The Magic Circle

413 Words1 Page

The Magic Circle

The Magic Circle, by Donna Jo Napoli dealt with three main characters. In the story a woman named The Ugly One possesses the power to heal. The woman has a beautiful daughter named Asa. The Ugly one is a sorcerer; who also helps sick people who are possessed by demons. The Ugly one becomes a witch after biting the finger off a deformed baby child and desiring an exquisite golden ring.
The main character is The Ugly Sorcerer who is a hunchback. At first she helps deliver children at birth and then she becomes a sorcerer when her neighbor persuades her to learn the ways of a healer. She uses an amethyst stone that is holy so that she can draw a circle known as a magic circle. The circle keeps her safe while summoning demons that try to turn her into a witch. A man asked her to heal his child with an extra finger, but instead of using her powers she simply bites it off and then she foolishly steps out of the magic circle to grasp the once desired ring and is regrettably she is turned into a witch.
A boy named Peter is one of her patients. The Ugly one cures him and they become friends. Peter teaches her all he knows about the devils. Peter is a normal young child who keeps his faith in The Ugly one till the end. Peter turns into a strong young man who is very knowledgeable about anatomy and demons due to his studies in books.
Bala was the neighbor who convinced The Ugly One to heal people. The Ugly One was not sure if the Bala was good or evil because of her name. The letters in Bala's name were so similar to the Devils' names. Bala treated The Ugly one very cruelly and had no respect for her because she was a hunchback. When The Ugly One turned into a witch, Bala was very quick to turn against her and sided with the crowd.

Show More
Related

  • The Dynamic Reverend Hale in The Crucible by Arthur Miller

    639 Words  | 2 Pages

    (p. 44); "Who came to you with the devil?" and ".perhaps another person in the village?" (p. 45). A few of his faults are that he judges too much by appearances, ".you look as such a good soul should" (p. 37); ".a claim so weighty cannot be argued by a farmer," (p. 99); and he uses people to question other people.

    Read More

  • The Devil In The Form Of A Woman By Carol Karlsen

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    . She claims that the proceeding force connected with lady as-witch in this combination creative ability handles the problem on the power that surpasses embellishment and design the particular discernment connected with witches and witchcraft throughout. Looking at these kind of queries could encourage selection that the mention of their imagination and prejudices attached to the particular "lady as-witch" idea that the current strain on females building in popularity can easily trigger anger these days. She slyly evaluates having less adequate traditional beliefs with regards to the part women performed inside creating our community, at a variety of instances.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Common Magic, By Bronwen Wallace

    1223 Words  | 3 Pages

    “A nice warm shower, a cup of tea, and a caring ear may be all you need to warm your heart”. Charles Glassman’s quote was exemplified beautifully in the poem “Common Magic” by Bronwen Wallace. The piece took readers through a series of everyday events, explaining how each seemingly meaningless moment contained it’s own kind of magic. Through the use of oxymoron, imagery and characters, Wallace developed the theme that simple pleasures are fleeting and a fulfilled life involves t`21aking time to appreciate everything.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Man In The Black Suit And Young Goodman Brown

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    How would one feel if one came face to face with the Devil himself? Would one run away screaming or would one let the Devil change their views of the world? Gary and Goodman Brown both had different experiences with the Devil resulting in some of the best works of fiction ever wrote. Gary met the Devil as a young boy who feared him unrelentingly, but Goodman Brown talked to the Devil and let the Devil change his life and the viewpoints of people he knows. I plan to discuss on how Gary, from the short story “The Man in the Black Suit”, and Goodman Brown, from “Young Goodman Brown”, dealt with the Devil and compare their encounters together.

