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| cover, LibraryThing |
Lolly Willowes, first published in 1926, is a little known classic, but deserves to be remembered as
a well-written feminist parable of a middle-aged woman learning to embrace
independence, her own identity, and paganism in the process.
Laura "Lolly" Willowes is
the product of a stifling middle-class Edwardian upbringing. After her beloved,
but stern father's death, Laura becomes shuffled between her siblings’ families
who are alternately vain and foppish or rigid and uncompromising. To her
nieces and nephews, she's nothing but strange spinster Aunt Lolly. To her
siblings and in-laws, she is just an afterthought, someone to take up space in
the spare room and awkwardly be introduced to at parties and family
gatherings.
In almost supernatural coincidence
(probably intentionally so considering later events), Laura finds a way out of
her confining existence. She takes up residence in a small cottage in the Great
Mop, a village near Cotswold, England, supplements her own income with creating
herbs and potions, encounters some very eccentric friends including a
mysterious figure that may or may not be the Devil, and learns to embrace
witchcraft.
Lolly Willowes works well as the story of a
woman finding her own individuality. There are parts that don't
work quite so well. One of Laura's nephews comes to live with her and wears out
his welcome within the first few lines perhaps to remind Laura of her family
looming over her, a constant presence in her life. While I enjoyed Laura's
interest in witchcraft, I could have done without the link to Satan. That is
more of the stuff of horror films and the witch trials and unnecessary in
feminist literature.
However, the witch angle
is mostly fascinating, partly because of the lack of theatrics making
her decision to become a pagan as natural as the other choices she makes. A cat
appears and though Laura is at first apprehensive that it is a minion of Satan;
she is matter-of-fact as though it’s just the natural way of things.
When she is invited to her first coven meeting, she is just as shy and as
much a wallflower as at her family parties. She becomes a pagan, not through
some magic spells, but because of her closeness to nature and for the
freedom paganism provides for women.
Lolly
Willowes is similar to the character that
many of us knew and feared as a child, or that some of us were fascinated with and grew up to become: the
strange woman who lives alone, the odd lady who talks to her animals
as though they were children, who grows weird plants and
herbs, and who never goes out except at night, the woman who is the stuff
of rumors and gossip: the witch. Warner however does us a favor, by taking the
reader into that character’s mind shows us the whys and how she became that
way. Instead of giving us a hoary stereotype, Warner gives us a full and
complete character, one in which we are proud to share with the journey
towards her independence.
Related Links & Activity Suggestions
The Sylvia Townsend Warner Society-This
website’s mission to “provide a wide
readership and better understanding of Townsend
Warner’s readings.” It includes a biography, bibliography, and an ongoing list
of scholarly writings about her life and works. Has there ever been a little
known book or author that you would like to tell the world about? How would you
promote them? What would you want to say about them?
Witches in Pop Culture & Witches: Depiction through Art History - These websites offer a few
glimpses on the way witches have been portrayed through art, literature, film,
and television. What other depictions can you think of? Compare these with how
Warner views witches, how are they similar and how are they different? What
about other supposedly frightening creatures such as vampires, zombies,
werewolves, what noted portrayals are there? What do they have in common and
how do they differ from each other?
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss
Laura’s life before and after
her move to the
Great Mop. How does moving to the country give Laura her freedom? What impact
does it have on her family? How do you think Laura and her family will treat
each other in the future?
2. Analyze Laura’s interactions with witchcraft.
What advantages does it give her? What questions does it answer for her? How
does the treatment of witches differ in this than in stories like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
“Young Goodman Brown?” Do you think the
authors’ genders may have made a difference in how Hawthorne and Warner wrote
about the witches? Why or why not?
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