by Herbert H. Stein
“Thus the super-ego is always close to the id and can act as its representative vis-à-vis the ego.” (Freud, 1923 p. 48)
“The ego which, on the one hand, knows that it is innocent is obliged, on the other hand, to be aware of a sense of guilt and to carry a responsibility which it cannot account for.” (Freud, 1926 p. 117)
Robert Eggers’ film, The Witch, is described in its full title as “A New England Folk Tale.” It is presented as a 17th century horror story, based on the commonly held beliefs at the time, of a family destroyed by demonic forces in the woods around their home.
A Puritan man, William, takes his family out of the safety of the Salem Plantation, a community living within what looks like a fort, to settle in a clearing in the wilderness. Very soon, tragedy strikes as the baby son, Samuel, disappears mysteriously while being engaged in a game of peekaboo with his oldest sister, Thomasin. One moment he is laughing in response to the game, the next, as Thomasin uncovers her face, he is gone. We see in darkened, murky tones that he has been taken by a witch in the woods who kills him and uses his blood for ritual.
From this point, the family fortunes continue to worsen, the crops failing, the grieving and frightened family members turning on one another. The twins begin to act unruly, disobeying a frustrated Thomasin and chanting about the male goat, Black Phillip, being the Devil. A severely grieving mother, Katherine, begins to blame Thomasin for not taking proper care of them and then for the disappearance of a cherished cup that she had brought from England. In fact, we soon learn that William has sold the chalice, but he does not confess. Eventually Katherine will reproach Thomasin for the loss of the baby, and then suggest to William that she should be sent away to another family because she is entering adolescence.
Thomasin’s next younger sibling, Caleb, is the witch’s second victim. He is seduced by a witch in the woods, returning to the family in a state of absence, seizure like. He finally convulses, vomiting out a rotten apple and then speaking of the devil before succumbing and falling into a coma and death. Following this, there is a riot of violence amongst the family members and their domestic animals, William being killed by the goat, “Black Phillip,” and Thomasin surviving by accidentally killing her mother in self defense. The two remaining children, young twins, Jonas and Mercy, disappear, perhaps borne off by a witch. Thomasin, the only survivor, then turns to the demonic forces, becoming a witch, giving added meaning to the film’s title.
A screenplay written by Eggers (2013) begins with a preamble:
“This is a tale of witchcraft, told as a simple family of seventeenth century New England might have believed it to be. All of their folkloric and religious beliefs, in this film, are true. It was inspired by various folktales, fairytales and recorded accounts (journals, diaries, court records etc.) of historical witches and possessions from New England and Western Europe before the Salem outbreak in 1692. Much of the dialogue, in fact, comes directly from those sources.
“In order to effectively depict this world in which ordinary people understood supernatural occurrences to be an expected part of life, it is essential that all aspects of the film be carried out with utter naturalism. The characters must appear as real farmers, not actors with dirty faces. Even the supernatural elements must be photographed as realistically as possible. Yet, with all this authenticity and ‘realism,’ it is still a folktale, a dream. A nightmare from the past.”
The family members, particularly William, cast doubt on the idea that a witch is behind the evil that befalls them. He repeatedly attributes Samuel’s disappearance to a wolf and later looks for other reasons for Caleb’s ailment, trying to dispel his wife’s conviction that witches and demonic forces are the cause. Nevertheless, we, the viewers can see the witches in action, can see a rabbit in the woods that appears to have some special powers, can at the end hear Black Phillip speak and see him turn into the form of a devil. If seeing is believing, then this is a story about supernatural forces with much the same impact as films, such as Rosemary’s Baby, that take place in a more modern setting.
But even as we accept the supernatural with our willing state of disbelief, the film still gives us a complicated set of causes. Yes, there is a witch who intervenes, stealing the baby. There is also a complex set of human motivations. This begins with William’s rigid principles and stubborn pride that set the plot into motion. Here is part of the film’s opening dialogue.
William: “I cannot be judged by false contented Christians under an un-separated church! An English king’s church.”
Governor: “Must you continue to dishonor the laws of the commonwealth and the church with your prideful conceit?”
William: “If my conscience sees it fit.”
