54 pages • 1 hour read
Ami McKayThe Witches of New York
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaSymbols & Motifs
Witch’s LadderWitch’s Ladder
The witch’s ladder is a recurring symbol within the narrative that loosely gestures toward the theme of The Limited Power of Magic. Though initially presented as a charm by which to cast a simple spell, the witch’s ladder quickly comes to signify a physical manifestation of belief and wishes. By Eleanor’s assessment, the witch’s ladder provoked Beatrice’s awakening as a witch and manifested her powers. She reasons that, as a receptacle for wishes, the witch’s ladder responded to Beatrice’s desire to discover the nature of magic and thus enabled it. Whether Eleanor’s reasoning is sound remains debatable, as Beatrice’s encounter with the obelisk might also have provoked her magical powers.
Nevertheless, Beatrice’s willingness to attempt magic with the witch’s ladder comes to symbolize her determination—a notion that is carried through to the end of the novel when she constructs a second witch’s ladder. In this instance, Beatrice’s desperation to escape Townsend is at its peak, and she makes a witch’s ladder both as a symbol of defiance in response to his abuse and as a wish for freedom. Given that Lena believes the witch’s ladder can be used for curses as well as wishes (“They say you can cause great illness that way, even death” (368)), Beatrice’s refusal to use it that way also adds to the ladder’s meaning, as symbolizes her good-heartedness. This contradicts Townsend’s assumption that all witches only operate with evil and sinful intent.
Foreign Languages
Foreign languages are a motif used throughout the narrative that supports the theme of The Ignorance and Harm in Zealous Convictions. French and Scottish Gaelic especially recur throughout the narrative. Eleanor and her mother speak the former, and the inclusion of their first language represents the continued—if fragile—history of Eleanor’s lineage—that is, the transmigrated history of witchcraft from Europe. Eleanor is the only one who speaks her mother’s language (other than perhaps Brody), knows her stories, and retains her knowledge, which indicates that this history is close to erasure. The notion is specifically enshrined in her family’s familiar, the raven Perdu. French for “lost,” Perdu is a physical representation of a lost chapter of witch history, as his true identity has been lost to time. It is hinted that he might be the great sage in the tale of Odoline, but even he “c[an’t] remember what [his true name] was” (23), as his past and identity have been forgotten.
Scottish Gaelic, on the other hand, comes to represent the perceived threat of the unknown. As Lena McLeod’s first language, she falls back to using it over English when pressured to recite the Lord’s Prayer while in captivity. Such is Townsend’s zealotry, however, that any other language used to recite the Lord’s Prayer is deemed “the Devil’s words” since he cannot comprehend them (88). Though speaking in her native tongue earns her a beating, Lena recites the Lord’s Prayer once again in Scottish Gaelic in her last moments as a last act of defiance against Townsend. Doing so highlights Lena’s thorough rejection of Townsend’s brand of religious doctrine, making a deliberate choice to maintain her heritage even as she dies.
Delphine’s Grimoire
Delphine’s grimoire is a recurring motif in the narrative. While it does not necessarily support any of the overarching themes, it furthers the characters’ and the plot’s development. The grimoire initially represents a repository of inherited knowledge, specifically designed to be passed down from one generation of witches to another. Part magical instruction manual, part history textbook for witches, the grimoire is an accumulation of all information deemed vital for any witch’s career and survival, much like medieval family manuscripts that were handed down from parent to child. It acts as a type of index, wherein “the grimoire will show [stories or information] to you should you wish to read it” (229). As a historical repository of stories, it is also a fact-checking device that contradicts false narratives that demonize witches and paint them as villains.
As the narrative progresses, the grimoire also becomes a way to decipher the greater power at play within the story by identifying Malphas the demon as the witches' ancestral villain. Without the excerpts from the grimoire throughout the book, Palsham would be too mysterious to understand. Just as the grimoire educates Beatrice in her magical knowledge, it becomes an alternative narrative device, a way for McKay to convey information about the true enemy within the story while concealing that information from her characters.
