Tearjerker / We Have Always Lived in the Castle

• Depending on how you feel about Merricat, Constance deciding to never leave her house again. She was really trying to make an effort to overcome her agoraphobia and had seemed like she was beginning to want more out of life than waiting on Merricat and Julian hand and foot all day, which is possibly forever ruined by Merricat winning. It could be seen as even sadder in the movie, where Constance outright does dream of travel.
• Uncle Julian dying.
• In spite of how sociopathic and antisocial she is, it's terrible seeing Merricat - who is only a teenager and can't be held responsible for her parents' behaviour anyway - bullied and harassed every time she goes into town. This is even worse when you consider that the villagers blame Constance for the murders; not only are they willing to leave a young girl alone to be raised by a suspected murderer, but they also jeer at her for it.
• The only person who shows any sort of kindness to Merricat in town is the diner owner Stella, and even she laughs at Merricat when she leaves the restaurant.
• The village laughing and cheering when the house burns, hoping it takes the sisters too. Whatever they may feel about Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood, their daughters are being blamed for their classism and terrorised for it.
• There is something unbearably sad about Merricat in the summerhouse fantasising that her family love her, approve of her and will never punish her or starve her. It really drives home the fact that she murdered them in response to their abuse.
  • Even more awful when you consider that Shirley Jackson's own mother was incredibly cruel to her throughout her life, and that Jackson incorporated details of her own abuse into the novel.