kissing the witch

I can’t pick just one story, but my favorite section of the book is definitely the tale of the voice and the tale of the kiss. These stories are my favorite because it was such a twist from the Disney version of the tale we all know and love, separately these stories didn’t give me the biggest reaction, but when read together I was very intrigued. I loved the fact that Emma Donoghue twisted the Story to make the “witch” a regular woman that everyone just assumed was evil, because of the place she decided to live. My favorite passage from the book is,

“wish to speak and you will speak, girl. Wish to die and you can do it. Wish to love and her you are.

I don’t understand, I croaked at last. My throat hurt.

She yawned. Your silence was the cost of what you sought, she said; it had nothing to do with me. what would I do with your voice? The music you make has always been in your own power.

Then why did you take my sisters hair in exchange?

She smiled wickedly. People never value what they get for free.(page 203)”

In the last story about the sea witch there is a line, “she who takes the kiss can also die of it, can wake into something unimaginable, having turned herself into some new species.(page 226)”

I think the book is called kissing the witch because the sea witch knew that kissing a witch was known to be dangerous and by asking the girl to do it she was testing her. But when accepted and done the witch grew attached and realized what she had done to shame the girl actually shamed herself. It showed her longing for others, and proved her life to a lonely one. Instead of scaring the girl, it opened her eyes and did make her a “new species” one that had compassion and longed for happiness.