Carrie White as Witchcraft, Power and Fear

In our hands: embers embers embers
just waiting for
the opportunity
to ignite

-Amanda Lovelace, The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One (53)

The Witch in Popular Culture

In the twenty-first century, literature and film have demonstrated a compulsion to return to the figure of the witch. Witches are embedded in popular culture old and new. From the folkloric enchantresses Baba Yaga, Circe, and Morgan Le Fay to the fairytale hags who eat, kidnap, and murder children in stories such as Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, and Snow White, the witch is designed to reinforce men’s fear and abhorrence towards women. Modern media, however, continues to challenge the witch as a figure of absolute terror and evil. What happens, for example, when the witch is a child herself? Portrayals of the “goodhearted” child-as-witch emerged and took centre-stage in stories such as Harry Potter (2001-11) and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018). But before Hermione and Sabrina, there was Stephen King’s Carrie White.

Carrie as Witch

Carrie (1974) was the novel to kickstart Stephen King’s career – no doubt because of the complexity and ambiguity of Carrie herself. Linda Badley rightly notes in Writing Horror and The Body that both in the novel and Brian De Palma’s film adaptation (1976), Carrie can be read as a dark modernisation of Cinderella.  Carrie is a victim of abuse from both her monstrous mother and taunting peers, before being saved by a prince (Tommy Ross) and brought to the ball (prom night). The twist is, of course, that Carrie’s repressed rage materialises into something horrific at the prom. In short, she becomes another fairytale figure: not the princess, but the witch.

The Witch is Born

-The controlled-

Momma forbade her to shower with the other girls. – Stephen King, Carrie (23)

The onset of Carrie’s power can be seen as a manifestation of her repressed rage. Throughout her life, Carrie is shown to be subjected to controlling adult figures – namely, her religious fundamentalist mother, Margaret White. Margaret mentally and physically abuses Carrie; she forbids her to think about boys and dismiss thoughts of her sexuality. The moment she does anything to displease her mother, Carrie is locked in a closet and told to repent for her sins. Under her mother’s watchful eye, Carrie is ultimately forbidden to act like a “normal” teenager. Introducing even more conflict for Carrie, the teacher that has Carrie’s best interests at heart—Miss Collins—tries to control her by encouraging her to be that “normal” teenager. Miss Collins encourages Carrie to wear a little “blush on her cheeks” and “curl on her eyelashes” to the prom.

Carrie seems to be caught in a powerless state – adults constantly tell her not to stray from the path or enter the woods, not to use her power, nor to think about boys.  But this only leads Carrie to stray from the path. Once she gives into her rage—a seed sown by her caregivers and peers through bullying and control—the whole town is massacred.

-The Bullied-

Carrie White eats shit. –Stephen King, Carrie (4)

Carrie’s repressed rage builds as she is constantly taunted by her peers at school and rendered the alien “other.” Carrie’s peers make terrible remarks, comparing her to animals, taunting, teasing, and suggesting that she is a hindrance. A group of girls mocks Carrie by throwing sanitary products at her after she gets her first period, very publicly in the girls’ showers. In the memorable gym scene, Miss Collins demands: “Have any of you stopped and considered that Carrie White has feelings? Do any of you stop to think?” She problematises Carrie’s dehumanisation and status as a social outcast. These bullying episodes create Carrie as the ‘villain’ witch, but also instill her with powerful rage.

The Witch’s Power

Blood Magic

First had come the flow of blood and the filthy fantasies the Devil sent with it. Then this hellish power the devil had given her. It came at the time of the blood and the time of hair on the body, of course. Oh, she knew the devil’s power. Her own grandmother had it. She had been able to light the fireplace without even stirring from the rocker by the window. It made her eyes glow with a kind of witch’s light. -Stephen King, Carrie (145)

Witches have long been associated with “blood magic” and, in cultural imagination, their menstrual blood seems to hold immense power. Buckley and Gottlieb explain in Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation that

“In older societies menstruating women could cause disease to cattle, curdle milk, and afflict men during intercourse draining their seed. But their blood could also be used in fertility charms and in love potions” (35).

It is the perceived power of the menstruating girl that renders her frightful. Her powers are likened to a witch’s power – her newly discovered blood possesses a sort of harmful magic (also known as Maleifca) which seeks to cause chaos in society.

The ‘dangerous’ link between the witch’s power and menstrual blood is omnipresent in Carrie. In the first scene, viewers witness the onset of Carrie’s first menstruation. This moment can be seen as one of horrific monstrosity as Carrie ogles the blood in fear and disgust. However, it is also the catalyst for Carrie’s empowerment as a young woman. The menstrual blood signifies Carrie’s entrance into adulthood – she is no longer an undetermined figure balancing on the threshold between girl and woman. It is no coincidence that, in the film, Carrie’s menstruation seems to run alongside the onset of her telekinetic powers. While screaming in the shower as Miss Collins shakes her, all the lights shatter, and Carrie’s powers are awakened.

In some ways this process is an expression of “blood magic.” In The Monstrous Feminine, Barbara Creed suggests that menstrual blood can be linked to the “witch’s curse” (74). Blood typically signifies pain, death, violence, and anguish, but menstrual blood can signify birth, life, and fertility. In the intermingling of these symbolisms, the film suggests that Carrie has gained something powerful rather than something to be shunned.

