every year the same results (the decision to leave the town as it is and change nothing)
• The name of the book (we have ALWAYS lived in the castle)
• The name of the character (Constance)
• Merricat's words of power to keep away change
• Blackwoods don't receive mail and don't have a telephone
• Merricat's persistent terror of Constance leaving the house, going into the outside world, even just to the village
• Merricat's constant, unchanging refrain upon thinking about and dreading change: "I was chilled."
• The vast distrust of Charles by both Merricat and Uncle Julian
• The focal point of the story, the main motivation for Merricat, becomes the fact that everything is NOT the same as she supposed it should be, and her entire goal becomes to bring order and sameness back to her life
• The library books are still untouched in their places in the end, even after everything
• After the townspeople leave the house a burned wreck, nothing will EVER be the same again, no matter how deeply they wish it to be

MERRICAT'S FANTASY VS. REALITY

• "I imagined that there were plenty of rotten hearts in the village coveting our heaps of golden coins." (Ch 1)
• "I am living on the moon." (Ch 1)
• "I was pretending I didn't speak their language. On the moon we spoke a soft, liquid tongue." (Ch 1)
• "I really only want a winged horse anyway. We could fly you to the moon and back, my horse and I." (Ch 2)
• "I had buried all my baby teeth as they came out one by one, and perhaps someday, they would grow as dragons." (Ch 3)
• "If I had a winged horse, I could fly [Uncle Julian] to the moon. He would be more comfortable there." (Ch 3)
• "Today, my winged horse is coming and I am carrying you off to the moon. And on the moon, we will eat rose petals." (Ch 5)
• "I dreamed that he came. I fell asleep on the ground and I dreamed that he came, but then I dreamed him away." (Ch 5)
• "Charles had only gotten in because the magic was broken. If I could reseal the protection around Constance and shut Charles out, he would have to leave the house." (Ch 5)
• "I dusted the wedding cake trim with the cloth on the end of the broom, staggering and looking up and pretending that the ceiling was the floor, and I was sweeping, hovering busily in space and looking down at my broom, weightless and flying." (Ch 5)
• "I thought about visiting the creek, but I had no reason to suppose that it would even be there, since I never visited it on Tuesday mornings." (Ch 6)
• The "our most loved daughter" scene (Ch 7)
• "I am thinking that we are on the moon, but it is not quite as I supposed it would be. It is a very happy place, though." (Ch 10)
• Merricat wishing she could walk across the sky rather than through the village
• Merricat's imagined board game way of moving through the village
• The imagining of a lovely and whimsical place from which the Blackwood and Rochester houses came
• Macabre fantasies - everyone in the store or village is dead and Merricat is walking on their bodies
• The constant, ongoing use of fantastical daydreams as an escape from any situation or person Merricat dislikes
• Jonas the cat telling Merricat stories
• Merricat's three words of protection & trust in omens, good and bad
• Her insistence that Charles was a ghost, but a ghost that could be driven away
• The children with no faces - imagine they are birds

OTHER THEMES & IDEAS TO EXPLORE

• Merricat's violence (fantasy and reality)
• Merricat's idolization of Constance & the way Constance shields her in turn
• The demonization of various neurodivergent traits (esp. in Merricat)
• The role of plants and poisons in the story
• The role of neatness and order and routine in the story (& its relation to the staticity)
• The threat of the outside world & the way the Blackwoods are so exposed to it after the fire (literally and figuratively)
• Sibling/family loyalty and parent/child dynamics with the Blackwoods and Constance/Merricat
• Merricat's rituals (burying things, words of protection, etc)
• The role of the dead family members in the story