The VVitch: A New-England Folktale, a horror film more commonly referred to as The Witch, can contribute much to discussions of women’s issues and feminism. The film was written and directed by Robert Eggers, who debuted it at last year’s Sundance Film Festival (IMDb.com). My interest in this film piqued when I read an online review that labeled it a feminist horror film. The Witch follows a seventeenth-century New England family after they are exiled from their settlement and forced to live in the wilderness on the edge of some woods rumored to be inhabited by a witch. After the disappearance of their newborn baby and their exploration of the ominous woods, the family is cursed by the witch and her dark powers that possess and torment various family members. The entire family is confronted by devilish desires and temptations, but the eldest daughter Thomasin is the one who ultimately defeats the wickedness of her family and succumbs to the power of “the witch of the wood” (The Witch). As I watched the film for the first time, I was shocked, disturbed, and pleasantly surprised by the deeply unsettling but overtly feminist plotline and the brilliant use of symbolism to illustrate the issues the film aims to expose. Ultimately The Witch is a successful feminist horror film because it explores a young woman’s struggle against the taboo of sexuality and exposes the cultural ideologies that aim to suppress womanhood.

 

     At the center of the film’s overtly feminist plot is Thomasin, a young woman who “has begotten her sign of womanhood” and is now a burden on her family (The Witch). Historical tradition necessitates the marrying-off of Thomasin as soon as she has started her period, the ultimate sign of womanhood, thus forcing the burden of her womanhood onto another family. Nevertheless, she rejects this, acknowledging its unlikelihood due to the family’s excommunication, and continues struggling to breach adulthood within a family that vilifies her. This is problematic because of the social construction of gender by which “human beings produce gender, behaving in the ways they [have] learned [are] appropriate for their gender status, or resisting or rebelling against these norms” (Lorber 69). Thomasin is continuously rebellious in behavior, which defies that of the typical seen-not-heard woman, thought, for which she repents, and action, by which she becomes a witch. Witches, in this film, are analogous to independent and sexual women; this comparison exposes sexism and its unequal expectations of binary genders. Just as certain gestures, postures, and demeanors that “are socially recognized as expressions of power when used by [men] may be denied or misinterpreted when used by women,” sexuality is misinterpreted as evil when expressed by women rather than men (Henley and Freeman 87). In this seventeenth-century family, any expression of power by a woman is thwarted, not because of personal prejudices but because of social and cultural expectations that subordinate women to men.

 

     Thomasin’s struggles as a woman obviously include her newly recognized menstruation and the inevitable sexual exploration that accompanies bodily changes, but rigid gender roles and family structure are the overarching issues that make her transition into womanhood personally difficult and socially demonized. Historically and in the case of The Witch, “the family [is] a working, productive unit, with women producing goods for the family’s consumption, as well as maintaining the family’s health and material well-being” (Lehrer 250). Thomasin’s family satisfies this pre-Industrial ideal of the working family unit, which seems to equalize women’s and men’s work. Yet the family is a patriarchal unit, and this is damaging to any sort of male-female equality and “prevents the needs of women … from being recognized” (Lehrer 250). Thomasin’s needs are not only unrecognized but wholly unimportant to her parents and siblings, as are her mother’s. Katherine, the mother, exhibits the ideal characteristics of a Colonial woman; she is unemotional, hard-working, and totally consumed by motherhood. After the disappearance of the newborn baby, which is really the kidnapping and killing of the baby by the witch, Katherine’s cold demeanor begins to unravel as does her husband’s ideal male-ness. The father William undeniably embodies strength, responsibility, fearlessness, and reason until evil invades his family, putting into question everything he upon which he relies and in which he believes. The witch’s evil and the demonic possession of the family is symbolic of Thomasin’s increasing sexual awareness and womanly independence, so it is important to recognize that the response of not only the father but also the mother is to crumble and question everything they once held to be true. The family as a whole is impacted by the evils of sexual freedom and independence.

