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"Wouldst thou like the taste of butter"  The Witch and the Simplicity of Temptation

5/17/2017

11 Comments

 
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"Wouldst thou like the taste of butter . . . wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"

This is the climactic scene in the film The Witch (2015) where the eldest daughter of the pilgrim outcast family. Tomasin, demands Black Philip, a goat--also an incarnation of the devil (?), speak to her.  All movie long, her younger siblings had claimed that Black Philip speaks to them and told them that Tomasin was the witch, which of course, she wasn't. On the contrary, she seemed to be the sweetest and most grounded of all them all. So embrace of the devil is unexpected and disturbing.

The sequence of the interaction is interesting. The devil never initiates or coerces. At each point, the choice is hers.

She follows Black Philip into the barn. She "conjures" him to speak to her. He asks what she wants, to which she replies, "What dost thou offer?"

Now, here is where Satan makes his pitch. Of all the things that could be offered, of all the things that the mighty Lucifer could present, the first thing he says,  "Wouldst thou like the taste of butter?" Fascinating writing. He goes for a very simple sensation, butter, and then extends the offer to a delicious life. One thing missing here is the offer of power.

In two biblical scenes, Eve and Jesus' temptation, Jesus is tempted through food. Probably something like "Wouldst thou like the taste of hot, warm, chewy bread?" When Jesus declines the hot, warm, chewy bread, Satan ramps it up and eventually offers power, the kingdoms of this world. In Eve's case, the fruit appealed to the eye and looked good to eat. But the clincher it seems was that it "was desired to make one wise," or be like God--clear offer of power. 

What was different in the biblical scenes and in The Witch? Many things, but with Eve and Christ, both had a lot to lose. Warm, chewy bread was just not enough to give up obedience to God. For Eve, she had everything she wanted in the Garden of Eden. But Eve and Tomasin are seduced by Satan because in both cases, he offers what is seemingly otherwise unattainable. Tomasin had no where else to go and the offer of a delicious life was far more generous than she could have hoped for.  Eve and Adam are an interesting case. They could have been content, but the very presence of God on a daily basis only serve to reveal to them what they were not, regardless of what they did possess.

The simplicity of the temptation, butter or a delicious apple, was really a complex symbol representing power, the power to attain the unattainable. 

With Satan, it's never just butter.

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11 Comments
Ella
7/3/2020 11:48:16 pm

Love it.

Reply
Thomas Raven
9/15/2021 02:14:43 pm

Sorry, but the snake in the book of Genesis isn't Satan. In fact, most of what Christians think they know about Satan comes from Dante's Inferno, not the Bible.

Reply
Theducciano
10/14/2020 09:05:47 am

Um, in your post above, you never mention God's conspicuous absence while the family is being torn apart; and, you never explain Thomasin actually flying at the end, indicating that Satan GAVE her special abilities: she could finally transcend the natural world and it's cruelty to her because of her theological dissociation from God. So, from my standpoint, as a woman living in New England during the 16/17th century and dominated by a patriarchal society which would blame women for all manner of misfortune, Thomasin, whose innocence has been abandoned by God, is clearly better off living deliciously with Satan.

Or, tell me just how wonderfully joyous and utterly delightful your existence has been as a Christian; rhapsodize for us how God has not abandoned you and has given you the means of transcending your plight so that you too find yourself living deliciously.


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Steven Miller
11/24/2020 10:12:53 pm

Chill, dude. It's not that deep.

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Theducciano
11/25/2020 02:57:30 am

Your comment that I should "chill [because] it's not that deep" may be intellectually dishonest. The entire blog post is an effort to abstract a pointed theological truth about temptation from what is essentially a horror movie:

"The simplicity of the temptation, butter or a delicious apple, was really a complex symbol representing power, the power to attain the unattainable. With Satan, it's never just butter."

