The Forty Rules of Love and Honour: Multi- Layered Narratives by Elif Shafak
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10795675
Author(s): Dr. Shiny Mendonce
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10795648
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Volume 15 | Issue 1 | Feb 2024
Pages: 311-318
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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal
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The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-I, February 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
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https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
Breaking Stereotypes: Analyzing the Evolving Representation of the
‘Witch’ in 20th Century America
Dr. Kavya Rajeev
Asst. Professor of English,
NDA, Pune.
Article History: Submitted-12/01/2024, Revised-15/02/2024, Accepted-16/02/2024, Published-29/02/2024.
Abstract:
The paper explores the dynamic evolution of the portrayal of witches in American
culture, tracing its intricate connection to shifting cultural, societal, and literary contexts.
Originating from the historical backdrop of witchcraft trials in colonial America, the image of
the witch has undergone continuous transformations over centuries. Examining diverse and
often paradoxical representations, this research spans from the Salem trials to contemporary
films, unraveling the rich literary tapestry that both reflects and shapes perceptions of witches
in American culture. By delving into historical roots and employing a range of cinematic
examples, including “The Wizard of Oz (1939),” “I Married a Witch (1942),” “Bell, Book
and Candle (1958),” “Bewitched (1964-74),” “Sabrina, The Teenage Witch (1996-2000)”,
“Practical Magic (1998)”, “The Witches of Eastwick (1987)”, “The Craft (1996),” and “The
Blair Witch Project (1999)”, the paper aims to elucidate the layers of representation and
interpretation contributing to the evolving depictions of witches in American culture.
Keywords: Feminist, America, Witch, representation, women.
Introduction
The American cultural history represents a fascinating evolution and transformation
of the depiction of witches intricately linked to the changing cultural, societal and literary
milieu. Rooted in the historical narratives of witchcraft trials that transpired in colonial
America, the image of the witch has persistently shaped and reshaped itself over the
centuries. This paper embarks on a journey through time, exploring the multifaceted and
often paradoxical portrayals of witches in American culture. From the haunting trials of
Salem to the bewitching realms of contemporary fiction, this study delves into the rich
literary landscape that has both mirrored and molded the perception of witches in American
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culture. By tracing the historical roots of witchcraft in America, the aim is to unravel the
layers of representation and interpretation that have contributed to the changing faces of
witches within the context of American literature.
This scholarly inquiry endeavors to elucidate the transformative evolution of the
conceptualization of ‘witch’ since the inception of the 20th century. Prior to an in-depth
exploration of this evolution, it is imperative to establish a precise definition of the term
‘witch.’ According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a witch is characterized as “one that is
credited with usually malignant supernatural powers; especially a woman practicing usually
black witchcraft often with the aid of a devil or familiar.” However, I posit that the
quintessential representation of a witch in Western cultural consciousness is encapsulated by
the enduring image of a woman holding a broomstick. This imagery comprises two integral
components: the female persona and the broomstick. A woman devoid of the broomstick
symbolizes an ordinary individual, whereas the inclusion of the broomstick distinguishes her
as a witch, thus serving as an instrument of empowerment. The modality of empowerment
may encompass practices such as black magic or a covenant with the devil. Additionally, the
phallic symbolism inherent in the broomstick underscores the perceived necessity for a
diabolical or male agency to confer empowerment upon women. Subsequent to the 1900s, the
archetype of the ‘witch’ has metamorphosed into a metaphorical vessel for contemporary
preoccupations, including but not limited to, themes of female sexuality and empowerment,
which shall be expounded upon in the ensuing discourse.
Discussion
By the beginning of 1900, four stereotypes of witches as women were competing in
American thought, some of which would not achieve prominence until the latter 20th century.
One was the exemplary feminist guru. Another was the powerful but inexplicable animal
magnetist. A third was the deluded victim popularized by writers like Josiah G Holland and
Frank Samuel Child. And the last was the original 17th century image, that of the satanic
conspirator. But at the turn of the century a new synthesis came from a surprising quarter and
ignored the negative images altogether. L Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is
populated by witches, many of whom were powerful and good. In this comic world of
powerful women and witch-women, which Sally Wagner in her essay “Matilda Joselyn Gage:
She Who Holds the Sky” calls a “church-free, female led utopia”, the only person powerful
enough to send Dorothy back home is the good witch Glinda. And the witch does so in a
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significant way: she simply makes Dorothy aware that she always had the power she needed.
The good sense, kindness and innate power of at least some of the witches are celebrated in
the book. Baum’s witches almost becomes liberal metaphors for female self-empowerment.