    Read More

  • Witchcraft in North America between 17th and 21st century

    1674 Words  | 4 Pages

    Witchcraft is the most illogical and despised practices involving the supernatural power. “It implies the ability to injure others. A witch usually acquires his power through an inherent physical factor or through the power of another witch. Witch possess a special organ called mangu, located somewhere behind the sternum or attached to the liver.”[11] Woman/man may become a witch through the influence of another witch or contact with another witch. Witches do not intend to do harm; they are as much the victims of witchcraft as those upon whom they practice it. They have innate power and often don’t know what they are doing. The belief in witchcraft helps people explain the causes of illness, death and misfortune experienced by a person or a group when no other explanations can be found. Most of the time when witches create injury and calamity, they were punished by death, sometimes by exile. They also were forced into admission of guilt by torture, fear, or the hope for lighter punishment. “Most witches work by night, are capable of covering long distances very rapidly, tem...

    Read More

  • A Child Called It By Dave Pelzer

    831 Words  | 2 Pages

    The main characters are David, his mother, and father. David, the abused child, cannot escape his mother’s punishments. David’s mother is a drunken, abusive mother that refers to her child as “It”. David’s father is caring and understanding, but cannot help David escape. The mother and father drastically change after the alcohol abuse. David also changes in his attitude towards his parents.

    Read More

  • Comparing and Contrasting the Book and Play Version of Shelley's Frankenstein

    1628 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...derstand, but he did everything within his power to fit in. He tried his best to help others, wanting nothing but acceptance in return. Yet he was cursed with a monstrous appearance. This was the one characteristic he had no control over, but it was the one that negated all his good intentions in the eyes of society, causing him a tremendous amount misery and eventually leading him to do some terrible things. If his monstrous appearance is just one example of any characteristic looked down upon by society, then his story is a powerful lesson for any reader. It brings to light the misery and pain inflicted – possibly unknowingly – by society onto those that do not fit in. Taking that into consideration, there remains a simple question: who really was the monster in the novel?

    Read More

  • Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley

    614 Words  | 2 Pages

    Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley "Scarlett" is about a southern woman who had survived the Civil War, had been widowed twice with two children. She got married again to Rhett Butler, and they had a daughter who was killed when she fell off a horse. Since the death of the child, her husband did not want anything to do with Scarlett. Rhett gave Scarlett all the money she needed, but she wanted him. Heartbroken, she went to Ireland where her father came from. She did not tell anyone in America that she was going, except for her lawyer. She met her Irish relatives, and loved them. She bought a town and a Big House in Ireland and had it refurbished. Scarlett found out that she was pregnant with Rhett's child, but before she could tell him, he divorced her and married someone else. She vowed to not tell Rhett about the baby until it was grown, even though she loved him. She told her Irish friends that she was a widow and that her two children lived with her sister on a plantation in Georgia, which she owned two-thirds of. She gave birth to a girl on Halloween and a wise old woman had to deliver her because the doctor couldn't get there. The Irish called the woman a witch and the baby a changeling because of when she was born for they were very superstitious people. They never liked the little girl and were always scared of her. One of Scarlett's cousins in Ireland was a priest, whose name was Colum O'Hara, and they had become good friends.

    Read More

  • Human Worth and Religion in Revelation

    519 Words  | 2 Pages

    She has a very strong belief this and Thanks God that he didn’t make her like any of those people below her. Even goes as far as debating lives if God would have a given her a choice between any of the people she thinks she is better than. A trip to the doctor’s office for her husband’s ulcer brings a new “revelation” for Mrs. Turpin. While observing the people in the waiting room, she analyzes them and gives them titles in the groups below her. White- trash, ugly and so on. There is one girl in the room though who seems to really have something against Mrs. Turpin. Every comment she makes seems to upset the young girl and make her agitation to rise. It disturbs and also confuses her because she can’t understand why the girl who doesn’t even know her would want to ac so rudely towards such a kind a giving woman such as her. “All at once the ugly girl turned her lips inside out again. Her eyes fixed like two drills on Mrs. Turpin. This time there was no mistaking that there was something urgent behind them.” Continuing on in conversation with the white- trash an outburst of thanking the lord aloud causes the young lady to suddenly hurl the book she was reading at Mrs. Turpin and jumping across the table and attempting to choke her. The nurse and doctor try to contain the young girl while slowly giving her a shot in the arm to calm her insanity down.

