Twisted. Mingled. Ugly. Big. Scary… The history of monsters is shaped not only by imagination but also by religious and political rhetoric and resistance. From the old, green and crooked-nosed Wicked Witch of the West (The Wizard of Oz) to evil-fighting Hermione Granger (Harry Potter) who has become a feminist icon, there is perhaps no monster as ambiguous as the witch. What holds true with every witch is that she has magical powers and that she is usually – if not always – a woman. At times, this makes her a monster who happens to be female. At times, she embodies the monstrous-feminine: She is a monster because she is female. In this installation of The Anatomy of Monsters, we will explore the changing image of the witch in the Western imagination.
The figure of the witch in Western storytelling is tied to society’s imaginations of monstrous women (usually) with magical powers dating back to the Middle Ages. In the early 15th century, the idea of the witch developed rapidly from a learned male magician drawing his powers from books to wicked women giving their soul to the devil. German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer’s Malleus Maleficarum (1487) is a highly misogynistic treatise on witchcraft in which he claimed that women were particularly positioned to be tempted by the Devil and become witches due to their uncontrolled sexuality. His image of the witch as a baby-eating penis-snatching hag with unnatural powers spread throughout Europe and America, enabled by the invention of the printing press in the 1440s.
The medieval image of the witch is an image that survives until today both in stories – which we will discuss in this article – and in the real world, when, for example, politicians such as Hillary Clinton and former Australian PM Julia Gillard are decried as witches. At the same time, the figure of the witch has become a feminist figure, both within activism and popular culture. Due to the long history of witches, the number of different imaginaries of the witch is unsurprising. By taking a closer look at Morgan Le Fay, the White Witch from C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, and Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 movie Suspiria, we will explore her monstrous side.
Morgan Le Fay
Morgan Le Fay is best known for being King Arthur’s sister and antagonist, and the mother of Mordred who kills Arthur and usurps his throne in some of the iterations. Yet, in the first written account of the Arthurian legend by Geoffrey of Monmouth (1138), Morgan is depicted as a healer and ruler of Avalon, before later retellings began to represent her as an evil sorceress.
Her changing appearance over time goes hand in hand with changing perceptions of magic in the Middle Ages. In the early Middle Ages, magic was separated into two categories—necromancy and demonic magic more broadly on the one hand, and on the other, a diffuse conception of magic as spells, charms, blessing, potions and other folk practices—the distinction between these two forms of magic disappeared in the 14th and 15th century. Similarly, Morgan’s use of magic in 12th and 13th century Arthurian stories is portrayed as a neutral skill acquired through study. Only beginning in the 13th century did her magic become demonic. And in the stories, Morgan’s physical appearance mirrors the changing conceptualisations of magic: The once beautiful healer is turned into an ugly hag who keeps up the illusion of beauty through magic and is motivated—if by anything—by an uncontrollable sexual desire to do evil.
Through this transformation, Morgan becomes not only an antagonistic counterpart to the chivalrous male protagonists of the Arthurian legend but a cautionary tale of the danger of women leaving their “appropriate” (domestic) sphere. With Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur (1485) published only two years before Malleus Maleficarum it is not surprising that these later characterizations of Morgan embody the misogynistic fears of women’s independence and sexuality prevalent in late medieval society.
While some more recent retellings of Arthur’s story have engaged with Morgan from a feminist standpoint, the BBC series Merlin (2008-2012) offers a portrayal of the character that, in some ways, mirrors her historical transformation towards the monstrous.
Morgana is introduced to the audience Uther Pendragon’s ward. She is kind, beautiful and possesses a strong sense of justice as well as a hidden ability to perform magic. Without having a mentor as Merlin does, Morgana is left alone, scared and isolated when she discovers her powers, knowing that Uther would likely kill her if he found out about her magic. Her isolation lays the groundwork for her to become radicalized against Uther and turn towards malevolent uses of magic such as mind control and necromancy.
Beginning with her sudden status as an outcast, Morgana’s sense of justice turns into a thirst for power and revenge, and she herself becomes that which society fears. Simultaneously, her journey throughout the story echoes her trajectory toward the monstrous feminine in medieval literature. Her turn towards evil is reflected in her physical appearance: While she is graceful and—one might say—ladylike in the beginning of the season, her appearance becomes increasingly gaunt with dark clothes replacing colorful dresses. As opposed to Merlin who, despite his magic, finds a place within society by Arthur’s side, Morgana represents a refusal to conform to societal norms. She not only becomes a dangerous antagonist through her magic, but a monster through her power, ambition, and rejection of traditional female roles of submission and (self-sacrificial) compassion.
The White Witch
“She’d like us to believe [that she is human],” said Mr. Beaver, “and it’s on that that she bases her claim to be Queen. But she’s no Daughter of Eve. She comes of your father Adam’s” – (here Mr. Beaver bowed) “your father Adam’s first wife, her they called Lilith. And she was of the Jinn. That’s what she comes from on one side. And on the other she comes of the giants. No, no, there isn’t a drop of real human blood in the Witch.”
