Representations of the Witch in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Women’S Writing
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Bedlam and Broomsticks: Representations of the Witch in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Women’s Writing Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Sarah Bruton October 2006 School of English, Communication and Philosophy Cardiff University UMI Number: U584115 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U584115 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Declaration This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being currently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed __________________________________ (candidate) Date _____ Statement 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed (candidate) Date Statement 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed _________ (candidate) Date ii Abstract This thesis is about representations of witches in texts by women writers, and how they develop over time. It begins with texts produced in the second half of the nineteenth century, when witchcraft was re-defined as hysteria, to the present, demonstrating the continuing and shifting significance of the witch in women’s writing. Women writers of every era and political stance, in texts of almost every genre, replicate, revise and repeat images of the witch, suggesting a unique bond between the two. The issues that witches interpellate and this thesis interrogate - maternity, marriage, lesbianism, matriarchy and madness - belong primarily to female experience, as does the threat of sexual subversion implicit in the witch’s crimes and the punishments imposed on her historically. This thesis begins by investigating witches as marginal figures in the texts of Mary Coleridge, Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Gaskell, produced at a time when women were similarly subjugated. The witch’s connection to political emancipation forms the basis of discussion of interwar writing; Margaret Murray, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Sylvia Townsend Warner focus on the witch as socially and sexually deviant. This is continued in my analysis of Dorothy B. Hughes, Enid Blyton and Sylvia Plath, all of whom appropriate motifs of witch-trials and associated violence against women. Second wave feminism sought to overturn such images, but they remain central, however, in the work of poets such as Plath, Olga Broumas and Anne Sexton, and popular novelists such as Marion Zimmer Bradley, who re-figure fairy-tale witches to form part of a feminist dialectic. My final chapter discusses popular cultural images of the witch; Bvffy the Vampire Slayer and Sabrina the Teenage Witch limit the multiplicitious potential of the witch to conventional stereotypes of femininity. However, when women write the witch, something subversive always leaks out. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels and the character of Professor Umbridge initiate a grotesque fantasy that, whilst only utopian, provides radical potential for female rebellion and release. Acknowledgements It is a pleasure to thank the various people whose intellectual and emotional support made this thesis possible. Dr Faye Hammill’s massive commitment to the success of this project cannot be underestimated. In addition to thinking through so many ideas, suffering copious drafts and providing engaged readings and incisive comments, I am eternally grateful for her continual friendship, understanding and enthusiasm. Professor Stephen Knight has also been constantly on hand with advice, encouragement and endless readiness to discuss issues. For books, references and detailed commentary, I am indebted to Judith Pryor and Garthine Walker and Rhonda Wilcox. My academic education and experience has been shaped entirely by the staff and students of Cardiff University’s English Literature department. Only recently have I come to appreciate fully the network of support created by Martin Coyle and John Peck. I cannot underestimate their enduring influence on my research and teaching. Thanks must, then, go also to my fantastic students, past and present, who have constantly challenged my ideas about literature and reminded me about the importance o f good writing. But this project was never only about academic investigation. Rather, it was about a passion for stories and a belief in the magic of fairy tales. For that, as for the Diet Coke and chocolate, for the unstinting support and for reassuring me on the dark days, I can only thank my family. I could not have written this thesis without my parents, Anne and Martin, my grandmother, Phyllis and my brother, James. Contents Declaration p .u Abstract p. iii Acknowledgements