Week 5: Witches and Women in Genre

Week 5: Witches and Women in Genre

This week we were asked to read Aunt Maria by Diana Wynne Jones. Aunt Maria was a stereotypical crone/witch.  Her fragility and “sweetness” was all in act,.  She is demanding, intrusive, hateful and deceitful.  She is the type of relative (and we all have one or two) that really can get on one’s nerves.  She if very manipulative by having Mig, Chris and the mom continue to stay under false pretenses.  She pretends to be disabled yet can do almost everything perfectly herself.  She is a very powerful witch and not only manipulates her family, but the entire town.  She has brainwashed all the children and the men are zombie drones.

The witches in Aunt Maria were not as stereotypical as I visualized.   I believe they were more archetypical, being part of a witch’s coven of thirteen.  They were not old, ugly and frail as you would imagine.  Some were younger, wore perfume and were nice looking.  They all were part of the hive, yet each had their own quirks.  Elaine was almost “police-like” and follow Chris like a detective.  She is loud and hearty, not frail and low-key like I would imagine.

What I thought the characters say about how culture models’ women with power was partially true.  Some people (men in particular) do believe that powerful women want to rule a “Stepford Husband/Stepford Child” world, being slaves and submissive.  Aunt Maria controlled everyone, she loved the power she had.  She was an expert at making black appear white, victims feel guilty and inflect terrible circumstances if anyone does not follow her.  Some people feel that strong, powerful women got that way by taking advantage of other people’s weaknesses.