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     Thomasin is the dominant figure of sexual repression and gender oppression, but all of the characters contribute to the film’s representation of problematic sociocultural ideologies. Thomasin’s brother Caleb, who is only slightly younger, idolizes her but is tormented by his own blossoming sexuality of which his sister is most commonly and conveniently the object. Because Caleb is a male, his exploration of sexuality is more culturally acceptable, but sexuality in general is demonized by the customs of the time period. The ideals of the family previously mentioned are representative of the social and cultural ideals of the 1600’s. Patriarchy and Christianity are ideologies that effectively oppress women and suppress sexuality respectively. Virginity as an ideal is a severely damaging aspect of a male-dominated Christian culture in which “‘virgin’ is almost always synonymous with ‘woman’” (Valenti 141). The ideal woman is a virgin, and any woman who is not a virgin is shamed; this is especially true in the time period of The Witch, which is dominated by traditional Christianity. The family embraces all the necessary elements of Christianity – prayer, biblical readings, conservative dress, observance of the Sabbath – but Thomasin’s sexuality and independence, in the form of the witch, implant feelings of shame into a family that strives to achieve an ideal. There are many symbolic images within the film that serve to illustrate the Christian view of sexuality as evil and shameful.

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     The images of the witch and the family’s ram, Black Phillip, further support the cultural, social, and religious demonization of sexuality and womanhood. Christianity as a social institution and ideal attempts to mask women’s sexuality by making it taboo, but The Witch presents sexuality as obvious, especially through Black Phillip, whose horns resemble the female reproductive anatomy and who kills the father with the force of his horns. In the 1600’s and still today “sex is often equated with death, disease, and danger, and fear surfaces as the primary message and tactic used to persuade young people to steer clear of sex before or outside of marriage” (Rose 291). The Witch equates sex with “death, disease, and danger” when Thomasin’s brother becomes ill and dies after a sexual encounter with the witch (Rose 291). The woods represent fear of sexuality, and sexuality is embodied by the witch herself. Once the family enters the woods, they become targets of possession, illness, and insanity, but as soon as one of them meets the witch herself, death is inevitable.

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     The Witch is an important feminist text because although it is set in the 1600’s, it exposes ideologies and taboos that continue to oppress women today. The success of this film lies in its rejection of sociocultural ideals, which Thomasin blatantly rejects at the end of the film by killing her mother, making a deal with the devil, and walking naked into the woods to join the many witches who have done so before her. The Witch is empowering to women because of its defiance of sexual repression, and it is inspiring to women who feel oppressed by social constructions of gender, family, and religion.

 

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S O U R C E S . . .

Henley, Nancy and Jo Freeman. “The Sexual Politics of Interpersonal Behavior.” Women: Images and Realities, A Multicultural Anthology, edited by Suzenne Kelly, Gowri Parameswaran, Nancy Schiedewind, McGraw-Hill, 2012, pp. 82-88.

 

Lehrer, Susan. “Family and Women’s Lives.” Women: Images and Realities, A Multicultural Anthology, edited by Suzenne Kelly, Gowri Parameswaran, Nancy Schiedewind, McGraw-Hill, 2012, pp. 250-255.

 

Lorber, Judith. “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender.” Women: Images and Realities, A Multicultural Anthology, edited by Suzenne Kelly, Gowri Parameswaran, Nancy Schiedewind, McGraw-Hill, 2012, pp. 68-71.

 

Rose, Susan D. “Christian Fundamentalism: Patriarchy, Sexuality, and Human Rights.” Women: Images and Realities, A Multicultural Anthology, edited by Suzenne Kelly, Gowri Parameswaran, Nancy Schiedewind, McGraw-Hill, 2012, pp. 287-295.

 

Valenti, Jessica. “The Cult of Virginity.” Women: Images and Realities, A Multicultural Anthology, edited by Suzenne Kelly, Gowri Parameswaran, Nancy Schiedewind, McGraw-Hill, 2012, pp. 140-143.

 

The Witch. Directed by Robert Eggers, A24, 2015.

 

“The Witch (2015).” IMDb, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4263482/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2016.