Writing with Witch Archetypes (Part 2)
If a witch is a person who re-enchants the world with a fresh perspective untethered by the patriarchy, then Poor Things’ Bella Baxter is a witch. Emma Stone danced and masturbated her way into my heart. I’m so happy she won the Oscar. The Academy wasn’t “snubbing” Barbie but the gross consumerism evident in a film that seems at times to be simply an extended commercial for Mattel.1
Thanks for reading Witch Lit! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
In my Writing with Witch Archetypes class, students have compared the opening stanza of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Witch-Wife” to Bella Baxter:
She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.No shade on the color pink but it does seem to be the color most emblematic of a submissive, ultra-feminine brand of womanhood. Of course there are ways to subvert a reader’s expectations (as Kiki Petrosino does in her poem “Witch Wife” where she writes “my pink gloves, my green gloves” as she possibly boasts of murdering her enemies.)
Students have pointed out that Bella Baxter too had to learn how to be a person through reading books. Before Bella begins her journey of self-exploration, her “hands” explore her own body freely. Masturbation is not learned in a “fairy tale.” But she has to reign in her sexuality somewhat in order to become a part of society.
I’m not sure how valentines were perceived in Millay’s time but to me they are sentimental, a kind of lie. “And her mouth on a valentine” evokes a perfect, pink, bow-tied, mouth. A mouth that is shut, a woman who is silenced.
In the poem, I believe the witch learns and subverts conventional notions of feminine beauty in order to get what she wants, or to simply avoid punishment. However, Bella’s mouth opens to speak her mind, or moan in pleasure, whether that is from an orgasm or a dessert.
Bella is much like the speaker in Kiki Petrosino’s “Witch Wife.” Even in the title, Petrosino unhitches her speaker from another by eliminating the hyphen.
As Pam Grossman writes in the foreword to Literary Witches, “…I’ve come to realize that the Witch is arguably the only female archetype that has power on its own terms. She is not defined by anyone else. Wife, sister, mother, virgin, whore – these archetypes draw meaning based on relationships with others.”
Although I believe a witch is someone who is in relationship with nature, ancestors, Spirit, etc., I believe what Grossman means is that she is not defined by any traditional human relationship with restrictive gender or other norms.