Governor: “Then shall you be banished out of this plantation’s liberties!”
William: “I would be glad on it.”
Governor: ”Then take your leave, and trouble us no further.”
Thomasin, the oldest child, seems stunned and reluctant to leave. Caleb, the next oldest, has to call to her to get her attention as the family is walking out of the meeting hall. There are other signs of doubt as well, a questioning glance at William from his wife, Katherine. We will much later hear a clearer cry from her as she tells him that she wants to return to the civilization, not of the colony, but of England. It is William’s moral certainty and pride as much as the witch’s equally insistent devotion to the Devil that leads to this tragedy.
We get further clues from the prayers—perhaps we should call them confessions—that we hear repeatedly from the family members. Early in their time in the wilderness, before any misfortune has occurred, we hear Thomasin’s private prayer,
“O most merciful father: I here confess I have lived in sin. I have been idle of my work, disobedient of mine parents, neglectful of my prayer. I have, in secret, played upon thy sabbath and broken every one of thy commandments in thought, followed the desires of my own will, and not the holy Spirit. I know I deserve all 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.” I have added the italics to emphasize that she holds herself to blame for her shame and misery and expects everlasting hellfire for her bad deeds and thoughts.
Just before the peekaboo game that leads to Samuel’s disappearance, Thomasin recites,
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen!”
This is, of course, a well known appeal, but it’s meaning is clear, that Thomasin is beseeching God not to lead her into temptation. We may wonder a moment later, what temptation she fears when playing with the baby.
Somewhat later, when William takes Caleb into the woods to hunt, William has Caleb recite to him responsively,
“Art thou then born holy and righteous?” “No, nay! My first father sinned and I in him.”
“Art thou then born a sinner?”
“Aye, I was conceived in sin and born in iniquity.”
“Good. Then what is thy birth sin?”
“Adam’s sin imputed to me, and a corrupt nature dwelling within me.” (I’ve added the italics here because it suggests the “corrupt” apple that he will vomit up suggesting his connection to the Devil.)
“Well remembered, Caleb, very well. And canst thou tell me what thy corrupt nature is?”
“My corrupt nature is empty of grace, bent unto sin, only unto sin, and that continually.”
Just a few moments later, Caleb begins to ask serious questions:
“Was Samuel born a sinner?”
William tells him, “We pray he enters God’s kingdom.”
Caleb persists, “What wickedness hath he done?”
He soon follows it up, “He disappeared not one week past, yet you and Mother utter not his name.” He asks if Samuel is in hell.
Clearly, these people who believe in witches and external evil also share a firm belief in their own intrinsic pull to evil. In fact, it is a basic part of their religious devotional belief. In later dialogue, when forces appear to be conspiring upon them, William and Katherine debate in their bed at night as to whether God is punishing them and destroying them, Katherine’s plaint, or simply testing their devotion and belief.
“List me Kate, I fear thou lookst too much upon this affliction. We must bend our thoughts towards God, not ourselves. He hath never taken a child from us. Never a one, Kate. Who might earn that grace? We have been ungrateful of God’s love.”
“He hath cursed this family.”
“No. He hath taken us into a very low condition to humble us and to show us more of his grace.”
“Was not Christ was led into the wilderness to be ill met by the devil? We should ne’er have left the plantation.”
“Kate.”
“We should never have left.”
“That damned church!”
“There is naught hither.”
We’ll return to the rest of this dialogue shortly in another context. The first attack by the witch comes unbidden and hits at the most innocent of the family members, the baby, Samuel. It also intrudes on a simple act of pleasure between the young adolescent girl, Thomasin, and her baby brother. But, as the story proceeds, the witches and other demonic forces seem to act in concert with the inner forces working within the family members.
This is most evident with the older children, Thomasin and Caleb. Both are in an early stage of adolescence. They are close to one another. We cannot ignore as mere recital Thomasin’s plea not to be lead into temptation or Caleb’s talk of “a corrupt nature dwelling within me.”
