One of the most frequently asked questions by readers to writers, and certainly by them to me, is ‘Where do you get your inspiration from ?’ Well, we don`t always know – usually, in fact, we do not know. But some things can be traced back to definite incidents in real life, to things read about in newspapers, perhaps, or seen on television, to events that catch our imaginations, move us, disturb us and which we think about a great deal.

Sometimes, those things go deep into the unconscious mind and lay dormant for many years – only to pop to the surface one day, transformed and transmuted by the mysterious workings of the imagination, into the stuff of fiction.

That is what usually happens to me. But occasionally, I become unusually interested in, curious about, a place, an incident, that is happening and an idea for a novel or a short story grows around it at once.

This happened, at least for the most part, with I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE.

In 1969, I rented a small, very simple cottage in a remote corner of the countryside, on the Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset border. I was marking the proofs of a previous novel - A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER – but otherwise, having a rest. Nevertheless, I must have been in that open, receptive state of mind, ready to have a new idea for a book, when things do make a heightened impression.

The place itself made a considerable impact on me. Places always do. They are almost as important as characters and events in my books and certainly none of the novels or stories has a vague or unimportant setting or settings.

The cottage was at the edge of a tiny village, through a farm gate and down a track across a long field. Behind it was a spinney, leading directly into a huge and dense stretch of ancient broadleaf wood, which covered several square miles of countryside. There was a rough grass garden in front of the cottage, from which I could see meadows, with a stream beyond, and some fields rising in the distance, where cows were grazed. This was a dairy farm and the cows were brought in, often right past my cottage, twice a day for milking. I grew used to the sound and sight of them, and to hear their names – cows had names, not numbers then – being shouted by the cowman. A good bit of farming activity went on during the days around me, but in the evenings and at night, it was very silent, with only the sighing of the wind in the elm trees, the hoot of owls, the snuffle of badgers, the barking of foxes. It was a wonderful, warm summer, and it was the year the men first landed on the moon. I sat out in my deckchair in the garden, listening to the owls and the foxes, but otherwise, it was remarkably still, as I tuned in my portable radio, to hear the voices of the men landing on the moon – ‘It`s one small step for a man but a giant leap for mankind…’ There was the great round globe of the moon suspended in the sky ahead of me, and then, coming over the crackly ether through the radio transistors, the voices of the astronauts who were actually walking – up there, now, at this moment !

It didn`t seem possible. It is engraved on my mind.

During that memorable summer, I was not particularly expecting to have an idea for a new novel, but from the moment I arrived, felt my writer`s antennae pricking, as I let every detail of the countryside, the atmosphere, the weather, affect me. But a place and an atmosphere, badgers and foxes at night, are a setting – not a story. There wasn`t a story for a week or so.

And then, one day, two boys aged eleven or so, went by the cottage. And the next day, and the next. Wherever I went on my walks, in the fields, up on the barrow, through Hang Wood – it really was called that – down the lane into the village, around the farm when I went to collect my milk, I would come upon them, larking about together, climbing gates, chatting, rolling over together fighting like puppies, kicking a ball about the lane. I discovered that they were the grandson of the farmer and his school friend, two typical English prep school boys on summer holiday. They seemed companionable and cheerful, the best of friends - the mock-fighting wasn`t serious and there was certainly nothing at all of Kingshaw and Hooper about them. But it was out of them that those two characters began to grow. By the end of my time in the cottage, the book was well sketched out in notebooks, and the place itself was clearly going to be described in detail, more or less as it actually was. I can trace the origins of I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE more clearly than most of my other books, superficially at least. That`s the easy part.

But where did the dark side of the story come from, the hostility between the boys, the bitter misery and suffering of the victim, Kingshaw, the evil – I am sure the word is not too strong – of Kingshaw ? I have a little idea, but not much.

As a child, between the ages of about 8 to 10, I went in fear of one boy, the son of some people who kept a café my mother and I used to have lunch or high tea in sometimes. He was 11, he had red hair, and he used to ask me to go and play. My mother encouraged me – it`s always nice for a child to have friends, after all. He would take me to the store rooms behind the café, or into the empty couple of rooms above, and torture me – not physically, though he always pinned me against the wall, or tied my arms behind my back – but in every other way, by word, by threats, by intimidation. The things he planned to do to me did not bear thinking about, but his main torment was to talk about things I was afraid of – Punch and Judy men, huge dogs, the dark caves in the cliffs above the beach, dead birds, people who crept up the stairs or peered in through the windows…. And of course, everything he threatened would come about if I told anyone at all about it.

After two years, we moved from that area of the town, I never saw him or went to the café again, and in any case, I was growing up. But those incidents, that bullying that took place over two terrifying years, remained deep in my memory, and left scars there. I am sure that much of what happened found its way into I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE, albeit transposed into a quite different context and setting.

Elizabeth Bowen, the great novelist of the mid-twentieth century, talked tellingly of the appalling damage done by children to children, quietly whispering among themselves, and Graham Greene has said that the first twelve years of a writer`s life are the most significant; during that time, almost everything of importance he will ever write about, happens to him.

It never does to delve too deeply into those areas of the sub-conscious from which a writer`s inspiration comes, not for fear of any dreadful psychological consequences but simply for fear that, in the process of laying bare what is secret, and explaining it away, the treasure trove of the imagination will vanish. I am sure there is more of I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE deep within me than I have explored. I prefer to leave it like that.

