











































Monstrous Women: Exploring 
Historical Witchcraft and Its 
Presence in The Witch

In the 1600s, the Puritans were 
still sailing to the United States—

to them, the “New World”—in 
search of religious freedom and 
new beginnings; however, in their 
attempt to leave behind England 
and its influence, the Puritans 
brought with them Europe’s archaic 
views of witchcraft and women as 
monsters. The Puritans projected 
these fears of witchcraft onto women 
in a variety of ways: accusations of 
maleficarum, or the power “to cause 
harm to others by supernatural 
means”; disruptions in domestic 
processes, such as sudden spoiling 
of beer; healthcare complications; 
the obstruction of natural processes, 
like weather changes and crop yield; 
and more were used as rationales to 
prosecute women in their communities (Karlsen 6-8). Witchcraft was also noted 
as a woman’s crime, with male accusation almost only occurring if the man was 
married or related to an already accused witch (Karlsen 49). This paranoia, largely 
due to overbearing religious influence, led to estimates of as many as “110,000 
people . . . tortured as alleged witches and between 40,000 and 60,000 people . . . 
executed” worldwide from 1450 to 1750 (Russell and Brooks 12). Highlighting 
the consequences of religious persecution and female suppression, Robert Eggers’s 
The Witch masterfully portrays New England witchcraft as it was perceived in 
the 1600s, realizing societal oppression as a powerful force with many victims. 
Exploring a family crumbling from the influence of maleficarum and the strict 

ABSTRACT
Accusations of witchcraft in America 
were often death sentences for women 
that society considered as acting outside 
of the norm; however, in Robert Eggers’s 
film, The Witch, embodying the role 
of a witch becomes a powerful tool in 
fighting Puritanical social expectations 
with magic, appearance, and behavior. 
Through the application of monster 
theory, historical contextualization, and 
feminist theory, this essay explores the 
implications of portraying the film’s main 
villain as a grotesque hag, the meaning 
behind its use of gory magic, why the 
protagonist chooses to become a witch 
herself, and finally, the consequences 
of othering marginalized groups from 
society.

Noah Patterson, Ball State University

1
Digital Literature Review, vol. 4 (2017).     Ball State University. All Rights Reserved.
Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce critical edition to dlr@bsu.edu.



religious expectations of their time, The Witch brings a new eye to New England’s 
past, inspects its historical relationship with women, and even questions our own 
societal standards today. Through a historical contextualization of The Witch, an 
examination of women as monsters, and the exploration of modern feminist 
theory, the film’s condemnation of the societal abjection of women who defy their 
mandated roles and embrace the power within inhabiting liminal spaces is revealed.
 In order to immediately focus on the authority that religion has in 
Puritanical society, Eggers begins The Witch with the film’s family being banished 
from their New England colony. William, the family’s patriarch, has been accused 
of heresy. The audience only knows that William has been preaching a form of the 
gospels that the settlement cannot abide by. William’s wife, Katherine; their eldest 
daughter, Thomasin; their eldest son, Caleb; their twins, Jonas and Mercy; and their 
infant son, Samuel, are sentenced alongside William. Once the family’s fate has 
been determined, William and his family ride toward the vast wilderness as the 
gates of their former community close (0:01:08 - 0:03:19). The new setting of the 
film, now an open plain and expansive forest, becomes one of its most foreboding 
characteristics. As the soundtrack of the film builds, the eerie moans of a woman’s 
soprano pierces the audience alongside cinematography that indicates a threatening 
presence past the tree line; in this instance, the witch is also introduced to the 
audience in impressive fashion, constructing a dichotomy in which this deeply 
religious family must coexist with a creature that is a complete inversion of their 
ideals.
 Once the existence of the witch has been alluded to in this shot, her status 
as a malevolent force—rooted in actual historical conceptions of New England 
witches—is made immediately apparent through the lenses of several theoretical 
frameworks. The vilification of women as witches in Puritan America was based 
in deep cultural prejudices, perceptions of gender roles, and religiously-influenced 
societal structuring, creating a monsterization of women. This monsterization as 
it appears in The Witch will be analyzed through Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s “Monster 
Culture (Seven Theses),” Julia Kristeva’s work on abjection, Mikhail Bakhtin’s 
theory of the grotesque, Mary Daly’s “Hag-ography,” and finally, an inversion of 
feminist mimesis theory. 