But the ‘self-empowered accepted witch’ is not the Wicked Witch of the West but the Good
witch Glinda, who is portrayed as full of femininity and motherly care for Dorothy. But the
question remains, is the Wicked Witch, ‘bad’ or ‘wicked’ because she pursues ‘power’ as
embodied in the ruby slippers? The idea of what makes a witch good or bad, accepted or
unaccepted, will be further developed as my paper progresses. In all subsequent
representations of witches in popular culture they fall into either of the two main prototypes
set by The Wizard of Oz. They follow either the tradition of the feminine and maternal Glinda
the good witch or the power seeking Wicked witch of the West.
Following the footsteps of the first stirrings of the re-definition of the witch in The
Wizard of Oz, comes the 1942 film, I Married a Witch directed by Rene Clair and an
adaptation of the novel The Passionate Witch by Thorne Smith. The movie tells the story of a
witch Jennifer, played by Veronica Lake. Jennifer had been burned at the stake in New
England long ago when people still believed in witches. Her accusers were Puritan ancestors
of Wallace Woolley, who is the male protagonist. Jennifer sets out to make Wallace fall in
love with her, the idea being that married to the wrong woman, he would be tormented by
forbidden passion. But mistakenly Jennifer loves her own love philter and fall in love with
him. And then Jennifer’s wizard father surfaces and opposes her marriage with Wallace. His
machinations against the lovers is defeated but the price is important: Jennifer is stripped off
her power and becomes a mere mortal. Thus she could marry Wallace and they could even
live happily ever after.
I Married a Witch strongly affirms that domesticated witches are the only good kind.
The problem with the undomesticated ones is the threat they pose to the omnipotence of the
American male. The relative dating of the novel and the film is important. In the 1930’s
America was battered by the Depression, broken and looking for scape-goats. Women were
being pushed out of the workforce to make way for men with families to feed and patriarchy
was in desperate crisis. But by 1942, America had regained her confidence. American men
were advancing the world over to avenge Pearl Harbour and the women were working
alongside them. Economically speaking times were good for women at home and even at
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work. But it was sill clear that the best place for a woman was at home even if that meant the
home front.
After the war the expectation was that women would be glad to get back to the
kitchen and nursery. That was where Jennifer the married witch had ended her story. Some
women, of course, did not want to do this. And the witchcraft comedy reflected this
reluctance, its dangers and pleasures, in its next incarnation. The 1958 film Bell, Book and
Candle went straight to the point by making witchcraft and women’s other powers inter-
changeable, “a very bewitching comedy, on a very enchanting subject- sex”. The impression
that women’s witchcraft was a straightforward metaphor for sex was strengthened
immeasurably by Bell, Book and Candle especially because the film starred James Stewart
and Kim Novak who had both appeared in the same year in Vertigo, Hitchcock’s tragedy of
sexual obsession.
Moving to the 1960’s and 1970’s, there is the television comedy Bewitched which ran
from 1964 to 1972, and was an American icon by the time it ended. Bewitched is the best
known example of the taming of the witch. It is interesting to note that the 60’s and the 70’s
were the time of strong counter-culture movements. While Jenny of Forrest Gump is
exploring her possibilities, here is Samantha of Bewitched, a witch, a ‘woman with power’,
restraining and keeping in control her powers and becoming a model of traditional femininity.
Samantha is pleasant and morally sound, she stays at home and shops sensibly while her
husband Darrin works in his office. She cooks and cleans and supports her husband’s career.
Against the backdrop of an increasingly vicious battle between conservatives and radicals,
here is a woman despite her ‘power’, who is happy to stay at home and cook for her husband.
Here witchcraft is being used as a metaphor for women’s aspirations. Samantha does not
usually use magic to clean her house or whip up meals. Instead, she exemplified the house-
wife’s version of the American frontier virtues, by making do and working hard, without
magical advantages or expensive gadgets. There is a long history of equating witchcraft with
labor saving technology and making the two interchangeable. One of the worlds first steam-
engine was named ‘Lancashire Witch’, several pioneering steamships were dubbed the
‘Water Witch’ and even an early computer was named W.I.T.C.H. Samantha chose to do
without such technological help and without its traditional magical equivalents as well.
Instead, she washed, scrubbed, chopped vegetables and roasted meat like generations of
home-making women before her. This promoted the idea that the tensions surrounding
women’s place in workforce that had been so evident in the 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s were a
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thing of the past. If women would accept their role in the home, their work there would be
respected and they could join with men in sharing the benefits of the affluent society. So
Samantha’s hard work was rewarded with modern furniture, fashionable clothes and a smart
car. Apparently even witches stayed home to make cookies and raise children and ordinary
women might well do the same. The message is clear.
