The Once and Future Witches

With very few exceptions, the men of the novel are abusive and power-hungry. The two characters who embody this theme most vividly are the Eastwood sisters’ unnamed father and Gideon Hill. Both are intent on maintaining control at all costs. They are jealous of the privileges that their society accords them and refuse to share these with women, or even other men. Although elements of their behavior suggest a social dynamic in which men are utterly confident of their control of women, Harrow examines their despicable, socially-enabled behavior in another light. It isn’t the intoxication of total power that drives these men, but fear. Harrow depict patriarchy as emotionally destructive for men as well: Both men are deeply afraid that the women they oppress might someday overpower them, and this damages their ability to empathize with others, causing further harm.

Juniper recalls her father locking her in the basement to reinforce her insignificance: “Her daddy would say: Don’t forget what you are, girl. Then he would toss her down in the worm-eaten dark and hiss the answer: Nothing” (9). The Eastwood father wages a psychologically abuses his daughters, indoctrinating them with the notion of their own powerlessness. While this systematic degradation has an effect, the male head of the family lives in constant fear of his control unraveling. Agnes recalls, “Her daddy was never more dangerous than when he was afraid, and he was always afraid: that they might wriggle out of his grasp, that he was weak, that someone somewhere was laughing at him” (384). It isn’t simply the male fear of being bested by a weaker female. The Eastwood girls possess enough magic to be formidable in their own way. Magic in the novel is a metaphor for female power in its most elemental form. Mr. Eastwood’s fear of being laughed at suggests that under patriarchy, humiliation—a feeling dependent on a sense of powerlessness—is the worst possible fate for a man.

Mr. Eastwood’s attempts to destroy his daughters’ spirits in only partially successful; all three daughters escape his home, retaining both psychological and physical scars. However, the sisters escape his grasp only to be confronted by an even more abusive man who does know how to perform magic, making him a dangerous enemy both socially and supernaturally. Like Mr. Eastwood, Gideon allowed himself to become corrupted by his immense power, and he practices both politics and magic to oppress others. Power is dual-natured, as Mama Mags points out: “She said witching was power and any power could be perverted, if you were willing to pay the price. You can tell the wickedness of a witch by the wickedness of her ways” (92-93). Despite Hill’s formidable power, in the end, his fear is the same as Mr. Eastwood’s. Both know that they are wielding abusive illegitimate power over women and that a day of reckoning must come. As the Last Three tell the Eastwood sisters, Gideon fears “The day the truth comes out […] The day he gets what’s coming [and] Us” (413). Gideon fears that someday, he will be oppressed by the same people he previously exploited. Although the Eastwood sisters defeat Gideon, Harrow resists simply inverting the hierarchy. Rather than Juniper enacting violent retribution, she feels compassion, and ultimately destroys Gideon to protect others, rather than out of vengeance.