DEFINING WITCHES THROUGH COHEN’S “MONSTER CULTURE”
 Jeffrey Jerome Cohen posits in “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” that 
monsters generally operate within literary, cultural, and filmic texts in seven 
different ways. While witches could theoretically fulfill every thesis, the most 
prominent are: “The Monster’s Body as a Cultural Body,” “The Monster Dwells at 

2Noah Patterson



the Gates of Difference,” “The Monster Polices the Borders of the Possible,” and 
finally, “The Monster Stands at the Threshold . . . of Becoming.” 
 Cohen states that monsters become cultural bodies through the 
“embodiment of a certain cultural moment” (4). An application of Cohen’s theory 
to witches reveals that, in their case, witches exist as cultural bodies due to centuries 
of systematic misogyny. Puritanical societies attempted to justify this misogyny 
because they felt witches “[incorporated] fear, desire, anxiety, and dependency 
[into their world], giving them life and an uncanny independence” (Cohen 4). 
This created a real perception of women as monsters that resulted in witch-hunts 
and tireless persecution. As the first thesis, this theory stands as an introduction to 
the following theses that delve more specifically into the nuances of monsters as 
cultural symbols.
 In his next thesis, “The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference,” Cohen 
states that “monstrous difference tends to be cultural, political, racial, economic, and 
sexual” (7). Carol Karlsen confirms that witches faced discrimination at all of these 
intersections in her book, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman. She states that “The 
characteristics of the New England witch—the demographic, economic, religious, 
and sexual—emerge from patterns found in accusations and in the life histories of 
the accused” (153). For example, on an economic level the accusations reveal that 
“the poor account for only a minority of the women accused. Even without precise 
economic indicators, it is clear that women from all levels of society were vulnerable 
to accusation” (Karlsen 78-79). Therefore, while poor women were often targeted 
purely based on socioeconomic status, women in positions of economic power 
were also threatened. Although women with better financial means had extensive 
resources available to them to combat their accusations, as well as developed social 
reputations to rely on as forms of defense, it becomes apparent that economic and 
sexual factors still dominated accusations. Similarly, “Often implicit and seldom 
measurable, official religious beliefs were nonetheless central in determining who 
witches were and what witches did” (Karlsen 119). Per Puritan belief, “There were 
only two kinds of women: godly women and witches,” which means that women 
who did not adhere to the biblical teachings of their towns were under automatic 
suspicion (Karlsen 251). This created a rigid social structure that kept women 
complacent under the teachings of their (always male) pastors and religious leaders 
(Karlsen 251). The idea that there were only godly women or witches becomes 
increasingly important in The Witch, as later analysis will reveal that turning to 
witchcraft and defying these patriarchal structures clearly becomes a source of 
empowerment for both the film’s protagonist (Thomasin) and antagonist (the 
witch).

3Noah Patterson



 Before delving into that analysis, though, it is integral to see the ways in 
which Cohen’s fifth thesis, “The Monster Polices the Borders of the Possible,” 
reveals that “The monster prevents mobility (intellectual, geographic, or sexual), 
delimiting the social spaces through which private bodies may move,” creating 
further impetus for female defiance (12). Cohen elaborates on this thesis, saying 
that “these borders are in place to control the traffic in women, or more generally 
establish homosocial bonds, the ties between men that keep a patriarchal society 
functional” (13). One of the most notable examples of how witchcraft was used 
to keep systems of patriarchal power in place in the “New World” was women’s 
foray into medical treatment, especially in the form of midwives. Karlsen notes, 
“Midwives and healers, like women accused of abortion and infanticide, could have 
been likely suspects simply because they were ever-present reminders of the power 
that resided in women’s life-giving and life-maintaining roles” (144). Furthermore, 
New England was in desperate need of doctors. With increasing numbers of female 
midwives and healers working alongside the few male physicians in the “New 
World,” compared to the amount of male doctors involved in witchcraft cases, 
“one of the unspoken (and probably unacknowledged) functions of New England 
witchcraft was to discredit women’s medical knowledge in favor of their male 
competitors” (Karlsen 144-145). In other words, for some women, simply ensuring 
that women in the community have safe, successful childbirths, or are otherwise in 
good health, could garner accusations from men who felt that women were unfit for 
medical practice. 
 Finally, the last thesis that Cohen writes is “The Monster Stands at the 
Threshold . . . of Becoming.” He believes “Monsters always return. And when 
they come back, they bring not just a fuller knowledge of our place in history and 
the history of knowing our place, but they bear knowledge, human knowledge” 
(20, emphasis original): “These monsters ask us how we perceive the world . . . 
They ask us to reevaluate our cultural assumptions about race, gender, sexuality, 
our perceptions of difference, [and] our tolerance towards its expression” (Cohen 
20). Through The Witch, Eggers does precisely that. His recreation of the witch 
as a cultural symbol forces audiences to consider misogyny, media portrayals and 
expectations of women, and religion as a dominating force of social structuring, 
both in Puritanical America and the modern United States.