It is part of the film’s artistry that these temptations to do evil are not presented in an obvious way, certainly not to a modern viewer. Thomasin has the sometimes difficult task of taking care of the young twins, Jonas and Mercy, who seem to be continually stirring up trouble. They chant about the goat, Black Phillip, being the Devil and having enormous powers, they get excited when he and the other farm animals are acting up. Thomasin is criticized by her mother for not keeping them in line. With that background, we are somewhat sympathetic when Thomasin, frustrated with Mercy, scares the child by declaring herself to be a witch and threatening her harm in order to quiet her. This will later be thrown back at her as an accusation that adds to her mother’s suspicions. In fact, in her play at being a witch with Mercy, Thomasin has sown the seeds for her eventual transformation into a witch.
We also hear references in the background to a form of temptation we are more familiar with, sexual temptation. As modern viewers, we are not surprised to see evidence of sexual desires in adolescence, but seeing it presented in such muted form, we are less likely to see it as temptation. Shortly before Thomasin scares Mercy in the field, with Caleb watching, they have a brief, almost momentary dialogue that expresses a full range of conflict.
Thomasin is scrubbing her father’s clothes by the brook. Caleb approaches, having been told by his father to get water from the brook for his mother. As he is filling his pail, he raises his head and stares in his sister’s direction. The camera turns in the direction of his gaze, focusing on Thomasin’s breasts, slightly exposed beneath her clothes. Thomasin looks up and seems to see his gaze and his quick turn away. She gives a hint of smile and asks him, “Why are you dallyin’?” His gaze stays down as he looks into the water, seemingly upset. She persists, “What then? … What?” She splashes some water in his direction, calling out his name, “Caleb. … Caleb!” He tells her to stop it. She resolves it by telling him to “come hither” and when he goes to her, wrapping her arms around him as if he were a small child, asking “What’s the matter with you?” He answers that he had lied about something just before, apples that he claimed he’d seen; but, we know what was the matter with him and Thomasin’s expressions tell us that she also knows.
This matter of a moment tells us a great deal about both Thomasin and Caleb. Clearly he is noticing her developing breasts, something he does not acknowledge. In reaction, she calms him and takes him in her arms as if he were a younger child, attempting to reestablish his innocence.
It is in this context that we view the scene in which Caleb approaches the witch in the woods. Rather than attempt to describe it myself, I will give the description from Eggers’ published script. (Eggers, 2013)
“Just then, the door opens wider… Caleb stops short.
“Out steps a beautiful woman (20s) in a red cloak. She smokes a small clay pipe. Caleb steps back. He is soaking wet. He tries his best to stop crying, to no avail. The woman comes forward and her very dirty, but dainty, bare foot takes one step down the foot ladder. She leans forward. She reaches her arms out sym- pathetically toward Caleb. Her face is greasy, but stunning. Her filthy bodice is cut quite low. There are a few small moles on her ample breast.
“Caleb sees this all. He stays still. The rain falls. The woman beckons him. Caleb walks toward her, he is drawn to her. He can’t help it.
“She crouches on the foot ladder. Caleb is now face to face with her. She smiles at Caleb. Some of her teeth are crooked and browned near the gums, it is startling, but she is beautiful all the same. She strokes Caleb’s head and embraces him. Tears still fall from Caleb’s eyes. He trembles. He looks at the woman’s face, he looks into her hypnotic amber eyes. She smiles so sweetly.
“She draws Caleb near. She kisses Caleb sensually on the mouth! She pulls him in tighter … Suddenly, her hand, now old and ugly, creeps around and grabs the back of his head like a claw. She pushes his mouth further into hers!”
If we were not in 17th century Salem, if this were a slightly different film, we could be watching a young adolescent boy approaching a prostitute. The witch is not someone who merely commits evil acts upon the members of the family. She works with the family members through their “sinful” desires. Caleb is an adolescent boy with budding sexuality from our modern point of view. From the point of view of the 17th century Puritans, that sexuality is part of the sinfulness that infects us all.