Telekinesis

We know that Carrie produced at least one demonstration of her ability as a small girl when she put into an extreme situation of guilt and stress. – Stephen King, Carrie (120)

Telekinesis is a frequent power of the modern-day witch. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Wanda Maximoff, better known as Scarlet Witch, has this power, and so do the witches of American Horror Story’s Coven. Carrie’s telekinesis is insistent and oftentimes sadistic – a power than many viewers may read as monstrous. Early in the film, a young boy says that she is “creepy,” provoking Carrie to use telekinesis to hurl him from his bike. In King’s novel, the scene is just as chilling:

Carrie glared at him with sudden smoking rage. The bike wobbled on its training wheels and suddenly fell over. Tommy screamed. The bike was on top of him. Carrie smiled and walked on. (23)

In Carrie’s triumphant smile, the viewer understands that she will attack when humiliated or annoyed and enjoy it. When arguing with her mother, for example, Carrie threatens “I’ll make the stones come again, Momma” (56). Carrie clearly knows the power of her blood magic and telekinesis. She holds undeniable powers, and she is not afraid to display it to those who trouble her.

The Witch Who Avenges

The Black Prom

Carrie watched, amazed, as his body went through a nearly motionless dance of electricity … he looked funny. She began to laugh. – Stephen King, Carrie (186).

I have explored how Carrie was controlled and bullied by those in her life, and the powers this instils within her. But now we must consider how she uses this power, converting her humiliation into self-empowering vengeance.

The most iconic scene in Carrie is, of course, when she gets drenched in pig’s blood from head to toe.

Others have interpreted this scene as Carrie’s “second menstruation” – the second spilling of blood. Like before, this moment is linked to her power, but it is when she becomes too powerful for others to handle. Carrie envisions her mother’s warnings that “they are all going to laugh at you,” her eyes suddenly widen, and the exit doors of the prom room shut tightly. De Palma then switches the scene’s lighting to red, and Carrie stands on stage a vengeful Witch watching her peers cower and scream in fear as they get electrocuted and hosed down. Once a fire starts, Carrie walks past it slowly, leaving her classmates screaming and burning alive. The terror of Carrie lies in her composure in the chaos: she exits the prom so calmly that it makes her almost supernaturally terrifying. Although this rampage can be construed as monstrous, Carrie is reclaiming her power from those who subjected her to torment and humiliation:

I saw Carrie looking in, her face all smeared like an Indian with war paint on. She was smiling. (168)

The blood—Carrie’s “second menstruation”—is not monstrous but enabling. Imagined as a warrior, Carrie’s massacring is made legitimate and heroic – a righting of wrongs.

Many interpret the prom episode as the masculine fear of the female body and reproductive system. In Danse Macabre, King writes that:

Carrie is not only about women finding their own channels of power, but also what men fear about women and women’s sexuality.

In other words, the moment that Carrie becomes a woman, she becomes a figure of fear. More importantly, with each “menstruation,” Carrie hurtles toward instability, destruction, and chaos, but also toward power. To return to the short Lovelace poem I began with:

In our hands: embers embers embers
just waiting for
the opportunity
to ignite

Carrie’s has always had the power; she just needed a trigger to ignite her fury. Historically, witches have been burnt at the stake. But, just as in Lovelace’s collection, Carrie does not burn but rather she does the burning.

 Witch? Bitch? Or Victim?

Carol Clover states in “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film” that “we (women) are both Red Riding Hood and the Wolf; the force of the experience, the horror, comes from ‘knowing’ both sides of the story” (191). What is clear in the case of Carrie White, is that she is both princess and witch, villain and victim. She is a sympathetic character given her torment from mother and peers. She reclaims the witch as an icon of empowerment, but because of this empowerment, she necessarily becomes a figure of fear. Carrie is more empowering than not, and the only reason she can be perceived as horrifying is because her magic exists outside of the norms of society. Delune’s Witchcraft, Womanhood & Wellness: What it Means to be a Modern Witch sums up the age-long predicament of the witch:

The innate power of the witch—her magic—exists outside of social, political, and economic realms. It exists outside the patriarchy. That’s why witches are so scary. Specifically, they’re scary to the men who try to contain them.

Carrie exists outside of the patriarchy; the lack of the men in the film makes this clear. Carrie is only scary to anyone who is trying to confine her, and God help those who dare to try.

 

Works Cited

Clover, Carol. “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” Representations 20 (Autumn 1987).

Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Routledge, 1993.

Badley, Linda. Writing Horror and the Body: The Fiction of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice. Greenwood Press, 1996.

King, Stephen. Carrie. Hodder & Stoughton, 2013.

King, Stephen. Danse Macabre. Everest House, 1981.

Lovelace, Amanda. The Witch Dosen’t Burn in This One. Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2018.

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Lakkaya Palmer is a soon to be PhD student at University College London, researching portrayals of Ferocious Fatherhood in American Horror Cinema. She is a horror enthusiast and has contributed articles for @headpress and has upcoming ones with @Ghoulsmagazine and @movingpicturesfilmclub. Find her on Twitter @LakkayaP.