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Be a Witch, Be a Woman: Gendered Characterisation of Terry Pratchett’s Witches

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Terry Pratchett's Narrative Worlds

Part of the book series: Critical Approaches to Children's Literature ((CRACL))

Abstract

Alice Nuttall employs a gender lens in this chapter, and analyses the ambiguous relationship between witchcraft and womanhood in the Discworld novels. Highlighting the witches’ ambiguous exceptionalism, which tends to isolate ‘the witch’ from ‘the woman’, Nuttall examines the complex negotiations between witchcraft and womanhood, and how these manifest through labour, interpersonal relationships, and the paradox of the witches’ centred-yet-marginalised position in ‘their’ villages.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Karen Sayer, ‘The Witches’, in Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature, eds Andrew M. Butler, Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (Reading: The Science Fiction Foundation, 2004), 83.

  2. 2.

    Equal Rites follows Eskarina as she becomes the Disc’s first—and only—female wizard; The Shepherd’s Crown sees Geoffrey taking on a witch-like role in his new community.

  3. 3.

    Sayer, ‘The Witches’, 83.

  4. 4.

    Terry Pratchett, ‘Imaginary Worlds, Real Stories’, Folklore 111.2 (2000), 160.

  5. 5.

    Pratchett, The Sea and Little Fishes, http://www.angelfire.com/weird2/athenia/stories/pterry/sea.htm.

  6. 6.

    Pratchett, The Wee Free Men (London: Doubleday, 2003), 34.

  7. 7.

    Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight (London: Doubleday, 2010), 336.

  8. 8.

    In The Shepherd’s Crown, Granny Weatherwax helps an injured lumberjack and several people ‘wanting potions and poultices’ before having a premonition of her own death; she then cleans her house and sets up everything needed for the laying out of her body.

  9. 9.

    Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 35.

  10. 10.

    Rose Hackman, ‘“Women are just better at this stuff”: is emotional labor feminism’s next frontier?’, Guardian, 8 November 2015.

  11. 11.

    Ibid.

  12. 12.

    Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 234.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., 233.

  14. 14.

    Hackman, ‘“Women are just better at this stuff”: is emotional labor feminism’s next frontier?’.

  15. 15.

    Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 282.

  16. 16.

    Nadine Houghton, ‘We need to talk about women’s unpaid emotional labour—and urgently’, Independent, 14 January 2016.

  17. 17.

    Hackman, ‘“Women are just better at this stuff”: is emotional labor feminism’s next frontier?’.

  18. 18.

    Pratchett, Wintersmith (London: Doubleday, 2006), 37.

  19. 19.

    Pratchett, The Shepherd’s Crown (London: Doubleday, 2015), 37.

  20. 20.

    Kristin Noone, ‘Shakespeare in Discworld: Witches, Fantasy, and Desire’, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 21.1 (2010), 30.

  21. 21.

    Pratchett, ‘Imaginary Worlds, Real Stories’.

  22. 22.

    Pratchett, The Sea and Little Fishes.

  23. 23.

    Pratchett, Wintersmith, 281.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., 382.

  25. 25.

    Janet Brennan Croft, ‘Nice, Good, or Right: Faces of the Wise Woman in Terry Pratchett’s “Witches” Novels’, Mythlore 26:3/4 (2008), 152.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 80.

  27. 27.

    Pratchett, ‘Imaginary Worlds, Real Stories’.

  28. 28.

    Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum (London: Transworld, 1998), 87.

  29. 29.

    Joseph Bristow, Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1997), 47.

  30. 30.

    Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum, 10.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., 84.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 67.

  33. 33.

    Pratchett, The Sea and Little Fishes.

  34. 34.

    Ibid.

  35. 35.

    Pratchett, Thief of Time.

  36. 36.

    Magrat would initially seem to counter this theory, as her identity changes significantly after her marriage to Verence; however, I believe that her transition from witch to Queen, and the fact that she is apparently far more confident and powerful in the latter role, is linked to the fact that she feels less emotionally connected to her witchcraft than Nanny Ogg or Granny Weatherwax, who she views as ‘witches to the bone’.

  37. 37.

    Sayer, ‘The Witches’, 85.

  38. 38.

    Ibid., 94.

  39. 39.

    Pratchett, The Shepherd’s Crown, 329–330.

  40. 40.

    Brennan Croft, ‘Nice, Good, and Right’, 156.

  41. 41.

    Sayer, ‘The Witches’, 95.

  42. 42.

    Pratchett, The Sea and Little Fishes.

  43. 43.

    Sayer, ‘The Witches’, 90.

  44. 44.

    Noone, ‘Shakespeare in Discworld’, 33.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., 83.

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  1. Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

    Alice Nuttall

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  1. Alice Nuttall
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  1. Interjuli, Lorch, Germany

    Marion Rana

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Nuttall, A. (2018). Be a Witch, Be a Woman: Gendered Characterisation of Terry Pratchett’s Witches. In: Rana, M. (eds) Terry Pratchett's Narrative Worlds. Critical Approaches to Children's Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67298-4_2

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