ABJECTION AND MAGIC AS SOURCES OF POWER
 Due to the prejudiced nature of Puritanical society, women who embodied 
Cohen’s definition of monstrous—women like Thomasin and the titular witch—
were often banished or accused of being witches, making them human symbols 

4Noah Patterson



of the abject. Abjection is defined by philosopher and literary critic Julia Kristeva 
in her book, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, as a “jettisoned object” that 
“is radically excluded and draws me toward the place where meaning collapses” 
(2). She goes on to say that the abject is “a piece of filth, waste, or dung” and 
“the spasms and vomiting that protect me” (3). These objects, in turn, create a 
situation in which “I expel myself, I spit myself out, I abject myself within the 
same motion through which ‘I’ claim to establish myself ” (3). In other words, 
the abject is typically sourced from our own beings, but, being deemed as other, 
disturbing, or disgusting, we question whether “I” truly consists of these abjected 
objects, effectively creating a form of identity crisis. While this concept is typically 
applied to the individual being, abjection becomes an apt metaphor for Puritan 
America and its relationship to divergent women. When inhabiting the space of 
other, women become abjections of patriarchal society and powerful reminders of 
this society’s limitations. Therefore, witches are the pinnacle of this abjectness and, 
as seen through the lens of The Witch, become powerful forces that may destroy 
families, communities, and society’s rules, regardless of the community’s faith in 
their religion or social constructions.
 One of the primary ways in which the Puritans abjected women who 
threatened patriarchal society was to make women monstrous through accusations 
of magic and maleficarum. Early modern Europe and Puritan America believed 
that witches primarily adhered to three categories of magic, but, in The Witch, only 
“the third category [which includes] such things as transvection (flying through the 
air), metamorphosis (shifting form), the use of familiars, blighting crops, raising 
storms, and otherwise controlling the forces of nature” is featured (Donovan 58). 
While the practice of actual magic likely did not occur historically and only existed 
as a means to justify the abjection of and accusations against Puritanical women, 
the witch’s first physical appearance in the film involves her successfully creating a 
flying potion, revealing that The Witch operates under the pretense that witches did 
exist in the supernatural sense. This is significant because the antagonist’s magical 
abilities also reveal that, in The Witch, there is real, tangible power in choosing to 
resist a society built to abject individuals at every othered intersection, driving the 
film’s message that defiance is empowering.
 This first display of magic in the film—the witch creating her flying 
potion—is completed when the witch abducts the family’s infant son Samuel while 
Thomasin plays peek-a-boo with him at the edge of the wood. Once captured, 
Samuel is laid nude on a cloth in the witch’s lair, depicted as a cave in the woods. In 
a sudden cut, an old nude woman is seen churning and grinding together Samuel’s 
remains in a bowl. After completing her concoction, the witch exits her lair to 

