Week Five: Witches

For this week, I read a couple of short stories: "The Cinder Maid", "Fair, Brown and Trembling", "The Baba Yaga", and "The Wicked Stepmother". Though all dealt with witches and magical females, there seemed to be a common element among the stories: the presence of an evil, older woman who threatened the livelihood of the young, female protagonist. This bad witch is usually a relative (an evil stepmother) and is noticeably jealous of the protagonist's youth and beauty, both of which she used to have but presumably no longer possesses because her aging. As we discussed in class, this motif of sorts applied to a lot of fiction about witches and even the idea of witches in general. Perhaps this is the manifestation of a misogynistic view of age on women as an undesirable trait, or maybe it is simply the result of a classic fairy tale cliche. However, I also noticed that these stories usually had a "good" older woman as well, one who gives the young protagonist what she needs to fight the evil power of the bad witch. This good woman usually takes on the fairy Godmother role, as we see in "The Cinder Maid" and "Fair, Brown, and Trembling", and supplies the girl with magical items and charms. In these stories, the "good witch" and "bad witch" take a very active hand in shaping the growth of the young heroine and essentially influence her upbringing. Thus if I were to draw a "moral of the story" from these tales, I would pin it to be more about how aging affects a person's character, whether they become spiteful of the youthful generation or if they instead support the youth and give them the necessary tools to continue building the future. The good witch embraces her age and is at peace with it. She uses her own powers and wisdom, which she earned with age, to help the young girl in building her own life and setting her on her own path. The bad witch is envious of the youth, and constantly has to put down the young girl to boost her own ego. She uses her powers to prevent the youth from surpassing her and is adamant in keeping her power, unable to acknowledge her own aging. To the girl, the existence of these two witches can also act as a warning, since later on in life, the girl has to make her own decision on whether she becomes the good witch or the bad witch. And inevitably, we too will have to choose which path to walk down.