    Read More

  • Mental Disorder In The Kingdom Of Yr, By Joanne Steinberg

    1259 Words  | 3 Pages

    Prior to the hospital, Deborah only considered the gods and goddesses existing in Yr, to be her friends, as she would turn to them during times of loneliness or rejection. Throughout the time spent in the hospital, Deborah slowly opened up to Dr. Fried, even nicknaming her ‘Furii’, based upon the power her insight held. During her treatment sessions with Dr. Fried, Deborah familiarizes a feeling which she has become immune too over the years, a feeling of love. Due to the empathy displayed by famous psychiatrist Dr. Fried, the feeling of being the sick, crazy girl ultimately distinguishes during their sessions, resulting in a positive impact along Deborah’s road to recovery, "She liked working with patients. Their very illness made them examine their sanity as few 'sane ' people could. Kept from loving, sharing, and simple communication, they often hungered for it with a purity of passion that she saw as beautiful." (Greenberg, 19). When Dr. Royson supply’s for Dr. Fried, it becomes evident that the trust Dr. Fried built within her relationship with Deborah, and her genuine desire to help the protagonist, assisted the uphill battle, as without the compassion and belief Dr. Royson failed to provide, Deborah fell back down the hill. In conclusion, the honest efforts of the

    Read More

  • Witchcraft Ideas And Their Parallels Across The World

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    First of all, throughout many cultures, physical characteristics associated with witches ring strangely the same. Anthropologist Philip Mayer says that witches typically bear a physical stigma, like a red eye for example (Mayer 56). In the Brother's Grimm fairytale "Hansel and Gretel," the witch shares this same beastly characteristic. Also, people usually cast off as witches are typically always old women. In Slovakia, Milan Mramuch accused his elderly neighbor of witchcraft and allegedly beat the old woman to death (Whitmore). In "Hansel and Gretel" the witch who lives in the tempting, candy house is an old crippled woman and in the Brother's Grimm fairytale "Snow White," the witch who was an elegant queen, performs her craft disguised as an old peasant woman.

    Read More

  • The Shining

    930 Words  | 2 Pages

    Early in the film , a psychologist is called in to treat the troubled child :and she calmed the mother with a statement to the effect that, “ These things come and go but they are unexplainable”. This juncture of the film is a starting point for one of the central themes of the film which is : how a fragile family unit is besieged by unusual forces both natural and supernatural which breaks and possesses and unites with the morally challenged father while the mother and the child through their innocence, love, and honesty triumph over these forces.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Film The Conjuring

    912 Words  | 2 Pages

    Out of the three general witchcraft themes present within the film, the one that is expanded upon the least is traditional witchcraft. Some of the attributes that are mentioned however include gender roles, and overall structure of a witch. For instance, one of the female

    Read More

  • Identity in Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North

    409 Words  | 1 Pages

    Several parallels are drawn between the central character and Mustafa Sa'eed. Both speak English and had studied in London. Even though the central character had grown up in the village, his education and time abroad had made him as much an outsider as Sa'eed. Upon seeing his own reflection in the darkness, he believes it to be Mustafa, who he had grown to despise. As he moves closer to the object of his hatred, he discovers that he is "standing face to face with" himself. Mustafa represents to him all that he despises in himself.

    Read More

  • The Narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    The narrator wrestles with conflicting feelings of responsibility to the old man and feelings of ridding his life of the man's "Evil Eye" (34). Although afflicted with overriding fear and derangement, the narrator still acts with quasi-allegiance toward the old man; however, his kindness may stem more from protecting himself from suspicion of watching the old man every night than from genuine compassion for the old man.

    Read More

More about The Magic Circle

Open Document