5Noah Patterson



coat herself with the potion under the moonlight. This is coupled with images of 
her writhing on the forest floor, clutching a branch. Finally, we see her take flight 
on the branch, rising into the frame before the full moon (00:06:27-00:09:31). 
This corresponds with beliefs surrounding witchcraft in which “Witches were 
widely accused of using blood and parts of the human body—particularly bodies 
of babies—[in their brews]” (Donovan 59-60). In portraying this particularly 
gruesome form of witchcraft, The Witch recalls the aforementioned image of 
infanticide. Magic as infanticide becomes a representation of abjection here. The 
witch would be demonized by the Puritans for breaking the codes of woman as 
responsible for childcare and, as a result, is literally cast out, explaining the witch’s 
inhabitation of her cave, a border space away from society. Because the witch has 
already been abjected and accepted her status as demonized, she uses Samuel’s 
sacrifice as a source of power, making his death the catalyst for the remainder of the 
terror she conducts throughout the film. This sacrifice gives the witch the power to 
obtain revenge on the society that abjected her, symbolized through William and 
his family. 
 Samuel’s death is able to act as a catalyst due to the fact that the remains of 
an infant—preferably unbaptized as Samuel was—were not only associated with 
transvection brews but rumored to give witches other powers, such as the ability of 
metamorphosis. The witch utilizes metamorphosis as a way to display her power 
and enact revenge for her abjection, which will be elaborated upon throughout this 
essay.

GROTESQUENESS, HAG-OGRAPHY, AND ITS RELATION TO THE WITCH
 The Witch’s historical contextualization and theoretical definition of women 
as monsters/abjections of patriarchy is able to be further built upon with its display 
of the grotesque form as a means to find power within an abjected border space. 
Literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin defines the grotesque in his book, Rabelais and 
His World, as “the lowering of all that is high, spiritual, ideal, [and] abstract” down 
to “the material level,” subsequently focusing on the “degradation” of form (19). The 
body is seen as “extremely exaggerated,” concentrating on the “acts of defecation 
and copulation, conception, pregnancy, and birth” (18, 21). Initially, the notion 
of the grotesque is interpreted as an obsession with humiliation and matters of 
form that humans tend to find disgusting (defecation) or inappropriate to discuss 
(copulation). Therefore, this concept, when applied to the female form, appears 
as the ultimate departure from the feminine body ideal; however, Bakhtin asserts 
that “This exaggeration has a positive, assertive character”; “The leading themes of 
these images of bodily life are fertility, growth, and a brimming-over abundance,” 

6Noah Patterson



resulting in a “triumphant” body that defies the norm, and in turn, is meant to be 
celebrated (19). 
 That being said, the grotesque body is not typically celebrated by most. 
In fact, media articles about The Witch label the film’s antagonist as “a grotesque 
creature in the woods” (Lee), “absolutely chilling” (Chitwood), and “a gnarled hag, 
framed like the reverse shot of Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son . . . [with] withered 
flesh” (Ehrlich), recalling this conception of grotesqueness as inherently frightening 
and villainous. Therefore, Eggers’s witch not only fulfills traditional Puritanical 
codes of witchcraft but also resembles stereotypical portrayals of witches identified 
by researchers Jeffrey B. Russell and Alexander Brooks “As imaginary old hags 
with warts on their noses, conical hats, broomsticks, black cats, and evil, cackling 
laughs” (8). The witch herself is an old woman, which Russell and Brooks consider 
“a heedless exaggeration and a distortion of the truth . . . [as] many female witches 
have been quite young—sometimes even children” (12). Furthermore, the witch 
is always depicted as nude, with bruises and other wounds visible on her body. 
Similarly, her hair is thin, her teeth have rotted, her skin sags, and her nose is 
crooked, fulfilling every stereotypical depiction. Even her laugh is the iconic 
witch’s cackle. The fact that this is the only dialogue she has in the film further 
dehumanizes her. However, when this departure from the ideal is coupled with 
theory about the grotesque, the value of the witch as a hag can be uncovered.
 For example, Bakhtin illustrates this idea later in his text when he further 
explores the grotesque body of the hag through his analysis of the Kerch terracotta 
collection. It is interesting to note that these images portray grotesqueness as 
revelatory rather than oppressive. The images are specifically 
 figurines of senile pregnant hags. Moreover, the old hags are laughing. This  
 is a typical and very strongly expressed grotesque. It is ambivalent. It is 
 pregnant death, a death that gives birth. There is nothing completed, nothing 
 calm and stable in the bodies of these old hags. They combine a senile, 
 decaying and deformed flesh with the flesh of new life, conceived but as yet 
 informed. Life is shown in its two-fold contradictory process; it is the 
 epitome of incompleteness. (Bakhtin 25-26)
Kerch’s collection recalls the image of the witch with her “gnarled” (Chitwood), 
“chilling” (Ehrlich), and withered appearance. While the witch is not pregnant 
in the film, she does embody the “life . . . in its two-fold, contradictory process,” 
presenting as both a young woman and the hag-like witch in the film (Bakhtin 26). 
As a hag, she represents a form of death, senile and decaying. Her body shrivels, 
and she is isolated from society; however, as a young woman, the witch reveals her 
form as contradictory, one that may also embody the “ideal” and regenerate into 