Thomasin’s budding sexuality, suggested so subtly in the dialogue with Caleb, is alluded to by her mother in a dialogue between the parents. This comes in a continuation of the night-time dialogue between the parents quoted before. When Katherine cries out that they should never have left, have “naught hither,” William answers back, “What need we, silver chalices?” Earlier, Katherine had blamed Thomasin for losing a silver chalice that she had brought from England. In fact, William had sold it without telling her. Now, realizing his mistake, he starts to tell her the truth, but Katherine goes on about it, saying that it was her intention to sell it, but breaks off to speak directly of Thomasin:
“William! Our daughter hath begat the sign of her womanhood.” She immediately calls out to the other children to make certain they are asleep. They don’t answer, but are indeed awake and listening. (Nothing changes.) Katherine then goes on, “She’s old enough, she needs must leave to serve another family.”
Clearly thinking this is related to the loss of the chalice, William tries again to explain, “Twas not her fault. I must tell thee Kate. …”
But she goes on, “Aye, it was thine for taking thy family hither.”
“This is Godly land.”
“Godly? Our children are being fostered up like savages.”
Over his protest, she goes on to talk of Samuel never having been baptized, crying that he is in hell. Finally, she adds, “God save us, Caleb as well.” There was a line in the original script, apparently cut from the film, “He is also near the age of apprenticeship.” William’s rejoinder remains, “We must keep him still and Thomasin.” The scene ends with Kate screaming out, “We will starve!”
Thomasin and Caleb’s budding sexuality is threatening to the entire family. It may not be excessive to suggest that Katherine fears the urges of sexual attraction between father and daughter in William’s defense of Thomasin. The implication is clear that as a child, particularly a girl, reaches puberty and adolescence, there is a need to send her out of the family, a need exaggerated here by the family’s isolation from all other people.
The witch in the woods is clearly not just a provocateur, but a co-conspirator, playing upon each of their weaknesses. This adds a level of meaning to the film’s disturbing ending.
Having lost her entire family, accused of being a witch and in concert with the Devil, the victim of a murderous attack by her own mother and, in self defense, having killed her mother, Thomasin turns to the Devil. Black Phillip, the goat, answers her, to her surprise, and in doing so, takes a human/Devil form. He leads her to the forest where she joins up with a group of witches. As the film ends, we see her gleefully playing with them, flying into the air and back down repeatedly, screaming “Wheee! Wheee!”
My initial reaction was to be deeply disturbed by this turn of events. Thomasin, the protagonist with whom we could best identify, was turning to evil. It was only on later reflection that something else occurred to me. In a sense, the film had succeeded in causing me to identify with the worldview of these early pilgrims. As I thought about that ending, I realized that it was only when she became a witch that Thomasin was free to enjoy the bodily pleasure of life. She wasn’t killing babies. She wasn’t destroying anyone or any thing. She was flying in the air, screaming with joy at having the freedom to enjoy visceral pleasure without suffocating guilt. It occurred to me some time later that perhaps the peekaboo game spoke to temptation, not in an unconscous wish to be rid of the child, as some psychoanalytic theories might suggest, but rather in the sheer pleasure of the play between older sister and baby brother. The final scene, in which she is playing with abandon with a group of witches suggests the inevitable connection of sensual pleasure of any kind and the warnings of conscience.
As we spend time in the minds of these early Puritans, we see more clearly that conscience and desire are closely allied, something that Freud alluded to in the quotes at the beginning of this discussion. The sins are experienced and enunciated as they are forbidden. “I have, in secret, played upon thy Sabbath and broken every one of thy commandments in thought, followed the desires of my own will.” Pleasure is forbidden as it appears, and even before it appears.
It is only through the wild antics of the witches and the animals that pleasure can be imagined without guilt. The witch is feared, but as we see at the end of the film with Thomasin’s reaction, she is also envied. She is the only one in the story who does not have to answer for her desires. (Although, even she must answer to the Devil, who serves as a counter-culture superego.) It would appear that the witch is needed as the repudiated bearer of our wishes in a culture that leaves so little room for their expression.
And yet, the Puritans were another form of us. We, too, may well have an internal mistrust of pleasure. That may be an intrinsic appeal of the horror film, that it gives us fear and punishment as payment for the excitement of the excesses of our drives.
Eggers, Robert (2013) The Witch (screenplay)
Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. S.E. XIX
Freud, Sigmund (1926) Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. S.E. XX.
Published originally in the PANY Bulletin, Summer, 2016.