In the film's logic, Satan rescues Thomasin from God's abandoning of her family; she pays for this rescue with giving ol' Lucifer her soul - a fair exchange, some could argue. Well, what's the difference between that and what Christ offers his followers? Christ promises to rescue people from their sin but only if they give him their soul - a fair exchange that I am sure even you would argue for. In my opinion, Thomasin is better off cavorting with the Prince of Darkness (and other women) than she is with the Abandoning God she worshipped in the beginning for obvious reasons.

But, make no mistake about it: the likely reason why you're here is because you were intrigued by the headline as much as I was which means all of this has some meaning for you. Yet, for you to now indirectly question, in the face of encountering an opposition that you did not expect, it's overall validity contradicts why you're even here at Ekeh's unfettered ruminative blog site in the first place! You're being a phony, in other words. You're better off just saying something like: "Boy, you ask really good, thoughtful questions" or "You're wrong!" all of which would be more honest than telling me to chill because it's not that deep. Yet, because you did not say what you said to me to Ono Ekeh first, I am allowed to think that you're being intellectually dishonest.

Ultimately, I think what happened here was that you read my thoughts and then suddenly realized that you were a Christian with limited apologetic skills, so you attacked me by minimizing my contribution instead of responding honestly to them. Or, you simply cannot recognize the stakes here because Steven Miller - it IS that deep, bro . . .

Helraiser
11/30/2020 06:02:52 am

La única diferencia entre entregarle el alma a Jesús o a Satanás es que Jesús es el hijo preferido de Dios y Satanás no es Dios. Por ende, cualquier cosa que satanás pueda ofrecer es temporal, luego de eso sólo queda el vacío eterno a la sombra de la Luz de Dios. Postdata: no soy religioso, solo estoy analizando. Y si no entiendes Español, usa Google translate.

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Qwerty
2/26/2021 11:34:44 pm

Brian, you're a clever man, but even today your heart is full of anger just as it's been for some time. You call yourself a Christian, but do you really know Christ? How can one who truly does relish the act of hoisting their contemptuous vitriol onto others in response to the slightest provocation as you so often have done? How would the clients who look up to you feel if they knew what really went on in your mind?

Brian, you're brilliant, but you're a sad and lonely man. I hope that changes for you someday. This will be my only post to this forum, so you can save whatever reprisal is undoubtedly forming in your mind. You will never know who I am, but you should know that there are those of us who see you for what you are. Needless to say, we're disappointed.

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Bill Theodore
5/7/2021 12:40:06 pm

Lol whoa...we have an evangelical atheist over here. What a f##king door knob

Reply
Daphne
3/12/2022 10:31:37 pm

Yes, exactly this! I thought it was a beautiful ending of a young woman finding freedom in the most unexpected of places.

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LoDolce
5/2/2022 09:16:17 am

"a young woman finding freedom"? LOL:
- Immediately given orders ... by a male
-- "take off you clothes"
-- "sign your life over to me"
-- "go where I tell you to go"
- Lied to ... by a male
-- there is no butter
-- there is no dress
-- there is no seeing the world
- Enslaved ... by a male
-- She will always be naked for him
-- She will live in a cave for him
-- She will kidnap and murder babies for him
--

LoDolce
5/2/2022 10:13:05 am

Um, "Thomasin ... could finally transcend the natural world ... is clearly better off living deliciously with Satan". Really? Well, "You're wrong!"

This is what "living deliciously" will look like for Thomasin:
- Never allowed to wear clothes, living alone in a mud hut
- Murdering and mashing up abducted babies, then shmeer the entrails over oneself to keep the special ability Satan supposedly "GAVE" her for free
- Becoming physically deformed and visually repugnant, relying on illusion for any outside contact
- Having to drink from an unwashed teet like a starving beast...where's the Butter?
- Isolated to a small, remote group of similarly naked, starving, enslaved women waiting for the misogynistic scraps of their patriarchal master

... or, she could make her way back to the plantation where real butter, a real dress and the real opportunity to see the world awaits.

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