p. iv Illustrations p .v Introduction: In the Beginning, There was Magic... p.l What is a Witch? p.l Historical and Literary Representations p. 5 Women Writing Witches p. 12 Structure of Thesis p. 16 Chapter 1: Writing a Language of Subversion: Witches on the Margins, I860 -1900 p. 27 Witchcraft or Hysteria p. 29 ‘Banished from Fairy Land’: Mary Coleridge p. 37 ‘Acolyte of Magic’: Emily Dickinson p. 44 ‘Obedience and Self-Sacrifice’: Elizabeth Gaskell p. 51 Chapter 2: ‘Uterine Deviants’ and ‘Odd’ Women, 1900 - 1930 p. 67 From Myth to Religion p. 70 ‘Making it up as She Went Along’: Margaret Murray p. 77 ‘Writing in Invisible Ink’: Edna St Vincent Millay p. 83 ‘Unused Virgins and Subterranean Lesbians’: Sylvia Townsend Warner p. 88 Chapter 3: Witch Burning: Fragmentary Female Bodies, 1930-1950 p. 108 Witchcraft in Male Hands p. 108 ‘The Femme Fatale’: Dorothy Hughes p. 114 ‘Witch Snippit’s Middle’: Enid Blyton p. 120 ‘A Body in Pain’: Sylvia Plath p. 132 Chapter 4: The Witch Must Die: Feminist Revisions of Fairy Tales, 1950-1970 p. 145 Fairy Tale Witches p. 146 ‘ Avant La Lettre’: Sylvia Plath p. 157 ‘Receive me, Mother’: Olga Broumas: p. 166 ‘I Will Eat You Up’: Anne Sexton p. 177 Chapter 5: ‘Lover, Priestess, Wisewoman, Queen’: Witches of the Second Wave, 1970 - 1990 p. 194 ‘Daughter of Bilitis’ : Marion Zimmer Bradley and Second - Wave Feminism p. 195 vi ‘The Great Goddess’: Mists o fAvalon p. 202 ‘Beautiful Objects and Magic Mirrors’: Witch Hill p. 210 Witches as Romantic Heroines p. 224 Chapter 6: From Salem to Simnydale: Witchcraft and Popular Culture, 1990 - 2005 p. 234 Witches, Vampires and Post Feminism p. 235 ‘I Wish I Could Bite You’: Buffy the Vampire Slayer p. 246 Witch or Wicca?: Sabrina the Teenage Witch p. 256 2^3 ‘Flesh is Heretic’: Eavan Boland and the Witches of - ‘High’ Culture p. 2p» Conclusion: ‘Happily Ever After?’: Harry Potter and the Grotesque Utopia p.280 Appendix : Witch, Writer or Both? Author Biographies p. 295 Bibliography p. 308 Illustrations Figure 1: Cosmo Girl (August, 1999)............................................ p.267 Figure 2: Movie line (September, 2004)......................................... p. 270 Figure 3: Rolling Stone (May, 2004) p. 270 Figure 4: Maxim (September, 2005)...............................................p. 272 v Those whom the powers wish to destroy, they first make mad - Euripides Introduction In the Beginning, there was Magic: Women, Witches and Female Writers Macbeth: How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags? What is’t you do? Witches: A deed without a name. - William Shakespeare, Macbeth1 Things would have been a lot better for everyone if Macbeth hadn’t listened to those witches. - Leslie Ellen Jones, From Witch to Wicca1 What is a Witch? The answer seems self-evident. Everyone knows that witches wear pointed hats, black dresses and cloaks; they fly around on broomsticks; their favourite snack is a nice juicy baby; they are purveyors of potions, curses and general malevolence: the archetypal fairy tale villains. Above all, they practise magic. A more expansive answer would include the witches of folklore, in addition to those of fairy tales. These are women - very rarely men - who live on the margins of society and who are responsible for the failure of crops, the milklessness of cows and the impotence of men: the fairy tale witch minus the costume. There are also the accused witches, who may or may not have had any knowledge of magic or witchcraft, but who were hauled before 1 William Shakespeare, Macbeth (London: Arden, 1998), IV. I. 63 - 65 2 Leslie Ellen Jones, From Witch to Wicca (New York: Cold Spring, 2004), p. 15 1 various civil and ecclesiastical courts in previous centuries. They were tortured until they confessed to outrageous acts of depravity, and then burned at the stake, hanged or stoned to death. Already, representing the witch becomes problematic: are they the violators or the violated? The monsters or the victims? The notion of the victimised witch is balanced by another representation: that of the nubile, beautiful and lascivious witch, whose charms are purely physical. These are the witches fantasised by the witch hunters, who conceived their own attraction to the ‘witch’ as necessarily coming from the outside - the result of a spell intended to incite sexual evil. It is this representation of the witch that is endorsed by critics who see the witch hunts solely in the context of cultural and institutional misogyny, and the Freudian projection of frightening sexual urges. She is either the alluring, seductive witch who uses her beauty as a trap for the unwary man and then keeps him through magic, or the repulsive, aged witch who uses magic to obtain sex that no man who was not bewitched would ever offer her.