Coming to the 1990’s, where witches were allowed a number of modern freedoms,
they were again made safe by being contained in the family. The 1990’s television series
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Charmed and the 1998 film Practical Magic used this trick
to domesticate their witches. The leading witches of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and
Practical Magic, that is Sabrina and Sally, lived with their witch aunts. Both were pretty,
heterosexual and keen to please those around them by working hard and doing domestic
chores. “Sally was Glinda Good Witch”, perceptively says Sandra Bullock in an interview
who played the part of Sally in Practical Magic. By linking Sally of 1998 and Glinda Good
Witch of the 1900’s, it is easy to see that not much have changed in the basic conception of
who a ‘good’ witch is, that is someone who is willing to be domesticated and someone who
controls and suppresses her power and uses it only for the good of the others.
In opposition to Glinda Good Witch and her train of followers is the Wicked Witch of
the West and her successors. I will deal with three films, The Witches of Eastwick (1987), The
Craft (1996) and The Blair Witch Project (1999), to prove my point that the ‘power’ which
the Wicked Witch of the West was pursuing is transformed and personified as assertive,
clever and sexually assured women. And how these women are perceived as threats and
hence witches. The Witches of Eastwick, is directed by George Miller and stars Jack
Nicholson as the devil and Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer as the three witches.
The story revolves around how through Nicholson’s character, the three women experience
the seductive nature of power. But by the end discovers that this very power becomes a threat
to their own existence. The film The Craft also tells the similar story of temporary
empowerment with serious consequences. In both films, witchcraft is a seductive
“masculine” power, that women can’t handle sensibly, and which lures them with a promise
of legitimate gain, only to expose them to danger and self doubt. Each film leaves the witches
where they began, battling a demoniac patriarchal force, more devastated than before,
because they dared to venture outside their limits.
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The intersection between the images of the witch and the women is reinforced in the
most famed millennial event, The Blair Witch Project. The film focuses on the film-making
team of Heather, Josh and Mike headed by Heather who hikes into the Black Hills near
Burkittsville, to film a documentary about a local legend known as Blair Witch, and
subsequently goes missing. Towards the end of the movie after the disappearance/death of
Mike and Josh, Heather records her famous apology:
I just want to apologize to Mike’s mom and Josh’s mom, and I’m sorry to
everyone . . . I am so so sorry for everything that has happened, because, in
spite of what Mike says now, it is my fault, because it was my project, and
I insisted. I insisted on everything . . . everything had to be my way, and
this is where we’ve ended up…
The equation between assertive women, lone women and witches is inescapable. It
was Heather who was the wicked woman, alone in the woods, apologizing to real mothers
and good women. The implications are clear Heather should not have been practicing the
magic of film-making, believing she was in control of words and images. Heather was the
child-killer, depriving Josh’s and Mike’s mothers of their sons. Viewers never get to see the
Blair Witch on the screen but they don’t need to. It was obvious who she was, everyone died
because of Heather including herself. Metaphorically, Heather had become the Blair Witch.
Conclusion
And to come to my conclusion, early American nation also had its own melancholy
experience of the extermination of an indigenous culture and faced with the charge that
witch-hunting had been a sexist activity, later America had to show some tolerance and in a
way, acceptance of witches. But in order to be accepted, witches in popular culture often had
to be framed within the traditional setting of marriage and family which often undercut their
metaphorical significance as empowered women. While women pursuing power is
denounced especially by showing them suffering tragic consequences and disillusionment,
women who settle down and marry and willing to domesticate their potential or power is
glorified. Jenny of Forrest Gump attains redemption only after marrying Forrest and settling
down. ‘Good’ witch and ‘bad’ witch hence metaphorically stand for what a woman is
expected to do in society and what she is not expected to do. The central argument posited in
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this thesis asserts that historical allegations of witchcraft were, to a significant extent,
characterized by manipulative motives, such as the acquisition of wealth from affluent
widows, motivations rooted in revenge and jealousy, and zealous adherence to religious and
puritanical ideologies. Moreover, the contemporary portrayal of the ‘witch’ persists as a tool
of manipulation wielded by prevailing patriarchal forces. This utilization indirectly
communicates a formidable threat, cautioning against the consequences faced by women who
deviate from established societal norms.
Works Cited:
Bell, Book and Candle. Directed by Richard Quine,Columbia Pictures, 1958.
Bewitched. Created by Sol Saks, Ashmont Productions, 1964-1972.
I Married a Witch. Directed by Rene Clair, Paramount Pictures, 1942.
Practical Magic. Directed by Griffin Dunne, Warner Bros, 1998.
Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. Created by Nell Scovell, Viacom Productions, 1996-2000.
The Blair Witch Project. Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, Summit
Entertainment, 1999.
The Craft. Directed by Andrew Fleming, Columbia Pictures, 1996.
The Witches of Eastwick. Directed by George Miller, Warner Bros,1987.
The Wizard of Oz. Directed by Victor Fleming, Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, 1939.
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Dr. Shiny Mendonce