Willa the witch

The central problem and theme of this thesis revolves around how to negotiate powerful forces of conformity, resist them, and break out to create inspiring acts of individual expression. Willa The Witch is a narrative designed for children that uses various poetic forms to embody and express the struggle between the rigid rules we feel pressure to comply to and the freedom to have fun and experiment. It does this by creating a tension between a strict end rhyme pattern, that threatens to fall apart at any moment, and free verse flights of fancy. The plot involves a free-spirited novice witch who rebels against her coven's strictly basic-black code by creating a hat made from orange peels using witchcraft-stitchcraft. This leads to a revolution that the Head Witch can only quell by casting Willa out of the coven and condemning her to the Underworld. The thesis also explores the fiction and cinematic trope of "The Monster" and/or "Creature-Feature". Willa encounters a Rat King in the Underworld - 25 rats tied together by the tail since birth. They've managed to thrive as one being by being completely democratic to such and the extent they've been able to form a singing and dancing carnival band. Willa's initial revulsion is subverted when the 'freak' proves itself to be a miraculous being - an expression of joyful family unity where someone's always got your back. Although ostensibly a comic work, the thesis has a subtle subtext that challenges all forms of prejudice and the fear of the other/different/foreign. It revives and re-examines the historical prejudice against witches, against rats, and even against poetry. In the inter-species relationship that develops between Willa and Max (a renegade rat who chewed his own tail off to escape the Rat King), this thesis concludes that we are at our best when we fly our freak flags fly and embrace love in whatever furry form it might come.Arts, Faculty ofGraduat