The book is primarily about children. But it was written when I was an adult, for adults. I have always admired and learned a great deal from many writers who have written in this way – most of all from Dickens, that novelist of childhood par excellence, in GREAT EXPECTATIONS, OLIVER TWIST, HARD TIMES, NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, DAVID COPPERFIELD, DOMBEY AND SON – the list goes on until you realise that there are very few of his books which do not treat of childhood, from an adult perspective. There was Elizabeth Bowen, too, and there were many others. It has always seemed to me wrong to assume that because a novel is about the young, it should be given them to read because they are the only ones who can understand it. They may understand much, but you do not gain a full and true perspective upon any period of life, and especially upon childhood, until you have grown past it.

Yet the book has been best understood not by adults but by young people, in particular by boys in their early teens. Parents may criticize it and disapprove of the depiction of the relationship between the two boys, and of the ending, which they believe are unconvincing and unlikely. Their children seem to know better. The book has been a widely-set examination text, and it is read a great deal in schools and by young readers on their own, and I receive more correspondence about it than about anything else I have written. Above all, it provokes arguments, discussion, intense debate. I have been in classrooms listening to them, and been impressed by the strength, passion and intelligence of the long and lively exchanges.

I am frequently asked about Kingshaw`s suicide… would I write it that way now, isn`t it far-fetched, isn`t it incredible… surely no child would ever….

My answer is that I would not change a word. Children and young people have and more and more frequently do, commit suicide, and on even less provocation. They do so in despair, as a result of being targeted, bullied, treated cruelly by their fellows, or of course also by adults, and their worst suffering is the fear that they cannot speak to anyone at all about what is happening. They are completely trapped. That is how Kingshaw feels. He is convinced, rightly I`m sure, that even if he managed to tell one of the adults in his life what is happening to him, he would not be believed – on the contrary, he would almost certainly be punished, and Hooper would be favoured over him and his triumph would be complete.

The ending of I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE is inevitable then, it is entirely likely; for that poor, trapped, tormented boy, there was no other solution, no other way out.

But God help the trio of survivors.

It is a novel about cruelty and the power of evil, which can possess even a young child, about a victim and a tormentor. Most of all, it is about isolation and the lack of love. No one in the novel is loved, gives real love, or feels its redeeming power. Everyone is self-absorbed, cold and self-serving, apart from Kingshaw and one other

Hooper is as he is because of his own loveless childhood, and makes Kingshaw suffer as a result. Lack of love has made the adults selfish, blind, insensitive, stupid. Only the boy Fielding has goodness, and innocence, openness and uncomplicated warmth, He has known normal human and family love and affection, given and received it and taken it all for granted, as all happy young creatures do. Both Kingshaw and Hooper recognise that – but Fielding has no power to save them.

The book is dark, although it emerged from happy places and happy scenes. Many people have told me they dislike it very much. One mother of sons who are reading it for GCSE said she threw it at the wall is fury !

But others have said, ‘ that is what it was like for me. I knew a boy like that, who did things like that to me. The book made me feel a bit better because I realized that others have been there, that I haven`t been alone.’

I often think one of the major purposes of the novelist is to do that – to make some people realize that they are not, after all, alone.

FAQs

Goodness, everyone is back at school and back to work and reading this – and asking me questions.. I`ve had almost 140 e-mails today alone so am putting up some of the most frequently asked and some of the most intelligent up here with my answers.
But do remember, these are only MY answers – they are not set in stone, not THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AD NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH. If you ask a factual question you will obviously get a factual answer from me – someone asked when the book was first published. I could give the factual answer to that and it would, of course, be right – but I am not going to as it is a lazy question and the answer is in the front of the book on the copyright page.

But what you think, what you deduce from your reading of the book, is what matters and there are often no right or wrong answers in literature –your opinion, backed up by evidence from the text, is what counts.

Anyway, here goes – and Coundon School Coventry comes out on top for asking the most questions !

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU GO ON OR ASK ANY MORE QUESTIONS.
Many of the answers will be found in my AFTERWORD to the Penguin edition of the novel. So read that.
Many more questions are answered in the must-have book SUSAN HILL. THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE by MARGARET REYNOLDS and JONATHAN NOAKES ( Vintage paperback 6.99) Your school should get it if you can`t. It can be bought via amazon, ordered from any bookshop, or bought from LONG BARN BOOKS, EBRINGTON, GLOUCESTERSHIRE GL55 6NW. Cheques to LONG BARN BOOKS, and the price from here is 5.99 INCLUDING POSTAGE.

NOW, to the questions.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE THE BOOK ?
A lot of you asked this in various ways. You do need to read my Afterword to the Penguin edition.
But it came about when I was staying in a remote cottage on a farm in Dorset in the late 1960s and the farmer`s grandson and his friend were there for the holidays. They were both 11. They used to be about in the fields and go past my cottage and I began to weave the story round them. The village nearby is the one in the book.
So far as I could tell the boys were good friends – certainly not like Hooper and Kingshaw. But good friends didn`t make a very interesting story !
I made a lot of it up walking about the countryside there – in Hang Wood, in the village, going by the house I called Warings.

