"The Witch" is a very strange
and disturbing story, and I admit that it took me a few times reading it to
fully “get it.” The very brief tale is a simple story of a four-year-old
boy on a train with his mother and sister. However, it very quickly becomes
complicated when an old man is introduced to the equation. The old man talks to
Johnny about his mom and his little sister, and then begins telling Johnny
about his own little sister. He says that he loved her more than anything else
in the world. That is, before he killed it. It was hard to determine if the old
man was a nice guy with a sick sense of humor or if he was a legitimately
disturbed killer. Either way, reading the piece and having such a strange
occurrence happen under such normal circumstances gave me reason to pause and
ponder what I had just read.
Shirley Jackson, who is best known for her
unusual and typically terrifying short stories, mimics elements of everyday
life in her writing. In “The Witch,” Jackson demonstrates some obvious aspects
of life. For example, Johnny and his mother respond very differently to the old
man’s story about killing his little sister; Johnny laughs while his mother
becomes defensive. This mirrors the way that adults are more likely to feel
uncomfortable in situations that are outside social norms, while children are
typically very comfortable in them due to their lack of social experience and
sheer innocence.
Additionally, the old man could be seen as
a commentary on how danger is present in even the most comfortable of settings.
He comes to Johnny on a train ride and tells a gruesome story, a story that
nobody in their right mind would predict under such normal circumstances. The
juxtaposition of him as a malignant force and the setting of the story demonstrate
a common observation; danger is not confined to only places that seem frightening.
It can be anywhere.
The most unusual part of the story to me
was not that the old man described in detail how he murdered his little sister,
but rather Johnny's mother's reaction to it. It is quite apparent from the
piece that she is fairly apathetic as a parent. She barely pays attention to
Johnny and dismisses all of his stories, mindlessly answering him while he, in
child-like wonder, is going on and on about the scenery and his made-up
stories. Additionally, Johnny's young sister is not properly strapped in; she
is strapped in a way that gives her the freedom to move around and entertain
herself with a rattle and a piece of toast.
Additionally, after her son has been
approached by a man who has just detailed to him how he killed his little
sister, she simply says that the man was kidding, gives her son a lollipop, and
tells him to go sit in his seat.
This is hardly the kind of
tender affection and attention you would expect from a mother with two young
children.
The mother’s behavior is clearly
not normal; how many young mothers only acknowledge their children when they
are faced with immediate danger, and then act like nothing ever happened less
than five minutes later?
This is one element of the
story that I have yet to fully grasp. She seems to be a sort of reverse image
of the old man; she is inattentive and ignores Johnny, where the old man pays
attention to him. She is very rational, while the man is either playful or
psychotic. Johnny’s mother is a very
literal person, as she takes the old man’s story quite seriously even though it
is most likely not true. The old man seems eccentric, as he easily goes along
with Johnny’s fantasies and adds a story of his own.
Personally, I feel that the differences
between Johnny’s mother and the old man are demonstrative of another of Shirley’s
observations from real life: when denied attention, a child—or any person—will seek
attention elsewhere, regardless of who the source of the attention is.
If anyone should read this
short story and interpret it differently I would love to hear how you
interpreted it.
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