Carter

01/14/2022

Ralitsa Lyutskanova-Kostova

REMAKING FEMININITY: THE WITCH

  • ABSTRACT

    In literary, film, and computer realities, a woman is projected in different ways. One of these transformations of the feminine is the witch. The knowledgeable woman is subjected to a number of taboos and (re)makings since ancient times. Creators embody diverse variants of the witch in their works to turn the image into a sustainable model. Wheth- er nurtured by the mythological, the gothic, or the popular, the witch embodies femininity that arouses fear because it cannot be completely rationalized. Female writers use the witch as a special type of femi- ninity – sometimes punished for her nature (Madeleine Miller’s Circe), sometimes able to overcome taboos and prohibitions (Angela Carter). How these “old” and at the same time “new” essences manage to coexist in modern prose, what implications and interpretive models are set for the image of the woman and the witch: these are some of the questions that this paper aims to raise and unfold in the context of the remake as a cultural practice.