WERE YOU BULLIED AT SCHOOL ?
This and a related question, WERE YOU A BULLY ? came from Lauren, Hanna, Darren and Fisher, at Coundon Court School. Good questions.
Yes, is the answer. I don`t like the words bully/bullying/bullied.. If you substitute the word ‘unkind’ you see it means more. Other children were unkind to me – children often are and always were unkind to one another. Children are conformists and they hate anyone different or who stands out. My mother was a dressmaker and made my school uniform which always looked very slightly different from the shop-bought one – so that was something I was sneered at about. And I was quite clever and loved books – the clever bit was OK as there were others equally so, but they were more of a scientific bent. No one read like I read and that singled me out.
But the worst I suffered was from a boy, the son of some people my parents knew. They thought he would be a good friend to me and look after me – he was about 11 or 12 when I was about 8 or 9. He used to take me to the garage or the shed and pin me up against the wall and pull my hair, bend my fingers back and tell me the devil would come after me in the night. If I said anything to anyone about any of it, the devil would not only come after me, he would curse me forever. And I believed him. Once we met him with his family at the swimming pool and he pushed my head under the water for so long I think I might have drowned if someone hadn`t come swimming by.

I was never a bully, no. I knew only too well what it was like to be on the receiving end.

ARE YOU LIKE ANY OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOKS ?
No. I am not like any of my characters.

WHY IS THE BOOK CALLED WHAT IT IS ?

Well you know the nursery rhyme. Or you should. One is top dog, the other underdog.
And of course there is a real castle in the book.

WHY DO YOU WRITE SO THAT THE CHILDREN THINK LIKE ADULTS ?

Children often DO think like adults. They think differently some of the time of course.
And you must remember this was a novel written for adults. It has been taken up for GCSE and school coursework but it was never aimed at young people.
No reason why they shouldn`t read it, of course.. I am a great believer in adults and children reading and enjoying one another’s books…

WHY DO BOTH CHILDREN HATE THEIR PARENTS AT SUCH A YOUNG AGE ?

Not sure Kingshaw HATES his mother.. perhaps too strong a word. But both boys have had rather chilly parents, not much love and fun and affection. Both are only sons, both parents seem very distant from their boys. So reciprocal affection and liking aren`t so easy.

WHAT INFLUENCES HOOPER TO BULLY KINGSHAW ?

Everyone who is unkind to someone does so because it has been done to them first. I believe that apart from a few people who are hard-wired to be bad, from birth probably, most people who hurt and maim and even kill others have had someone be unkind or cruel to them, usually in young childhood. And Hooper also feel his territory threatened – this is animal behaviour and young boys are to a certain extent the same as young animals.

OK, that`s it for now. More questions and answers tomorrow so keep checking the website. And do use the messageboard. You will find other people from other schools on there and you can share opinions.
But we REMOVE ANY POSTS CONTAINING ABUSE OR SWEARING.

Further Reading

There is a New Longman Literature edition of I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE with an introduction and notes, with questions, study and coursework suggestions. (ISBN 0 582 43446 7)

The previous Longmans edition was in their now discontinued Imprint series. It is out of print, and an extract from the introduction appears below. Well worth getting hold of if you can, as the notes and further study suggestions and essay questions are among the best available.

York Notes have a volume on I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE. (ISBN 0 58231 3813.) and there is also a Letts Explore on the book (1 85 758265 9)

One of the best educational guides to the novel is also now out of print. Brodie`s Notes came from Pan Books and was first published in 1988. The introduction and commentary are by Nigel Grant. Although the biographical and bibliographical sections are now out of date, the commentary is excellent. Some extracts are below.

All of these guides are useful for school students. They will help you to look clearly at the novel, to clarify matters and details, and they do provide much food for discussion. Of course the critical opinions are those of the individual editors and the author does not necessarily agree with them all ! Nor do you have to, though if you disagree you need to give reasons to back up your case, and preferably quotations too.

But no study guide, however helpful, is a substitute for your own careful reading of the text and thoughtful critical analysis and comment. Those are what the examiners want. It is you who are showing what you know, what you have read and how carefully, with what a degree and depth of understanding. Examiners know the study aids and guides only too well and memorising and then simply regurgitating chunks of other people`s work, either in extended essays or exam papers, will not help you to get good marks !
Used wisely though all the study guides are valuable.

Extracts from Brodies Notes by Nigel Grant 1988

From THE AUTHOR AND HER WORK section of Brodie`s Notes on I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE

Susan Hill was an only child. Her mother was very practical but also loved books and encouraged her daughter to read and enjoy them. The absence of many other children to play with nearby, the love of books and long walks with her mother in all weather in and around Scarborough, all helped to foster her imagination. She could read from the age of around four and first began to experience the excitement and drama of Dickens`s novels when she was nine. Lewis Carroll`s Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass were and still are favourites. She has retained an ability, unusual in adults, to look at the world through a child`s eyes, to understand what children value and to perceive how adults often fail to communicate with them. Conflict within families and particularly between children and adults. Is central to a number of her works. She has written that one of her most consistent obsessions as a writer has been with the state of childhood and especially with children who are to some extent misfits.

Her love of the countryside and her sensitivity to its benefits and demands are irresistible to even the most confirmed town dweller but she is not a rural romantic. The country can be uncomfortable, unpleasant and frightening. While writing I`m the King of the Castle she actually had a very unpleasant encounter with a crow and defends the incident in the novel against sceptical readers who disbelieve a crow would behave in such a way. ( A naturalist explained to her that the crow who attacked had probably been rescued by humans and reared in captivity, before being released and it therefore had a somewhat confused attitude to them ! )

Susan Hill`s use of nature almost as a living character is similar to that of Thomas Hardy, one of her favourite authors.

