How to Get Away with Murder: Unknowing and Subversion in Shirley Jackson’s <i>We Have Always Lived in the Castle</i>

This article considers what various forms of unknowing make possible in Shirley Jackson’s novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Combining Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s concept of the “privilege of unknowing” with close reading, I show how Merricat Blackwood, the novel’s narrator-protagonist, has a habit of repelling knowledge in her narration. I argue that this tendency allows her to evade accountability for the murders she committed as a child. Furthermore, I point to the queer potential of the narrator’s unknowingness, as she also circumvents gender norms and compulsory heterosexuality. The narrator’s refusal to recognize her own transgressions ultimately means that her subversion can linger beyond the narrative conclusion. Overall, I demonstrate that reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle with an emphasis on what Sedgwick terms the “privilege of unknowing” can help us understand how the novel generates readerly sympathy for or identification with its narrator, despite her murderous acts.