Hour of the Witch

Animals figure strongly in Hour of the Witch as symbolism for human nature and religious ideology. The most symbolic animal in the novel is the serpent or the snake, largely because this is the form Lucifer takes in the Garden of Eden to tempt Eve in the Bible. For example, Catherine testifies that the carving on the pestle is “a symbol for the tongue of that most wretched creature: the snake. The form the Devil took when he first seduced Eve” (426). This indicates the multifaceted nature of the snake as a representation of the Devil, deceitfulness, and the original sin of women.

Characters in the novel also use animals to describe their base, sinful natures in comparison to God. Richard Wilder says, “We are but rats skulking in corners. And yet we do our best because that is what we must” (241). Animals like hawks, snakes, wolves, and rats are used throughout the novel to symbolize hierarchies of power and biblical signs of sin, God, and Satan. In all of these cases, animals work to describe both the nature of power and the nature of humankind.