Common themes in her writing are fear, disappointment, frustration, loneliness and hate. often experienced within domestic relationships. Her characters include a lonely young officer in the First World War (STRANGE MEETING) an insanely gifted poet (THE BIRD OF NIGHT), a young widow (IN THE SPRINGTIME OF THE YEAR), divorced men and women entering lonely middle and old age (A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER) and children starved of any beneficial adult influence (THE ALBATROSS).

Although many of her characters are suffering women, she does not write with any conventional feminine purpose. Her sympathies and interests are spread far wider than the cause of women`s emancipation. She is interested in what makes people as they are, why they behave as they do and how they treat one another. She returns again and again to the turbulent dramas that lie beneath the apparently placid surfaces of ‘normal’ domestic situations.

An unusual aspect of her work, especially the earlier novels, is the presentation of evil in people as a real condition which cannot be completely ascribed to their situations or the way they were brought up. Responsibility is ultimately placed upon people for what they do, not just on the ills they have suffered, although the operations of circumstances and fate provide a framework within which the characters play out their parts. Death, commonly seen as the ultimate evil, to be avoided at all costs, can become a positive influence, in Susan Hill`s work. At its worst it is shown as an escape, an end to unhappiness and futility, as in I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE. At its best, death is a liberating, even enriching experience, as in IN THE SPRINGTIME OF THE YEAR, a moving a perceptive account of a young widow`s attempts to come to terms with bereavement, and STRANGE MEETING, the title from Wilfred Owen`s poem, a novel about loneliness and friendship in the trenches of World War 1.

Evil can take many forms. Crime and war are its two most vivid expressions but I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE reveals the taut pitch of evil possible in the most innocuous of situations.

Susan Hill`s books are often deceptively easy to read, though since AIR AND ANGELS, written in 1990, her prose and the structure of her novels have become rather more complex. The language is straightforward and the subjects accessible, ( except perhaps in THE BIRD OF NIGHT.) This apparent simplicity is a feature of her ability to deal with sombre or tragic subjects in a way that is not laborious or oppressive. She writes economically and confidently, with a sure handling of her subjects, drawing the reader into worlds of imaginative experience rooted in the reality of the most appalling human affairs.

But even a desperately unhappy novel such as I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE is a gripping, rewarding story from which we can learn much about our own attitudes and behaviour through engaging with characters who exist, in part, in all of us. All four main characters behave in very human ways – they deceive themselves and others, they exploit or ignore unhappiness, and one is pushed beyond the limit of his ability to endure. It is a haunting and disturbing story whose two main characters,. Hooper and Kingshaw, cannot be forgotten or ignored. Many children, parents and those who work with children, will recognize the potential truth of Susan Hill`s vision of childhood. For some of them, that truth may have become a reality.

SUSAN HILL'S ART IN I'M THE KING OF THE CASTLE

CHARACTERS

Edmund Hooper

He could not have imagined the charm it afforded him, having Kingshaw here, thinking of things to do to him.

We read in the commentary to Chapter One of the novel that Edmund Hooper is a complex, enigmatic character. He is a motherless ten year old, emotionally stifled by the claustrophobic environment of Warings and burdened with a cold, discouraging father. To this extent we can sympathize with him, for he has never had a chance. It is hardly surprising that he is also cold and reluctant to befriend Charles Kingshaw, whom he sees as an intruder.

The Bible tells of the sins of the fathers being visited on the sons (Deuteronomy 5.9); in other words, the failings of parents will often cause similar feelings in their children – family patterns are often repeated down the generations. Certainly, Hooper knows nothing of warmth or affection and his own nature is therefore critical and negative in the extreme. The loss of his mother is one reason for his coldness. Despite mocking Kingshaw for being ‘ baby-boy’ over attached to his mother and claiming that fathers are better than mothers, his delirious outburst, ‘Mummy ! Mummy !’ reveals the inner insecurity created by her absence. At root he is deprived not materially but emotionally, and he compensates within himself for his own sense of loss by hitting out at those around him. We cannot believe his claim that he has many friends at school. The house, Warings, becomes a substitute for the home he has never had, and in this sense his situation is parallel to that of Kingshaw. The difference lies in their responses. Kingshaw is good, kindly, Hooper is violent, unfeeling. He dismisses his dying grandfather with a terse simile, comparing him cruelly but truthfully to one of his dead moths. He effortlessly exposes his father`s errors of speech and habit, commenting bitterly on Joseph Hooper`s frequent absences, and insolently finds the loophole in the Kingshaws’ ambivalent position in the house. Are they visitors to be treated with careful politeness, or are they to be seen as members of his own family, people whom to some extent one does not have to make a special effort to entertain or treat as guests ?

But our sympathy for him rapidly reaches a limit as the Kingshaws arrive. From the first act of unjustified hostility, the dropping of the note, through the whole catalogue of other cruel and malicious acts that he perpetrates against Charles Kingshaw, Hooper demands to be seen as something far worse than a neglected and misunderstood boy.

There are many examples of his cruelty but some important ones are.

1. The placing of the stuffed crow in Kingshaw`s bedroom.

2. The pretence of generosity in front of the adults with the cereal packet submarine.

3. The locking of Kingshaw into the Red Room once he realizes Charles is afraid of the moths.

4. His lies and accusations, both petty and serious.

He has a quick, sharp mind and uses his intelligence to probe Kingshaw`s weaknesses mercilessly.

