The Forest and the Farm in The Witch and Hansel and Gretel
In Gothic literature, the forest is an interstitial space between the known and the unknown; its liminality either gives entrance to or holds in its core the supernatural. In fairytales, the unknown can be threatening or miraculous and its victims are often located in the outside borders of the woods. I pretend to analyze the different representations of the forest and the effect it has on its surroundings in the fairytale “Hansel and Gretel” by the Grimm brothers and in the movie The Witch by Robert Eggers. I will focus on three aspects: the forest as wilderness and exile; the forest as an illusion, and the forest as a form of liberation.
In “Hansel and Gretel” and The Witch both families face starvation, which becomes more problematic due to the presence of small children that are more vulnerable to the situation. The parents in both families work as woodcutters; the proximity of their houses to the forest is an attempt to reflect their knowledge of nature and their ability to tame it and produce. This notion is ironized once the families prove to be unable to do so, thus contrasting the prolific natural environment with the stalled production of the farms. Taming nature prevents growth and presents the possibility of death. Due to this, both families, convinced by the mothers, decide to give their children away, either by abandoning them in the woods or by planning to sell them to other families. The children’s exile from their families precipitates the contact with the supernatural inside the forest: the witch in “Hansel and Gretel” admits to having smelled the children on their first walk to the woods, thus luring them to her house on the second journey; in The Witch, the supernatural finds the way inside the house through the children, all of whom have spent time in the forest. In both stories, it is suggested that the witches were involved in the lack of production, as they are the ones in control of the wilderness. In The Witch, after the kidnapping of the baby and the intrusion of the supernatural, the crops are rotted, the chicken is stillborn, and the goats’ milk turns to blood. In “Hansel and Gretel” the family enter the forest with the pretext of finding wood, which would provide nourishment for them, and instead abandon the children. Thus, in both tales, closeness to nature becomes a source of corruption and death.
The forest is also an illusion of the inhabitants’ deepest needs and desires. For Hansel and Gretel, the witch’s house represents the protection of a home, which appears after they have been abandoned by their own family, and a source of nourishment and growth, represented by the construction itself, made of bread. The house is an illusion of what the children lack the most, which is the protection of a family and the possibility of survival. In The Witch, the supernatural also uses the forest to represent the family’s desires, with the difference that the witches invade the farm and corrupt that environment from within as well. The witch lures Caleb to the cabin in the forest by offering the possibility of sexual discovery, which had been repressed in his relationship with Thomasin. For Mercy and Jonas, the forest represents a fantasy, a demonstration that magic was real. For the mother, it incarnated that which had been robbed from her, her dead sons. The forest molds itself to what each of the characters need as a way to lure them in and corrupt them.
Finally, the forest, as corruptive as it is shown in both tales, is also a form of liberation. For Hansel and Gretel, the forest begins as a threat disguised as protection, yet once they kill the witch and the stepmother dies (an allusion that suggests it could be the same person), they find jewels that liberate them from the previous hunger and poverty. The death of the stepmother is also a liberation from the original threat; the possibility of survival is thus achieved. For Thomasin in The Witch, the forest represents the ultimate liberation from her previous life and the Puritan community: when she bargains with the devil, she frees herself from religion, pain, poverty, heartache, and repression. Her smile at the end shows a mixture of incredulity and relief, by joining the witches, her desires became concrete and she was liberated from the restraints of the Puritans. Thus, she becomes one with the forest.
In “Hansel and Gretel” and The Witch the forest is represented in a threefold manner: first as the source of scarcity and death; then as an illusion that lures the inhabitants by offering the possibility of survival and the representation of their deepest desires; and finally, as a source of liberation from the problems that arose with the first situation. In the story by the Grimm brothers, there is a restoration of order with the subversion of the forest and the expulsion of the supernatural in what could be considered a fairytale happy ending. In the film, however, the liberation is only attainable via the forest itself and the adoption of the supernatural that lurks inside.