These are the words with which Mr. Beaver describes the White Witch in C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. According to Brydie Kosmina, this character exemplifies an ongoing association of the witch with women’s bodies and sexuality which constitutes her monstrosity. The White Witch is linked to Lilith; the biblical feminine evil, cast out of Eden to live among demons because of her refusal to submit to Adam. In contrast, the Pevensie siblings are referred to as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve; they are heroic Christian knights promised to free Narnia of the monstrous Witch.
Similar to Morgan, the White Witch and her association with Lilith embodies anxieties about female sexuality and women’s independence, more specifically about the reproductive function of the (white) female body within heteronormative racial patriarchy. Both her effect on Narnia and her appearance in the movie adaptation, which is as pale and hostile with her dress mirroring the spikes of her castle, as the everlasting lifeless winter she brings to Narnia. Thereby she represents a rejection of the norm that reduces (white) women to the function to bear (white) children. Like Lilith refuses to submit to Adam, she refuses to submit to Aslan. Thus, her rejection of these norms, her body is cast as inhuman and she becomes the evil counterpart to the Christ-like figure of Aslan and the good and God-fearing human Pevensies.
In some respects, the White Witch shares similarities with the evil witches from fairytales. While she is not portrayed as old and ugly, she is unhuman and cold, and like the fairytale witch living deep in the forest, she lives in a remote—and barren—area on the margins of the world she inhabits. Finally, like the witch that lures in Hansel and Gretel with her gingerbread house, the White Witch lures in Edmund with Turkish Delight and the pretence of caring and kindness. This last point in particular creates parallels between her and the envious, unlovable, and cruel fairytale witch as well as the witch as manipulative temptress not unlike as representations of Morgan as an ugly crone who uses magic to create the illusion of beauty.
The contrast between good and evil, and the witch’s monstrosity are reinforced through the company Aslan and the White Witch keep respectively, as well as through visual decisions in the movie. While Aslan is surrounded by a bright and colorful host of creatures, including fauns, unicorns, centaurs, and griffins, the Witch is surrounded by a horde of trampling, stomping, hobbling, deformed beasts such as minotaurs, harpies, ogres, and trolls.
Suspiria (2018)
In contrast to The Chronicles of Narnia, spring or rebirth does not come with the defeat of the witch but is brought about by the witch in Luca Guadagino’s Suspiria (2018). Set in a divided Germany that is still grappling with the horrors and guilt of the Nazi regime and is shaken by the violence of the Red Army Fraction (RAF), Susie, a young American, joins a dance company run by a coven of witches.
At the same time as Germany is shaken by political and societal tensions, there is conflict within the coven between Helena Markos and Madam Blanc. Markos eventually appears as an ugly and blind hag with a sagging wart-covered body, reminiscent of Albrecht Dürer’s Witch riding backwards on a goat, who needs a human to be sacrificed for her to survive. Opposed to her is Madam Blanc who, while having powers such as the ability to cause her students nightmares, appears more human than monstrous.
The different and nuanced representations of the witches Markos, Blanc, and Susie stand in contrast to the trope of the monstrous witch who is evil without explanation or justification, and who embodies societal fears of women breaking free from heternormative patriarchal—as well as often—racial control. These associations are still present in Suspiria but rather than detracting from the characters’ humanness, they become agents with motives and justifications for their actions beyond their status as monsters.
When Susie first arrives in Berlin, one of her fellow students at the dance company tells her that Blanc “kept the company alive [...] when the Reich just wanted women to shut off their minds and keep their uteruses open”. Still, the witches of Suspiria are characterised by a transgression of gender norms in their society, but instead of this feature being presented as a sign of evil, it becomes a sign of empowerment. Similarly, the connection between witchcraft and sexuality as well as the non-human emerges in a conversation between Blanc and Susie. After a dance session involving an incident in which one of the students is killed through a sympathetic link between her and Susie, Blanc asks her how her body felt when she was dancing. Susie replies that “it felt like what I think it must feel like to fuck.”
“You mean a man?”, Blanc follows up, and Susie responds: “No, I was thinking of an animal.”
However, instead of serving to highlight their monstrous character, the dialogue remains a neutral exchange of words between Susie and Blanc.
At the end of the movie, Markos eventually kills Blanc and Susie is confronted with Markos which results in Markos’ death and Susie taking over the coven. Throughout the movie and culminating in the resolution of the conflict at its center, the figure of the mother is thematized, including Susie’s biological mother, Blanc as a mother figure, Markos as a false mother, and Susie eventually becoming the Mother through the act of killing several coven members. The multiplication of actors—with Malgosia Bela playing both Susie’s biological mother and the incarnation of Death, and Tilda Swinton playing a total of three characters including Markos and Blanc—too, stresses the multifacetedness of and intersection between witchcraft, motherhood, death and rebirth. Each of these concepts becomes more nuanced than an opposition of (good and evil) binaries, and as opposed to stories such as The Chronicles of Narnia where the witch’s magic leads to death and despair, Susie’s power is as creative as it is destructive, ultimately leading to rebirth and new possibilities.
Not all monsters are physical. Not all monsters are clear… In the following entry of this series, the monsters come from within.
Written by Merle Emrich.
Cover illustration by Jaro Mettinisson.