There is such a concentration of sadism, such single-minded determination within him to Drive Kingshaw away, irrespective of the consequences, that we are shaken on finishing the book that we have just read about two ten year olds. After reading the story. It is very difficult to maintain an unshaken belief that young children do not bear grudges, are incapable of sustained cruelty, and do not really understand the effects of their own behaviour.

It would be misleading to present the relationship between the two boys as a crude, unbroken pattern of victor and vanquished, bully and weakling. There are times when Hooper`s weaknesses are clearly exposed and Kingshaw has the opportunity to break from his enemy`s hold. The episode in Hang Wood (Chapter Seven ) shows Edmund`s fear of storms and his helplessness in an environment which he cannot control. He gives way to panic and for a short time Kingshaw is the undisputed leader. And yet, as soon as the storm ceases, Hooper automatically takes charge and uses Kingshaw`s revulsion at the sight of the dead, maggot-eaten rabbit, to wipe clean the stigma of his own weakness. There are other occasions of temporary helplessness when he appears greatly inferior to Charles; his fall in the wood, his hysteria and physical sickness at the thought of never getting back home, his near-drowning in the stream and the terrible fall before which he soiled his clothes in fright. (Chapter Twelve.) Yet he always claws back the advantage, ruthlessly using lies and ingratitude to beat Kingshaw back into his role of underdog.

If you have read William Golding`s novel Lord of the Flies you will be able to see the similarity between the two worst boys in that book, Jack and Roger, and Edmund Hooper. Golding`s novel explores a similar theme to that of I`m the King of the Castle, the inherent evil in children, but operates in a fantastic and highly imaginary environment, a desert island isolated from the controlled adult world. The triumph of Susan Hill`s characterization in Edmund Hooper is that we have an English public school boy capable of driving another boy to suicide, during the school holidays.

The triumph stems from the ultimately indefinable combination of personal evil – a theological rather than a psychological notion – and the damaging effects of Edmund Hooper of Warings and the two Hooper men. No neat answers are offered to explain Hooper`s psychotic hatred of Kingshaw and no excuses are made. His difficult personality, created by his background, is a channel for his innate unpleasantness. At the end, as he hypocritically submits to Mrs Kingshaw`s unnecessary attempts to comfort him, he is fully aware of what he has done and he rejoices in the death of his victim. He is a frighteningly convincing portrait of malice and cruelty, the more disturbing because he is a child.

Charles Kingshaw

He did not give in to people, he only went, from the beginning, with the assurance that he would be beaten.

Our response to Kingshaw swings between overwhelming sympathy and great irritation. There are many times when he could have taken the initiative and effectively checked Hooper`s campaign of terror. But he is almost totally devoid of aggression, to the extent that we think him weak. Most children, particularly those of a sensitive and imaginative nature, have irrational fears – of the dark, insects, dogs, some adults and so forth. Charles Kingshaw, though, is consumed by fear of so many things and has such little confidence in himself, that he stands no chance in the struggle against Hooper. Part of his problem is his mother. He has an acute understanding of his lack of any real relationship with her, of her inability to understand him and his inability to make her see him for the anxiety-ridden child he is. It is his very precise knowledge of the unbridgeable gap between them that contributes to his hopelessness and despair. He retreats into his own world without any encouraging adult presence, prey to all the fears and uncertainties of childhood, and lacking the strength of personality that would allow him to defeat Hooper.

Almost anything, real or imaginary, frightens him. Why should he be like this ? As with Hooper, there are no easy answers, but his relationship with his mother cannot help. He is clearly a boy who needs others to back him up, to serve as models of independence and courage – see his frightened admiration of Fenwick`s stoical acceptance of his injuries, after falling at speed on gravel, and his determination to be exactly like his village friend, Fielding, who is relaxed and self-assured. He exists in an uneasy limbo of social acceptance at St Vincent`s School, tolerated rather than warmly liked, a lonely, introverted child whose main aim is to be unnoticed and stay out of trouble. Without active understanding and parental support, he lacks confidence, a lonely and pathetic boy.

He is at once similar to and yet very different from Hooper. They seem to contrast in every way, but there is one important underlying point of comparison. Both are lonely and have few real friends – ( it is difficult to believe, as Kingshaw did, in Hooper`s school friends who will beat him up, on Hooper`s instruction.) Both have lost one parent and have no relationship with the remaining one; both reveal their need for adult comfort in moments of stress, reminding us that they are still young boys.

Isolation, then, is common to them both. Their very different ways of coping with it hold the key to their respective natures. Where Hooper has a need to create fear in others ( even testing Fielding`s reaction to the moths ), Kingshaw retreats from life wherever a threat can be seen. Fielding patiently tries to reason with him before becoming exasperated and losing patience. Is this reasonable and understandable ? Is it a normal boy`s inability to understand another`s inner torment ? Certainly, there are many times when Kingshaw has legitimate grounds for being afraid. He is sensitive, hating the deathly atmosphere in the Red Room, and terrified when Hooper locks him in. The two incidents with the crows, one live and one dead )Chapter Three ) are genuinely horrible and there is no shame in Kingshaw`s panic. Both occasions are the stuff of nightmare, emotionally overwhelming and totally convincing in every detail. We feel for him, to, in the shed incident (Chapter Eleven. ) Like the Red Room, it is claustrophobic and the squashed insect is particularly unpleasant, evoking our sympathy and confirming our belief in Hooper`s sadism.

