The Physical Depictions of Witches 

The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, Jadis the White Witch from Narnia and the Grand High Witch from Roald Dahl. What do these witches have in common? They are all female, depicted as the antagonists and are portrayed as characters who are either ugly, old, jealous or hungry for power. Their male counterparts are seen as brave, wise and morally good characters striving for ‘the greater good’. Such wizards are for example Albus Dumbledore, Gandalf or Merlin. According to Richard Fahey (2021), wizards “enjoy a distinct privilege in contemporary fantasy literature” (para. 1). The physical depiction of these wizards can be seen in the article “Iconography of the Wizard”, the physical depictions of witches have been similar as well.

Throughout literature, witches have been described as outsiders in their society. However, they have either been described as young beautiful women or ugly old women. In Greek mythology, they have been depicted as young and beautiful godlike creatures while during the Medieval Age, the image of Morgan Le Fay has been depicted as a witch. She is a shapeshifter who shifts from a beautiful young woman to an older ugly woman. This kind of development that a witch could be either godlike or satanical is because it is a reflection of what was feared of females in said societies when these stories were written; it was about females ageing and their sexual liberation. 

The Medieval Age and the Renaissance were the periods where witch hunting was at its peak and literature written in those ages depicted witches as ‘bewildered old women’ with ‘gruesome fingers and thin lips’ and looked on the brink of death while some even questioned their gender (Haesler, 2021). The reason why witches have been depicted in such a way is because of the society women lived in, where again females were seen as the weaker sex, got blamed quickly by men for any sort of conflict that occurred and became linked to satanism, demonology and heresy (Haesler, 2021). Currently, the depictions of witches have been diverse and have been portrayed both positively and negatively with examples of Hermione Granger (Harry Potter), Bellatrix Lestrange (Harry Potter) and Melisandre (Game of Thrones).

Note. From left to right: Hermione Granger (Wikipedia
contributors, 2024),Bellatrix Lestrange (Wikipedia
contributors, 2024) and Melisandre (Wikipedia 
contributors, 2024).