Week Five - The Witches in Aunt Maria

I like stories about witches. I think the witches in Aunt Maria show what people think about witches well. Diana Wynne Jones is known as a writer of Howl's Moving Castle. Jones's many stories are rich in witches, ghosts, enchanted animals, and mythical figures—even a moving castle. She treats serious themes through characters' encounters with magic, time travel, and transformations of humans into animals, such as occur in Aunt Maria. Always there is humor to make her novels not only exciting and suspenseful, but also fun.
Aunt Maria features a rich cast of characters. Mig (a nickname for Naomi Margaret) is a central figure along with brother Chris, mother Betty Laker, and of course, Aunt Maria. Mig, through whose words the story is told, is the most intriguing character, partly for the way she changes as the story unfolds. She is bright, ambitious, resourceful, chatty, and unswervingly loyal to her brother. Inner strength and a matured outlook emerge as she is drawn into a power struggle that engulfs her immediate family members and leaves her alone to thwart Aunt Maria. Aunt Maria herself is characterized as the "Great Dictator," the "Queen of Cranbury," and the "Female Pope." I knew and realized about Aunt Maria's characteristic when Aunt Maria turned Chris into the wolf.

The elderly woman gives the appearance of being lonely, helpless, and kind, but she rules with an iron hand through provocation of guilt, disapproving suggestion, and magic. Anyone who does not obey her every whim may be transformed into an animal or even a buried ghost. The best that can be said about Aunt Maria is that she is unable to see the error of her ways. The results are momentous, however, since Antony Green becomes a character who can undo Aunt Maria's powers. The Witches in Aunt Maria were not really good, but what finally happens to Aunt Maria introduces the theme of just punishment, which ends the story with hope.