On his own ground, though, Kingshaw is impressively confident. He is the best climber in his school, and his assured scaling of the castle walls contrasts with Hooper`s terror. He enjoys the solitariness of Hang Wood – somewhere even Fielding, who is a country who has lived in the village all his life, will not visit and remains undisturbed by the terrible storm which reduces Hooper to cowering panic. When away from people and places that oppress him, Kingshaw is relaxed and able to enjoy life.

Writing in The Dictionary of Literary Biography Catherine Wells Cole comments that ‘This is the first of Susan Hill`s novels to contrast the natural world with man-made environments.’

Once free from the inhibiting effect of Warings, the Hoopers and his mother, Kingshaw shows extraordinary resourcefulness for a boy of his age. He has a reasonable idea of how to survive in woods and enjoys their seclusion. So it is all the more irritating to see his continual fear of life, rooted in his lonely relationship with his mother, taking control of everything he does. He is never free from anxiety: nothing can be enjoyed for its own sake without thought of how it might be spoilt. Even when he sometimes manages to win in his war with Hooper, he never clinches the psychological victory owing to his fear and frustration at the unfairness of his situation. When running away from Warings he finds a tractor in a field. Although he enjoys the sense of power about the machine, he panics when his satchel catches on a lever. He resembles the rabbit he catches and cannot kill, a quivering, terrified creature.

* Water imagery is central to Kingshaw`s presentation. There are many references to his love of the stream, which becomes a sanctuary, an mage of cleansing and baptism, washing away the fear and the horror associated with Warings. His enemy nearly drowns there, suffering a temporary defeat. In his final escape from his nightmare world, Kingshaw drowns himself, quietly, peacefully, and for once, without fear.

(* This is a perfect of an important point I make in the general notes for Students. It is perfectly true, now a commentator points it out and gives examples, that watery imagery is important in the presentation of Kingshaw and the cleansing and baptismal analogies are interesting, valid and illuminating ones. But I stress that none of this was done or put in consciously at the time of writing, and I certainly did not plan to have the reader draw the analogies with cleansing and baptism. But because I did not consciously put these things in the novel, does not mean that they are not there to be drawn out, very usefully, by a commentator and by the reader. They add a depth and another layer of meaning. A good example of the text having a life of its own, independent of its author/creator – one of the tenets of post-modernism SUSAN HILL.)

Mrs Helena Kingshaw

Things must not go wrong, this is my chance and I shall not waste it. I mean us all to be very happy.

Unhappy relationships between parents and children are a frequent theme in Susan Hill`s work. Grown women have to contend with domineering elderly mothers and boys suffer from cruel or silly mothers who cannot come to terms with the fact that their sons need independence and respect.

Helena Kingshaw is a prime example of a woman who, while fond of her son in a superficial way, allows him no emotional space in which to develop his personality. She is thirty-seven and has been widowed for about five years, during which time she and Charles have not had a permanent home. She is caught in a trap, a genteel, middle-class widow of no evident talents and without money, trying hard to keep up appearances. A woman with more character and less independence on what people thought of her might have found a job which would support them both. Presumably, Mrs Kingshaw has not considered this idea – working for a living is not part of what she considers suitable for a woman of her class. She comes to Warings to act as a housekeeper/companion for the lonely Joseph Hooper and sees her new position ass a final opportunity to escape domestic insecurity. To ensure that she and Charles are accepted, she agrees with everything Mr Hooper suggests. Note her response when Mr Hooper finds a bagatelle board and some draughts for the boys, forcing them to play together. She verbally applauds his idea, praising him for his cleverness. As readers, we are embarrassed at her painful flattery and wonder what Charles Kingshaw must be feeling, especially when he is in Hooper’s critical presence.

Helena Kingshaw feels the lack of a man`s company and pathetically grasps at the image of masculinity she sees in Joseph Hooper. He is a physically unattractive man, but she is comforted by his presence and as their relationship grows more intimate she welcomes his cautious physical advances. As they drive back after visiting Edmund in hospital, Mr Hooper touches and holds her hand. We are shown her thoughts directly as she feels reassured by the contact with a man. It could be any man who offers her financial security. She feels nothing special for him and is only eager to ingratiate herself into the security of his home. She admits to herself that she finds unmarried life difficult and is obviously ready to do almost anything to ensure that her trial stay at Warings becomes permanent.

Her desperate attempts to encourage and flatter Joseph Hooper are painfully transparent. When he invites her to keep him company, she blushes and expresses surprise. Her conversation with the boys is acutely embarrassing and her manner is synthetically cheerful. Charles is sickened by her total lack of pride, her forced pleasantries and her obvious desire to curry favour with Mr Hooper.

In her determination to make sure nothing shall spoil her chances, she persistently ignores the obvious friction between the two boys. This refusal to recognise what is obviously a very unhappy situation takes two forms. Firstly, she steamrollers any complaints Charles might make, into the smooth path she is laying to the door of Warings. Her mode of talking to him, especially for a boy of his sensitivity, is patronizing in the extreme. In Chapter Ten they have a long talk about the ill-fated excursion into Hang Wood. She uses babyish language to address him, as if he is two or three years old, and adopts pretended concern to deafen herself to anything he has to say. When he truthfully maintains that he was not frightened in Hang Wood, she insists that he must have been uneasy. She tries incompetently to appeal to his better feelings and accuses him of being inconsiderate. Like Mr Hooper and Edmund, she talks at Charles, not with him. Her infuriating repetition of ‘dear’ is condescending rather than affectionate and she has the irritating habit of stressing words for emphasis ( shown in italics in the text ), conferring an inappropriate sense of importance on what she says.

