1. Which of these stories is your favorite? Why? Which best captures the situation of women today?
It is extremely difficult to pick a favorite story from Emma Donoghue’s Kissing the Witch. A feeling of sensuality, metaphorical magic, and beauty are imbued in each tale. It’s easier to say which is my least favorite, which is not at all to say that I didn’t enjoy it, but where Donoghue is so thoughtful and progressive in almost all of the stories, she seems to write with an undertone of disdain for men in general, making me question her intentions and ideas. In the Tale of the Bird, the woman in the story falls in love with a man, marries him and becomes pregnant. In this modern day version of Cinderella, the woman in the story feels that she lives on borrowed time, not belonging anywhere in particular. She gains a sense of belonging from the man that she marries, the love that she feels. In the end of the story, she is feeling trapped in her castle, yearning to be released from the prison where she once felt ultimately free. The part that bothered me in this story was the sense of possession that the husband felt towards the woman, and the feeling of worth that the woman gains from this so-called-love. The woman was desperate to explore the outside world, but was forbidden to. With the exception of The Tale of the Voice where the woman in the story finds a non-skeezy fisherman to be her mate, men seemed to be portrayed as creepy or shallow or just plain stupid (The Tale of the Skin, The Tale of the Voice, The Tale of the Cottage). While most fairy tales leave much to be desired in the sense that the female character is written as a one-dimensional doll, Donoghue shoves this same categorization onto men. I think that Donoghue has made an amazing re-creation of old stories, but the oversimplification of men as overall pigs is unfair and could be seen as hurtful for some to read. The issue is complicated, because I ultimately identify as an egalitarian humanist feminist whateverist, but in my eyes, gender is a spectrum, and this cliche of a metaphor of humans as roses with perfumed petals and pointed thorns rings true.
2. Why does the author title the book Kissing the Witch?
I’m unsure of why Donoghue names the book Kissing the Witch. The witch in the story is someone who has a sense of power thrust onto her, and while she is not at all literally magical, she accepts her role projected by society. At the end of the story, the witch meets a woman who makes her question her way of life. Maybe the witch symbolizes the ideals that society wants you to believe in, a box you are supposed to fit into, and the meeting of the two women symbolizes the unknown you encounter and finally become familiar with, which changes your spirit and way of thinking.