7Noah Patterson



something new and fresh. The witch is not uncomfortable in either form—her 
power and her fearsomeness depend on both. Finally, her default choice to reside 
as a hag rather than live as her “idealized” form creates the overall impression that 
the witch’s grotesque appearance is to be relished as powerful, a breakage from 
repressive norms, and overall, celebratory.
 This, however, does not mean that the witch cannot be powerful within 
her “idealized” form. At one point in the film, Caleb, the family’s eldest son, is 
stranded in the woods. He finds himself standing before an ominous cave obviously 
belonging to the witch. Suddenly, a young woman, wearing a red cloak and a low 
cut dress—who the audience knows is actually the witch—emerges from the cave. 
Although Caleb appears frightened, he advances towards her. As the woman leans 
into Caleb’s face, about to kiss him, her haggard hand in its default form clutches 
the back of his head and violently pulls him into the cave (00:39:12-00:42:11). 
The witch—using her powers of metamorphosis as a tool to lure Caleb—invokes 
Bakhtin’s contradictory process as well as hypersexualized notions of Puritanical 
witchcraft, where it was believed that accused “women had committed or were 
thought to have committed fornication . . . or other sexual or sexually related 
offenses” (Karlsen 196).
 The witch’s power is further displayed when Caleb mysteriously reappears at 
the homestead after his kidnapping. He is nude, incoherent, and showing obvious 
signs of possession. Caleb’s possession continues the consistency of Puritanical 
conceptions of witchcraft. The Puritans believed that “Favorite subjects for 
possession were children and nuns, both classes of innocents that demons might 
easily influence” (Donovan 67). The symptoms of possession “included writhing 
and contortions of abdominal origin, vomiting of strange objects, change of voice to 
deep gruff tones (‘belly speaking’), the incessant use of obscenities and blasphemies, 
lewd exposure, and acts of abnormal strength” (Donovan 66-67). While Caleb 
only exhibits contortions and the vomiting of a whole apple with a single bite in 
it—simultaneously mocking an Edenic biblical symbol, as well as symbolizing a lie 
Caleb told to his mother to cover for a hunting trip he took with William—other 
instances of maleficarum are present as well. In fact, witches “[were] frequently 
suspected of causing illness or death, particularly to spouses or infants and young 
children. Typically, an accuser would speak of a ‘thriving child’ who suddenly ‘have a 
great screech out as if it was greatly hurt,’ after which it did ‘pine away,’ continuing 
‘in a sad Condition’ until it ‘soe dyed’” (Karlsen 6). Therefore, while Caleb does 
not experience shifts in vocal tones, nor does he use obscenities, his possession 
ultimately leads to the aforementioned pining away and death, all brought about by 
the witch in her “ideal” form (00:54:10-01:00:30).

8Noah Patterson



 Finally, the rhetorical value in portraying the witch primarily as a hag is 
further elaborated on by Mary Daly, a scholar who wrote the book Gyn/ecology: The 
Metaethics of Radical Feminism. In this text, Daly uses the term “Hag-ography” to 
describe the act of recovering the overlooked history of women who were either 
accused of witchcraft and/or coded as hags (15). “Hag-ography” concerns itself with 
celebrating the image of the hag, noting that “the beauty of strong, creative women 
is ‘ugly’ by misogynistic standards of ‘beauty’” (15). One aspect of this celebration is 
seen through Daly’s reveling in the laughter of the hag. She states that “Hags may 
rage and roar, but they do not titter,” leaving the act of tittering to “[s]elf-loathing 
ladies” (17). Furthermore, Daly believes that “There is nothing like the sounds of 
women really laughing. The roaring laughter of women is like the roaring of the 
eternal sea. Hags can cackle and roar at themselves, but more and more, one hears 
them roaring at the reversal that is patriarchy” (17). The idea of a hag’s (or witch’s) 
laugh becomes poignant when considering the witch’s previously mentioned cackle 
in the film. Through the lens of Daly’s “Hag-ography,” the witch’s cackle serves as 
another means of empowerment, laughing in the face of a patriarchal society that 
would rather have women politely “titter” while loathing themselves. Through the 
lens of Bakhtin and Daly, it becomes clear that The Witch utilizes the grotesque 
and “Hag-ography” to show that the life of the hag is not only an empowering 
one that is relevant to the witch but also to Thomasin—the protagonist and eldest 
daughter of William and Katherine—later in the film. Together, in rejecting social 
expectations, Thomasin and the witch convey the power found within embodying 
the hag, turning their titters into cackles through a crucial inversion of mimesis 
theory.