The second aspect of her refusal to acknowledge the rift between the boys is more serious. Many parents may be fussy, incapable of listening to their children and emotionally stifling to be with. Not many would be willing to deliberately displace their only child in order to find a comfortable life. For a woman of shallow character, she shows substantial determination in her determination to accept Edmund as if he is her own child. In the ugly scene of accusation and counter-accusation about Edmund`s injury in Hang Wood, she absolutely refuses to believe her own son. In exasperation, Charles is driven to violent denunciations of Edmund. Like all children, he has a very keen sense of what is fair and unfair. In a similar scene after Edmund`s fall from the castle, Charles almost weeps in his frustration at not being able to get his mother to believe him. She is alone with him in Mr Hooper`s car and there is no need for her to be polite for fear of hurting Mr Hooper`s feelings. The cause of her deafness to Charles`s account of the incident is that she has decided they shall be a family, and no evidence will ever get her to change her mind. She and her wishes come first, to the extent that she sees her own son lying drowned in the stream, her instinct is to protect Edmund from such a traumatic sight. In her own way she is a frightening character, absolutely single-minded and gently ruthless in her pursuit of the imagined glory of Mr Hooper`s home. As a result, she loses her own character completely and becomes like a dazzled moth, fluttering around the bright light she sees in the sombre gloom of Warings.

Joseph Hooper

For he knew himself to be an ineffectual man, without any strength or imposing qualities – a man who had failed.

Failure is one of the themes of I`M THE KING OF THE CASTLE. All the main characters fail to achieve full human status, both individually and in relation to each other. Joseph Hooper is a portrait of unremitting, lifelong failure. Unlike Helena Kingshaw who, it is suggested, had once been happy, Joseph Hooper`s life is a depressing catalogue of disappointment. As a child, lacking Edmund`s will and rebellious nature, he was condemned to spend his summer holidays in the Red Room, to watch his father processing dead moths for his interminable collection.

Their relationship was cold, based solely on the giving and receiving of advice and criticism. His father, like him, had no understanding of a boy`s needs and was offended by his son`s eventual decision to spend his holidays away. He challenged Joseph Hooper to ‘ make a name’ for himself, setting a standard that would be hard for anyone to follow and which was especially difficult for a young man whose personality had been systematically destroyed. Like the moths, he had been ‘pinned down’ until he became a dry husk of a man, lacking confidence and the ability to form relationships.

He too has become distanced from his own son, only able to criticize and instruct, recommending a vague code of appropriate conduct instead of setting an example by which life should be lived. He finds it difficult to respond honestly to Edmund`s blunt questioning of why it was necessary to visit the dying old man and appeals to an irrational sense of family duty and ‘respect.’ However, he admits to himself that paradoxically, respect has only come to him with the certainty of being released from his father.

Joseph Hooper is nervous and diffident with his son, fobbing off his request to do in the Red Room and telling him that he will ‘ soon have a friend’ as if friendships can be acquired ready made.

We learn that his marriage has been unhappy, that he remembers his wife as cold and secretive. He feels no regret or sense of loss and as he and Mrs Kingshaw grow more familiar we are told of his sexual disappointment with his wife. He comes to terms with his own dullness by cloaking himself in a sense of family history, tangibly represented by the house and the moth collection. There is an element of pathos in a man depending on such ugly props to his self-esteem and conscience.

He welcomes Mrs Kingshaw`s fawning flattery. For once, there is the promise of a close relationship in his life which will not be humiliating or deflating. He begins to feel ‘ a new man,’ throwing a cocktail party and making plans for day trips out. There is a cruel sense of irony as this thin, balding, middle aged man with a small pursed mouth preens himself and imagines himself as attractive to Mrs Kingshaw. She too sets out to be as desirable and accommodating as she can, shortening her dresses and receiving his compliments with grateful attention. They are very similar. We realize that their relationship is built on what each can take from rather than give to each other., and the sense of irony deepens as they deceive themselves and each other in a terrible parody of a relationship. Another ironical reference to Mr Hooper occurs when he has doubts about his decision to invite the Kingshaws to Warings. It is far more terrible than he could ever have imagined, and the irony is that he does not realize his error, even at Charles Kingshaw`s death.

He lacks confidence in himself and is a totally ineffective disciplinarian with Edmund. When Mrs Kingshaw arrives and flatters both his self-importance and his own image of his masculinity he becomes a pathetic travesty of a dominant male, speaking decisively to her and pompously assuring her that he likes to do things properly. Their relationship is like a formal dance, with each playing a party and moving in well-planned steps, without freshness of spontaneity.

