Representations of Witches and Witchcraft in Children's Literature

The witch figure has long been the quintessential female villain. On the surface she is menacing and dangerous because she casts harmful spells and hurts children; on a deeper level she is a threat to the stability of heteronormative and patriarchal Christian societies. The European and North American witch hunts of the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries brought her supposed existence to life while leaving many in modern times to wonder why the witch hunts occurred and how they persisted for so long. Even though the executions have stopped, and magic is not generally perceived as the threat it once was, there is no doubt that her importance as an icon of wickedness still captivates us today. Her history as a practitioner of magic and malevolence in literature can be traced at least as far back as the murderous mother, Medea, in ancient Greece. Since then she has inhabited various iterations of the character in Western literature from Circe to Morgan le Fay to the Weird Sisters in Europe, and Marie Laveau to Tituba in America. She has also appeared in films as the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus. While each of these characters are unique, they all share some consistent attributes: independence and autonomy, the use of magic and/or the perceived ability to produce nefarious outcomes, and their female gender. Appearing in literature and films during times of economic or cultural instability, the witch figure oftentimes parallels anxieties surrounding the changing position of women in societies. Such is the case with Jadis in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, as well as the Grand High Witch and her coven in The Witches by Roald Dahl. Both texts participate in a lengthy and sexist tradition of the vilification of women via the witch figure.