The title of I Capture the Castle raises an important question that isn't necessarily answered by the story: Who is capturing the castle? It is not a geopolitical drama that Capture refers to, it seems, but rather, the question is a way of pointing to the various characters and their specific flavors, as if to suggest that their motivation is to be "in charge," so they can get what they want. This leads the characters into a wonderful tangling of motives so that the novel becomes an artistic rendering of family and the dance of various characters hoping to fulfill their desires in the arena of the home.
In the home, the father and step-mother are critical figures, nearly mythic in nature. The father is a writer who struggles to be free of his own desires for perfection, and often is stumped by writers block. The children eventually rectify this by hiding him away in the turret room, placing him in a dire situation through which he is finally able to write. Then, there is the step-mother who is the absolute opposite. Whereas the father is emotionally cloistered and maintained, the step-mother is usually naked. She is a free spirit, like a muse.
There is another pair of opposites in the story: Simon Cotton and Neil Cotton. A good essay could be written comparing and contrasting these two. The elder son is a reader and thinker, and as the elder, he is likely to inherit a good inheritance, but he isn't nearly as happy as his little brother. By contrast, Neil is less romantic and more practical. His romantic qualities are attachments to California, to land, and to freedom. If Mr. Mortmain and his wife Topaz demonstrate the polar opposites of the artistic process, the Cotton brothers demonstrate the polar opposites of the romantic endeavor. One is attached to society and marriage, and the other is attached to nature and freedom.