Joseph Hooper is abhorrent to Charles, whose dislike of him is conveyed through images of feared and threatened birds. Charles hates the way his mother debases herself and obviously finds it difficult to talk to Mr Hooper. Mr Hooper finds him tractable, and embarrasses him by making an open, untrue declaration of friendship. But he has his redeeming features and we are invited to sympathize with him. He is lonely and defeated. Despite the fact that he seems to have plenty of money and an important job, he has failed in his personal life. He has some genuine concern for the Kingshaws and shows Charles the affection he has presumably never felt or been able to show to Edmund, who has inherited his mother`s coldness. His inability to understand what goes on in the boys’ minds is shown in his unimaginative efforts to create friendship between them but he does at least make an effort, within his narrow understanding of the situation. When Charles has his terrible nightmare Mr Hooper comforts him, temporarily revealing the fatherly nature he has never been allowed to display. We can at least understand the reasons for his mistakes, even if we cannot excuse the consequences of his actions.

Setting

The geographical setting is made interesting by the part it has to play in the story. Both the natural environment of the fields – the wood, the sky, and the weather – and the artificial presence of Warings are important in terms of atmosphere. The settings affect and reflect the characters. The gloom of Warings is a physical parallel for the lives of the Hoopers. The yew trees, with their suggestion of death, deepen the morbid atmosphere in the house. The Red Room, the dark wooden panelling and staircases, the attic full of dead or rotting things – these are all aspects of the setting which tell us about the Hoopers and have such a disastrous effect upon Charles. The fields and the woods around the village of Derne, like the house, are essential to the characterization and the plot. The Hang Wood episode, for example, occupies over a quarter of the book and makes extensive use of the natural environment to reveal new aspects of both boys, creates tension and adds a necessary element of uncertainty to the plot. The stream is a central symbol of escape from everything that is bad and is vital to the means and the effect of the climax of the novel.

The setting, then, is more than just a necessary geographical location for the characters to be in. We experience the house in an atmospheric, not an architectural sense. When the sun shines through the trees in Hang Wood, it is part of a series of events in nature which interact with the moods of the characters. The various elements of the setting work together almost as characters, threatening, frightening, accepting and encouraging the people who come under their influence.

Themes

In I'M THE KING OF THE CASTLE there are several related themes.

1. FEAR. ( this is most apparent in Kingshaw, but is shown in one way or another in all the main characters.)

2. FAILURE. Failure as a person, and as a parent. Failure to communicate and understand.

3. DISAPPOINTMENT. This is most apparent in Joseph Hooper, whose whole life seems to be a series of disappointments, as he hated his father, disliked, and was disliked by, his wife and is despised by his son. His charade of assertiveness with Helena Kingshaw and his sexual expectations seem bound to lead to further disappointment. Mrs Kingshaw is determined to avoid further disappointment and in doing so cuts herself off completely form her son.

4. HATRED. The hatred between Hooper and Kingshaw is of course the main source of the plot but it stands on its own right as a theme which is given considerable attention, especially with regard to its relationship with fear.

5. EVIL. Evil in children, as personified by Hooper, is a disturbing theme that challenges the assumptions of goodness that most of us feel children have. Hooper`s behaviour cannot be explained completely by his lack of a mother and of an understanding father-son relationship. There is something in him which ultimately defies analysis, but it is real and inescapable and holds our attention completely.

The list of themes is a forbidding one, and if we see it just as a list, we might question the book, which has no humour, on the grounds that it is a relentless examination of all that is bad in human nature.

What has made the book so popular in the thirty years since it was first published, is the way in which these subjects are presented through characters in whom we can believe, because they strike chords of recognition in us in a discomforting way.

Style

Anthony Fielding
Fielding is the most important of the minor characters and functions as a symbol or standard of normality in this novel of disturbed and unhappy personalities. He befriends Kingshaw and his happy-go-lucky companionship gives Charles a respite from the horrors of Hooper`s nastiness. He is very forthright and uncomplicated. When he and Kingshaw first meet, Fielding does not stand on ceremony or work his way through a series of unnecessary introductions, but bluntly asks Kingshaw what is troubling him. He is friendly and makes no demands. He has the gift of being at ease in any company, but realizes that not everyone is like himself. He is concerned when Kingshaw is anxious and uneasy on his first visit to the farm and puts no pressure on him to do things he does not want to do. Unlike Hooper`s taunts, his sympathetic understanding gives Kingshaw the courage he needs.

Fielding is absolutely the right friend for Kingshaw. He takes people as they are, never prying into Charles`s background nor imposing his wishes on him. He gives him reassurance to start believing in himself, but his very independence and insecurity ironically reflect Kingshaw`s insecurity. He feels he must imitate Fielding if he is to become independent and unafraid of Hooper. He copies Fielding, as if similar external behaviour can create a similar inner state of mind.

Fielding is even-tempered and unafraid of the things that terrify Kingshaw. When shown into the feared Red Room he is unaffected by the moths and stuffed animals. He is startled by Kingshaw`s open hatred of Hooper and finds his unhappiness impossible to comprehend. Yet he too is vulnerable. He shares the local superstitious fear of Hang Wood and, exasperated at Charles`s complaints about Edmund, angrily tells him not to be ‘so wet’ in his dealings with Hooper.

Fielding`s parents share his lack of tension and anxiety. Mrs Fielding is contrasted with Mrs Kingshaw. She wears trousers – Helena Kingshaw is concerned over dresses – and says little. Her quiet welcome causes Kingshaw to compare her with his own mother. The atmosphere in the house is relaxed, with a sense of freedom, unlike Warings. Like her husband, who appears only once, she is very much a background figure, existing only to provide a comparison with the adults at Warings.