ANTI-MIMESIS AND ITS USEFULNESS TO THE OTHER
 As the witch becomes an obvious portrayal of the hag and the grotesque, 
Thomasin is realized as a case for anti-mimesis theory. Contemporary 
phenomenologist Susan Kozel explains the concept of mimesis through her critique 
of Luce Irigaray, the originator of this theory in a feminist context, in order to 
sharpen the use of mimesis. In her essay, “The Diabolical Strategy of Mimesis: Luce 
Irigaray’s Reading of Maurice Merleau-Ponty,” Kozel defines mimesis as:
  a powerful tool available for women to subvert the social order as it is 
 presently defined and preserved by patriarchal structures. As the phase that 
 aims to bring about the conditions for the possibility of social and cultural 
 change, mimesis involves women consciously stepping into the sexual 
 stereotypes provided for them by men. It thus becomes a process of eroding 
 the stereotypes from within. (116)

9Noah Patterson



In spite of mimesis’s potential as a powerful feminist tool, Kozel warns that it “runs 
the risk of silencing the other”—because oftentimes the other does not have the 
privilege needed to successfully embody these stereotypes—and thus explores its 
use in order to “[better situate it] at the root of social and political change” (114, 
116). Through this further definition of the term, its application to The Witch 
becomes evident: instead of embodying the stereotypes of womanhood to exhibit 
change from within, the witch as a monster embodies the antithesis of accepted 
womanhood in order to make a political and empowering statement about rigid 
conceptions of femininity operating within the patriarchy. This creates an anti-
mimesis that still allows for the Puritan woman to erode stereotypes but to do so 
through resistance rather than adopting these stereotypes herself.
 Before Thomasin embodies anti-mimesis theory, she actually represents an 
embodiment of mimesis in its traditional definition. In fact, Thomasin prays to 
God at the beginning of the film, confessing, “I know I deserve more shame and 
misery in this life and everlasting hellfire. But I beg Thee, for the sake of Thy son, 
forgive me, show me mercy, show me Thy light” (00:04:55-00:05:58). Thomasin 
also tends to the animals on the homestead, watches over the younger children, 
and, finally, obeys her mother’s commands and takes her “father’s rags to the brook 
and [washes] them” as well as “[brushes] out his woolens” (00:20:30-00:20:57). 
The expectations Thomasin’s mother levies onto her correspond to the Puritans’ 
ideal roles for a wife, which included “‘ordering things within doors,’ by which was 
meant the day-to-day maintenance of the family and the supervision of young 
children, older daughters, and female servants” (Karlsen 169). As Thomasin’s 
initial conformity to society’s expectations—which are echoed by her mother—
are revealed, Thomasin’s use of traditional mimesis is shown as a survival tactic 
rather than a tool for dismantling patriarchy (Karlsen 169). Therefore, Thomasin 
is presented with two choices: continue down the path of Puritanical idealism and 
use mimesis to merely survive or give in to her rebellious nature and utilize the 
concepts of anti-mimesis to obtain the power, status, and opportunity of a witch. 
She selects the latter.
 Thomasin’s decision to utilize anti-mimesis, sign the Devil’s book, and 
become a witch herself is one that maintains narrative coherency within The Witch’s 
feminist theoretical framework. Thomasin’s first expression of anti-mimesis theory, 
though, is less powerful than pledging herself to the Devil. As feminist critic 
Andrea Dworkin states in her book, Woman Hating, “Women are no less terrified 
[of the wicked witch], for we know that not to be passive, innocent, and helpless is 
to be actively evil” (35). Thomasin, however, being a sympathetic protagonist, forces 
the audience to confront a female character that is not passive, innocent, or helpless, 

