Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings. For this week’s Femme Fatale Friday, I will be exploring the 1987 film The Witches of Eastwick through a Magical Media Analysis by discussing the trio of witchy women at the center! To be clear, I will only be focusing on the film here, as I have not re-read the book in a very long time.
So, I think that the best way to approach this post is to break down the discussion of each of the three Witches into their own sections. In these sections, I will highlight how each woman opens up as she meets Daryl Van Horne and embraces her power. Then, I will discuss some overarching themes that came to light on my most recent rewatch of the film. Now, without further ado, let’s look at The Witches of Eastwick!
Alexandra Medford
~Played by Cher in the film, Alexandra is an artist and single mother after her husband died. Her art is clearly largely inspired by classic Venus figurines, like the Venus of Willendorf. She is the first to be seduced by the enigmatic Daryl Van Horne, who first caught her attention by buying all of her figurines from a local shop after they had not been selling. Daryl then invited her to have lunch at his home, the historical Lenox Mansion. It is to Alex that Daryl stated the opinion that women truly bloom after divorce or the death of a husband. He also encouraged her to create much larger-scale art. Of course, this seduction by Daryl is not as easy as he probably would have liked it, as she rejected him at first, before he seemed to use some of his own magic to enthrall her. So, that is how, after Alex’s initial rejection of Daryl, as she seemed to think of him as quite repugnant, it all changed when he asked her, ‘Is that the way you feel about it?’ So, yes, she sleeps with him, and we get several hints of his true nature during this seduction scene, like when he calls himself a horny little devil. Essentially, Daryl convinced her to be his lover by appealing to her desire for freedom from the restriction of norms, as she’s an artist and should not be bound by these restrictive stereotypes. Through this sexual relationship with Daryl, Alex becomes inspired to take her art to the next level and live life on her own terms! So, you can say Alex blossomed into becoming a more authentic version of herself, as we will see with the other two witches.
Jane Spofford
~Played by Susan Sarandon in the film. Jane is a music teacher and musician whose divorce was just finalized as the film begins. We learn through dialogue during the first night the women spend hanging out and drinking together, at the beginning of the film, that Jane’s husband left her because she could not get pregnant. She is the second to be seduced by Daryl when he visited her at her home. He successfully seduced her by appealing to her desire to truly enjoy life without restrictions, which is the opposite of her perfectionistic worries over calories and the like that we had seen from her earlier. It is easy to see that Jane had always desired to truly live life to the fullest without worry. It is Daryl who told her that she needed passion in her musical performance, as technical perfection is only part of making music. It is after she is seduced by him that Jane embraces her true emotion and passion. It is Jane who told Daryl that they used to burn witches at his home, according to the history of the town of Eastwick. The way that Daryl responded to this truly is part of what spoke to Jane, I think, as he told her that most women burned as witches were midwives and were killed because most men are intimidated by women with power. After all, power is what Daryl is offering to each of the women. Jane becomes more uninhibited and truly free after sleeping with Daryl, and we even see this uninhibited, free-spirited energy in how she teaches and inspires her music students. So, you can see that Jane blossomed and released fears that were holding her back.
Sukie Ridgemont
~Played by Michelle Pfeiffer in the film. Sukie is a journalist and mother whose husband left her with six children, as he viewed her easy ability to get pregnant as a burden. This is also information that we learn in that first night of drinking between the women. Sukie is the final one to be seduced by Daryl. Both Alexandra and Jane are already sleeping with him, but do not know it until all three women are at Daryl’s home. So, what begins as an awkward situation turns into each of the women embracing the inherent magic that she had inside. We first see this in the tennis scene, where they find that they can control the ball. All of this is before she is ultimately seduced by Daryl, who drew her in by his total acceptance of her fertility, which she had always seen as a curse. Daryl’s admissions that he’d love to be a woman and that he’d be anyone she wants him to be also seemed to seal the deal. The fact that he told her that he is anyone she wants him to be is obviously another hint at his true nature. After sleeping with Daryl, Sukie becomes more confident and comfortable in her own skin and her own natural maternal energy. So, you can see that it is truly all three women who lose inhibitions in their relationships with Daryl. This gives them a lot of power, and even the ability to use it against him! Now, let’s move on to a discussion of overarching themes.
