John Updike's popular novel The Witches of Eastwick has been adapted into a movie and a musical. All three were raved about, instantly popular, but which one is the favored?
MUSICAL
In the musical, there were of course, some changes. The musical starts off with a little girl singing praises about Eastwick. Then the play continues on skipping a lot of Updike's details about each individual and the depth of their inner conflicts. The women continue on to have martinis and complain about the lack of men in their life. Then of course, there are the obvious musical numbers added that are absent from the book.
MOVIE
In the movie, it also has its difference from the book. The movie is of course, Hollywood-fied, and its biggest example of this being at the end of the movie. Darryl, in the book just an average almost broke man, has quite the spin on himself in the movie. At the end of the movie, he turns into an enormous demon and tries to kill the three witches.
BOOK
The book, for me, is personally always the best. I think books always are better than the movie or play remakes. The book was the original, so there was nothing changed about it. It includes the detail, gives the reader the best idea of what is going on, what the scenes look like, and what's happening between the characters. The characters and events are more realistic, the plots more plausible; although the movie is arguably more climatic with its...er...interesting twist at the end.
Movie v. Musical v. Book
Image Focus
This image to the left symbols Jane's speech. Both the match and her speech pronunciation are short, terse, and abrupt. I thought this was the most interesting description of Jane's speech. This comparison first didn't make sense to me, but after thinking about it, I realized just how good of a comparison this was to a person's speech. It's different, attention catching, and interesting. The description implies that Jane's speech is coarse, blunt, and has the sound of a match being burned out; when she says anything with a s he mentions how it makes the same sound as the match: thsssssss.
The image to the right reminded me of when Alexandra made her pasta sauce shrine to her lover. "She returned to putting up Mason jars of spaghetti sauce, sauce for more spaghetti than she and her children could consume even if bewitched for a hundred years in an Italian fairy tale, jar upon jar lifted trembling, singing round wire rack. It was, she dimly perceived, some kind of ridiculous tribute to her present lover a plumber of Italian ancestory."
Her shrine of enless jars of sauce represent her endless problems with men. And the fact that they are pasta sauce symbolize that they are more related to her present lover who happens to be an Italian man.
I really found his imagery and word choice very interesting in this excerpt. I found his comparason of it to the Italian fairy tale and being unable to finish all the sauce in that sense a very clever and humorous way to tell the reader just how much sauce Alexandra had made.
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/30/5d/8c/storm-coming.jpg
This image is exactly what I pictured when Alexandra Spofford, who can create thunderstorms, when she was walking along the beach to the house of their new mysterious neighbor, Darryl Van Horne. I believe her power to create thunderstorms is a mirror to her personality. Whenever she is feeling rather down, as she does when walking to Darryl's house, she brings on the thunderstorms to rid of the people. Thunderstorms are usually considered a symbol of anger, and when Alexandra gets angry, especially when things don't go her way, she brings about a thunderstorm to ease her mood.
http://sharesong.org/womaninsun.jpg
When Alexandra calls upon a storm, I found it to be a symbol of her moving from an angrier state of mind, to a more peaceful state of mind. The link to the picture above shows a woman who looks serene, similar to when Alexandra calls upon a storm. Storms look scary and symbolize anger and fury, but one the rain starts, the sound is peaceful and soothing. As soon as she creates the storm, she makes her transition to being agitated and irritated to being more tranquil.
Allusion to Hocus Pocus?
Hocus Pocus Trailor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sJPvCLlm10
I found John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick similar to the Disney movie "Hocus Pocus." The characters are similar in a number of ways. In "Hocus Pocus," the main characters are three witches who are best friends, similar to Jane, Alexandra, and Sukie in The Witches of Eastwick. Also, each individual from "Hocus Pocus" is relatable to one in The Witches of Eastwick. Sarah Sanderson, from "Hocus Pocus," is similar to Jane. Sarah is considered the 'sexy' witch, and Jane is described as 'hot.' Winifred, or Winnie, from "Hocus Pocus" is the heavier one of the friends, just like Alexandra is of the three witches from the book. Then Mary is parallel to Sukie, both always hunting for the latest gossip around town in order to get ahead of everyone. Both Mary and Sukie feel the need to know more than the others, to have control of the situations by knowing what's going on around them.
Could the movie have based their characters from the book? Who knows, "It's just a bunch of Hocus Pocus!"
Focus on Speech
Whenever John Updike has a character speak in his book, he almost always mentions how the phrase was said. He does this with each of the main witch characters, but especially with Jane Smart. In just the first 3 pages, he makes six references to the speech of the women speaking. When Updike makes a reference to Jane's voice, he often compares her to darker things. For example, he says:
- "'And oh yes,' Jane Smart said in her hasty yet purposeful way; each s seemed the black tip of a just extinguished match held in playful hurt, as children do, against the skin."
- "...the last syllable almost barked, its r dropped in Massachusetts style."
- "...Jane said swiftly, her s's chastening."
- "Her voice bristled like a black cat's fur, iridescent."
- "...pressing the ncs hard into Alexandra's ear."
These are all examples where Updike puts emphasis on the pronounciation of Jane's dialogue. When he mentions her speech ethics, he always compares them to more somber images, including a black cat and a burnt match on a child's skin.
I think these descriptions of her speech are meant to represent her personality early in the book, foreshadowing her persona before the readers really get to know her.
Lengthy Descriptions
John Updike is known as one of the greatest writers of his time. In his book The Witches of Eastwick, he uses long descriptions with bold adjectives, varying sentence structures, and strong imagery to bring the reader into the story.