10Noah Patterson



and still relate to her rather than vilify her. For example, Thomasin overhears her 
mother telling William, “Our daughter hath begat the sign of her womanhood . . 
. She’s old enough. She must leave to serve another family” (00:32:20-00:34:27). 
The parents’ disregard for Thomasin, readily sending her away, creates compassion 
for Thomasin. Similarly, unhappy with the notion that she may leave, Caleb, her 
brother, concocts a plan to find food for the family and keep Thomasin from 
leaving. Instead of allowing Caleb to go alone, Thomasin forces him to let her 
join his journey into the woods. Her adventurous spirit is therefore in contrast to 
the expectations Dworkin identifies, which are thus reinforced by her parents and 
Puritanical society. This subversion, without adopting expected sexual stereotypes, 
reveals the ways in which anti-mimesis may work on a smaller scale.
 In addition to defying societal standards, Thomasin also defies her parents on 
numerous occasions, most notably with her father. After the witch murders Caleb, 
William tells Thomasin, “A council will be called . . . Caleb disappeared with thee!” 
(01:01:31-01:01:52). Here, William accuses Thomasin of being a witch, implying 
her practice of maleficarum on her brother due to the fact that they went into the 
woods together and he returned witched. Thomasin gives a passionate reply, saying, 
 Why have you turned against me? . . . You ask me to speak truth? You and 
 Mother are planned to rid the farm of me. Aye. I heard you speak of it. Is 
 that truth? . . . You are a hypocrite! . . . You took Caleb to the wood and let 
 me take the blame of that too. Is that truth? You let Mother be as thy master! 
 You cannot bring the crops to yield! You cannot hunt! . . . Thou canst do 
 nothing save cut wood! And you will not hear me! (01:02:15-01:03:29)
This plea for William to listen to her simultaneously reveals her independence 
and willingness to question norms. She accuses her father of acting outside of the 
expectations of men just as she is aware she does not conform to the expectations 
of women. Anti-mimesis manifests itself in this exchange, then, through Thomasin’s 
further refusal to be passive; Thomasin also embodies anti-mimesis in her ultimate 
acceptance of her perceived status as a monstrous woman.
 When Thomasin is presented with the opportunity to sign the Devil’s book, 
the allure and power within witchcraft is revealed. At this point in the film, the 
witch has killed Thomasin’s entire family, whether through direct maleficarum or 
the tangential hysteria the witch has caused: only Thomasin remains. The Devil—
who takes the shape of Black Phillip, the family’s black billy goat, throughout the 
movie—approaches Thomasin in human-like form and asks a simple question: 
“Wouldst thou like the taste of butter? A pretty dress? Wouldst thou like to live 
deliciously?” She answers, “Yes.” The Devil continues, “Wouldst thou like to see the 
world? . . . Dost thou see a book before thee? Remove thy shift.” Thomasin, nude 

11Noah Patterson



like the original witch of the wood, stands before the Devil’s book. “I cannot write 
my name,” she says. “I will guide thy hand,” the Devil assures (01:23:10-01:25:19). 
This dramatization of signing the Devil’s book is again in line with Puritanical 
notions of witchcraft. As Karlsen notes, “All of the powers a witch possessed, 
including maleficarum, were said to have derived from the covenant she had signed 
with the Devil. Satan gave her these powers, as well as his promise to satisfy her 
worldly desires (a promise many people believed he never kept), in return for her 
allegiance” (9). That being said, there is no indication that the Devil does not keep 
this promise. Instead, when Thomasin follows him into the wood to a coven of 
witches dancing and chanting around a fire, Thomasin is filled with power. The 
final shot of the film depicts her ascending into the air, laughing while she basks 
in the wonder of her newfound life. It is the first time Thomasin expresses pure 
joy, reiterating that there is empowerment in inhabiting a monstrous border space 
(01:25:30-01:27:40).

