The Film: Darryl Van Horne's Speech:
In the Film, I loved this scene. I thought it was one of the strongest scenes in the film. While it never happened in the novel, and the witches showed no direct cruelty or act of punishment towards Van Horne this was an accurate depiction of what I felt towards the three characters specifically Jane by the end of the novel. I hated them. Almost everything in their nature depicted the negative traits that are often present in the stereotypical women, the type of woman who seems in a way to give truth to the biblical allusion to the woman being the creation and epitome of all sin. They were spiteful, manipulative, lying, and carless about the emotions and realities of the lives of those around them. While in the film, Darryl Van Horne is portrayed as evil, and he is the one who makes the first act of violence towards the women and they are simply protecting themselves, the three witches in the novel kill Jennifer, Van Horne's wife by magically torturing her and giving her cancer. They mercilessly committed this act of cruelty out of pettiness. Since, they felt slighted by their removal from the picture and the lavish parties and the sexual escapades. The women in the film, while careless, loved towards each other, and they, throughout the entire plot, maintained their friendship and held true to what they felt was right. However, the women in the novel, while more dynamic slowly developed into more and more detestable creatures. I feel that in the novel Updike, the author, should have directly approached this as it was in the film. With all of the Evil that these three women are committing, are woman in fact a mistake? Was it meant to be portrayed that all women were like this, since not a single female character in the novel was free form some type of moral flaw? Are men any different? While at times the woman are praised for the wonders of nature, and their capabilities including reproduction, all of the flaws and all of the malice within the three and the horrible things they do are often mention in passing as if it they were to be expected. For example, one of the scenes with Alexandra who is portrayed as the most compassionate of the three particularly disturbed me. While awake one night due to her “merciless insomnia, “she heard the sound of a puppy barking. The sound disturbed her so much that “without sufficient reflection she willed it dead. It had been a puppy unused to being tied, and she thought to late that she might as easily have untied the unseen leash… The puppy had been known to her children and the next morning the youngest of them, baby Linda came home in tears.” (223) Perhaps, since I am an animal lover, and I myself have a dog who seems to NEVER stop barking, I am biased. However, this was such an obvious act of cruelty. Alexandra murdered the poor creature yet, she did not seem to care even after the fact. She did not even show any signs of remorse due to the pain of her children. Anyway, I was upset when there repeatedly were scenes depicting the witches’ malice yet they were not in any way approached.