Daryl Van Horne & Overarching Themes
~It becomes very clear on rewatches of the film that the women were always natural-born witches. They always had the power within, as they were able to summon a storm at the beginning of the film, and it is them discussing their ideal men that truly brought Daryl to the town of Eastwick. Daryl, who is played to perfection by Jack Nicholson, is truly the Devil in disguise. The first hint of his supernatural origins is that no one can remember his name at first, until Sukie finally spoke it aloud. Beyond this, Daryl’s ability to control and seduce certainly calls to the manipulative nature of his own magic. We see Daryl use magic to torture Felicia Alden, who is the only one who can sense just how evil he is.
Felicia’s descent into madness is largely spurred on by Daryl, but he actually used Alex, Jane, and Sukie to cast the spell that would kill Felicia! It is after this that the women turn on Daryl. And this comes after a time when they were all seemingly happy to date him at the same time. It is this strange dynamic, with all three women being in a relationship with him and calling themselves a family, that caused judgment and ire from the small town of Eastwick. The majority of that judgment is from Felicia. So, Felicia’s death is the last straw. This is especially true after Sukie’s children and Alex’s daughter had already been ridiculed for their mothers’ behavior.
Of course, Daryl could not let them leave, which is why he used his magic to attack each in turn by playing with their fears. These attacks are the worst of all for Sukie, who is hospitalized until Alex pretends to reconcile with Daryl. It had also been revealed that each woman was pregnant by Daryl, so they knew there was more than just themselves and the older children to protect. This is what leads to the equally hilarious and insane conclusion of the film, with a magical battle between the witches and Daryl. They use the magic he taught him against him, with Alex using her artistic skills to craft the ideal poppet to represent him, in an act of sympathetic magic. The battle is over the top and chaotic, but the witches win when the poppet is finally burned, and Daryl is banished from the town. The epilogue, to show us what is happening 18 months later, features the witches raising their infant sons (and the older children) in the Lenox Mansion without Daryl. They admit they miss him, but they also do not want to all think of him at the same time, so that they do not summon him again. Of course, we do see Daryl a final time, speaking to his sons via the televisions in Lenox Mansion, which leads to the ideal way to close off the film, when the witches turn off the television.
Now, it is quite clear to me that the entirety of the film is taking inspiration from historical Witch Hunts, but setting it in the then-modern age of the 1980s. The way that Felicia acts throughout her magical illness harkens to the way the Salem Accusers acted during the Salem Witch Trials. The judgment faced by Alex, Jane, and Sukie is a mirror to how the accused were treated during the Witch Trials. Daryl is literally the Devil, even if it is not expressly stated, as he is the one to unlock their magic. After all, that was the belief surrounding witches beginning in the medieval period and on through the Salem Witch Trials: that they were in communion with the Devil. So, overall, the film serves as a modern allegory for just what the fears of the men who wrote the Malleus Maleficarum and other witch-hunting manuals look like if these fears were real. However, the witches here are not evil; they are simply manipulated, yet it is still always true that they had the power all along! That is what makes this such a fascinating film. Because for all of the historical allegory, there are also many layers to how these characters are brought to life. No one is a one-dimensional stand-in for the fearful beliefs of historical Witch Hunters; they are truly complex characters that refuse to fit into a mold!
I hope that you have enjoyed reading my thoughts on the film The Witches of Eastwick. What other folkloric and historical references can you find in the film? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is one of the film posters. I found the poster on https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K8DMHU0?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback&th=1.
LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries
Further Watching
- The Witches of Eastwick (1987)