CONCLUSION
 Once Thomasin signs the Devil’s book in The Witch’s conclusion, a cyclical 
theme in the film is closed; the creature that pursues Thomasin’s family is ultimately 
what she becomes. There is no presumed glamour in Thomasin’s choice. Instead, the 
audience is led to believe that she will now become like the witch that tormented 
her. Dworkin says that “The roles available to women and men are clearly 
articulated in fairy tales. The characters of each are vividly described, and so are the 
modes of relationship possible between them. We see that powerful women are bad, 
and that good women are inert” (45). Thomasin, however, rejects the social codes 
that were forced upon her, choosing to live a life that is free of patriarchal influence, 
and breaks the narrative coherency that Dworkin highlights. She deserts society 
to live life as a grotesque hag that will revel in her power, her appearance, and her 
fearsome nature. Without a theoretical framework to guide a reading of The Witch, 
Thomasin’s choice may seem confusing; she is, after all, a Christian girl who was 
accused of witchcraft, denied it, and is now seen embodying the life of the witch. 
But, through the exploration of her rebellious nature as well as her condemnation 
of Puritanical societal constructs in her passionate reply to her father, Thomasin’s 
choice to defy patriarchal prescriptions of gender corresponds with the film’s 
message. The Witch, then, acts as a defense of the women who were executed for 
their perceived crimes as witches. In the end, the life of a witch is one that protests 
the norm, forces society to see the other, and challenges us to accept their presence 
or risk the consequences of suppressing them. 

12Noah Patterson



WORKS CITED

Bakhtin, Mikhail. “Introduction.” Rabelais and His World, Translated by Helene  
 Iswolsky, M.I.T. Press, 1968.

Chitwood, Adam. “‘The Witch’ Review: One of the Scariest Horror Films in Years.” 
 Collider, http://collider.com/the-witch-review/. Accessed 29 Jan. 2017.

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” Monster Theory: 
 Reading Culture, edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, University of Minnesota 
 Press, 1996, pp. 3-25.

Daly, Mary. “Introduction: The Metapatriarchal Journey of Exorcism and Ecstasy.” 
 Gyn/ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, Beacon Press, 1978, pp.  
 1-34. 

Donovan, Frank. “Witches’ Brews and Broomsticks.” Never on a Broomstick, Bell  
 Publishing Company, 1971, pp. 57-81.

Dworkin, Andrea. Woman Hating. Penguin Books, 1974

Ehrlich, David. “The Witch Finds Rapture in the Darkness.” Slate, http://www.
slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2016/02/horror_movie_the_witch_reviewed.
html. Accessed 29 Jan. 2017.

Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New 
 England. W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.

Kozel, Susan. “The Diabolical Strategy of Mimesis: Luce Irigaray’s Reading of  
 Maurice Merleau-Ponty.” Hypatia, vol. 11, no. 3, 1996, pp. 114-129. JSTOR, 
 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3810324?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents. 
 Accessed 18 Jan. 2017.

Kristeva, Julia. “Approaching Abjection.” Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, 
 Translated by Leon S. Roudiez, Columbia University Press, 1982, pp.1-31.

13Noah Patterson

http://collider.com/the-witch-review/
http://www.  slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2016/02/horror_movie_the_witch_reviewed.  html
http://www.  slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2016/02/horror_movie_the_witch_reviewed.  html
http://www.  slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2016/02/horror_movie_the_witch_reviewed.  html
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3810324?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents. 


Lee, Benjamin. “The Witch: the blood, the gore, the goat – discuss the film with 
 spoilers.” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/

mar/14/the-witch-the-blood-the-gore-the-goat-discuss-the-film-with-
spoilers. Accessed 29 Jan. 2017.

Russell, Jeffrey B. and Alexander Brooks. A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, 
 Heretics, and Pagans. 2nd ed., Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2007.

The Witch. Directed by Robert Eggers, performances by Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph 
 Ineson, Kate Dickie, and Harvey Scrimshaw, Parts and Labor, 2016.

14Noah Patterson

https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/  mar/14/the-witch-the-blood-the-gore-the-goat-discuss-the-film-with-  spoilers
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/  mar/14/the-witch-the-blood-the-gore-the-goat-discuss-the-film-with-  spoilers
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/  mar/14/the-witch-the-blood-the-gore-the-goat-discuss-the-film-with-  spoilers

