The portrayal of witches and wizards in older fairy tales such as the Grimm brothers’ “Hansel and Gretel” and “Snow White” (1812) and L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz (1900) differ significantly...Show moreThe portrayal of witches and wizards in older fairy tales such as the Grimm brothers’ “Hansel and Gretel” and “Snow White” (1812) and L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz (1900) differ significantly from the witches that appear in more recent works of fantasy, like Garcia and Stohl’s Caster Chronicles (2009-2012) and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (1997-2007). Of course some of these differences can be attributed simply by the different attitudes towards witchcraft that circulated in the different eras in which these works were written. This thesis will show that, at least in part, the different literary representations of witches is due to the genre conventions that govern the text in which the witch-character appears. The close-textual analyses of William Harrison Ainsworth’s historical novel The Lancashire Witches(1848), Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Romantic verse narrative “The Witch of Atlas” (1820) and several witches in J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series will reveal that the genre conventions that are imposed on these literary works play a role in determining the appearance, the skills, and the role of the witch(es) in the story.Show less
